[How strange to know that the people in images we see in the media may not have ever existed; now Motherboard reports that a company will make its collection of AI-generated stock models “customizable and personalizable. Users will be able to algorithmically place any face onto any body in their collection” including their own uploaded pictures. The story addresses some of the ethical concerns; it also includes a 0:41 minute video. See Rosebud AI’s website for more details. –Matthew] This Company Promises to Place Any Face Onto Any Body, Using an Algorithm Rosebud AI wants to add diversity to stock…

[In the context of today’s polarization, it’s worth considering the potential of presence-evoking technologies for engaging, informing and building empathy in the context of not just elections but politics generally. This link-heavy summary of some recent efforts is from Forbes; see the original version for five more pictures. –Matthew] Could Virtual Reality Influence Election Campaigns? Sol Rogers, CEO and Founder of REWIND, an Emmy nominated immersive content studio that fuses bleeding-edge technology with award-winning creative storytelling. December 10, 2019 Politicians always try to adapt to new forms of media to allow them to connect to their voter-base. Consider Franklin D.…

[The New Yorker has a long and lively first person report on a variety of presence experiences via virtual reality; just the beginning and end of the story are below (note the specific reference to presence at the end of the third paragraph and the example of inverse presence at the very end). The original story also includes a 38 minute audio version. The publication has two other recent presence-related stories, one about its new Animate Objects iOS app, “an augmented-reality feature that allows you to discover the secret thoughts of everyday items, as drawn by the New Yorker cartoonist…

[This story from Fast Company describes more evidence that presence-evoking technologies can build empathy and other positive effects, in this case to encourage users to get a flu vaccination. This quote from the research PI is noteworthy: “It turned out that neither the tablet nor the video were able to create this sense of presence, this sense of you feel like you’re involved in the story … The only modality that did that was virtual reality.” By the way, our colleague Sun Joo (Grace) Ahn is one of the project researchers. For more information see coverage by UGA Today and…

[They don’t use the term, but most stories about the new audio erotica website Quinn, including the one below from Wired, discuss presence. Mashable’s begins with this example: “The 10-minute recording features the soft voice of a French man (or at least, a man putting on a French accent) as he fingers his lover — the listener — one last time before he boards a plane to Paris the next morning.” The New York Times’ story quotes a voice-over actress who says contributing to the site allows her to “connect with audiences in a much more intimate way” and notes…

[While in some ways children are more vulnerable to experiencing presence illusions, interesting research reviewed in this story from MIT Technology Review suggests that, sadly given current media and political trends, they’re more skeptical of information from new sources like voice assistants and the internet generally than adults, that “we, as humans, have an ingrained sense of skepticism about unknown sources that somehow gets fuzzier as we grow older.” For more information see the links in the story and a column by Professor Danovitch in The New York Times. –Matthew] Why kids don’t trust Alexa We tend to think of…

[The use of presence in the operating room was highlighted in a recent episode of the FOX TV medical drama “The Resident,” as reported by Next Reality. As I noted when I saw it and as the story notes, the technology wasn’t treated as novel or new, or even discussed by the characters. See the original story for six animated gifs from the episode, and see coverage in OnMSFT for a 2:05 minute video about the technology. –Matthew] [Image: From the video “Microsoft HoloLens 2: Partner Spotlight with Philips.” Source: OnMSFT] Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 Makes Primetime Debut on Fox TV Show…

[Here’s another story about a potentially valuable effect of virtual reality and presence in the area of health. The original story from Connecticut Public Radio includes two different pictures and a 4:21 audio version; for more information see the project’s website, which features a 1:57 minute video, and an earlier story from Yale. –Matthew] [Image: Space Cats, the minigame is one of our favorite features in #InviteOnlyVR. Earn extra lives to fend the hordes of robots with witty responses to misconceptions around #JUUL and attempts to pressure your hero to vape. InviteOnlyVR is FREE to play NOW on the @oculus…

[A project from MIT uses a sophisticated deepfake video presented in an immersive installation to illustrate the potential of the presence-evoking technology to not only alter our perception of current reality but to “rewrite” our understanding of past events, in this case the 1969 moon landing. As one of the project’s creators notes, “people have said history is written by the victors, or that history is fluid; but now, with deepfake technology, history is even more fragile.” The original version of the story below from Motherboard contains a different image and a 0:47 minute clip from the deepfake video. For…

[You may have seen the story (linked below) about Russian farmers testing the ability of VR and the presence illusions it creates to increase cows’ milk production (!). This story from The Conversation is a nice summary of what researchers know about when/if animals may experience, and enjoy, presence via human technologies. See the original version for a second image and a 0:57 second video. –Matthew] [Image: The grass may be greener in virtual reality, but you can’t eat it. Credit: Moscow Ministry of Agriculture and Food.] Virtual reality won’t make cows happier, but it might help us see them…

[While we usually focus on digital technologies that produce or supplement sensory inputs, glasses, hearing aids and even make-up are technologies designed to evoke presence illusions. Somehow that’s more clear with the “artificial skin” innovation described in this short story from The Asahi Shimbun. See the original for three more images, and see press releases from Kao here and here for more information including short videos. –Matthew] [Image: An ultra-fine fiber membrane can be applied to the face or elsewhere to keep skin moist. Credit: Kao Corp.] Japan cosmetics maker develops tech for spray-on ‘artificial skin’ By Toshihiko Katsuda /…

[As reported in Digital Trends, Amazon is adding emotional qualities to its virtual assistant Alexa’s voice (the Amazon blog post mentioned has more examples of ‘her’ new abilities). In separate news, Amazon is making it possible to interact with Alexa through more devices – as a post in the AWS blog notes, “customers can now cost-effectively build new categories of differentiated voice-enabled products such as light switches, thermostats, and small appliances. This allows consumers to talk directly to Alexa in new parts of their home, office, or hotel rooms for a truly ambient experience.” Both developments are likely to increase…