[A new virtual gun range in Medina, Ohio offers valuable training for law enforcement and the public, as well as entertainment and friendly competition – all without the danger of real firearms. This story from Cleveland.com provides the details. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Mary Jane Brewer] Engage Virtual Range provides serious gun training or adrenaline rushing entertainment — you choose By Mary Jane Brewer, special to cleveland.com Posted October 24, 2019 MEDINA, Ohio — Engage Virtual Range — a virtual gun range for building skills, accuracy and confidence — opened in August at 5035 Beach Road in Medina. The three simulators…

[The New York Times reports on a new way to experience the Mona Lisa (and other art). See the original version of the story for 6 different pictures as well as coverage in ArtNet and a 4:49 minute video from HTC Vive via YouTube. –Matthew] [Image: Source: RFI] Meeting the ‘Mona Lisa’ for an Intimate (Virtual) Rendezvous Visitors to the Louvre will experience Leonardo da Vinci’s world through a virtual-reality tour that brings them closer to the masterpiece than ever before. By Doreen Carvajal October 15, 2019 PARIS — Mona Lisa’s lingering smile remains the same, but she is getting…

[This post from the Microsoft Research Blog is featured in new press coverage of the company’s DreamWalker system as well as other innovations. DreamWalker uses VR to substitute the experience of walking through a real world environment with a parallel walk through a virtual one (which of course raises some important safety concerns). See the original blog post for several more images and 3 videos. –Matthew] [Image: Source: VentureBeat] A new era of spatial computing brings fresh challenges—and solutions—to VR October 21, 2019 By Microsoft blog editor Virtual reality (VR) has continually pushed the boundaries of how we perceive, from its…

[Products featured on home shopping channels, and various other objects in other genres, will be entering TV viewers’ living rooms thanks to LG and Eyecandylab, as described in this story from Next Reality. See the original version for 3 more pictures and a 1:46 minute video; for more information see the press release via PR Newswire. –Matthew] LG Enhances South Korean TV Sets with Shoppable Augmented Reality Ads By Cristina Brooks October 21, 2019 Best known for its mobile phones and television sets, South Korea’s LG has had a quieter presence in the US compared to the country’s homegrown efforts.…

[This is a wonderfully vivid description of what it might be like for both the biological and simulated versions of a person when technology allows digital duplication of minds and the presence after death that that suggests. The story is from The Guardian, where the original includes 4 more pictures. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: James Melaugh] What happens if your mind lives for ever on the internet? It may be some way off, but mind uploading, the digital duplication of your mental essence, could expand human experience into a virtual afterlife Michael Graziano, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton University…

[The Verge reports on an important development in the history of presence-evoking technologies, the failure of smartphone-based virtual reality (the good news is that more compelling, convenient and cost-effective VR is supplanting the phone-based headsets). –Matthew] Phone-based VR is officially over By Adi Robertson October 16, 2019 Mobile virtual reality headsets helped millions of people try out VR, but as of yesterday, they’re all but officially a thing of the past. Oculus CTO John Carmack offered a “eulogy” last month for the phone-powered Gear VR mobile headset, saying that the headset’s days were numbered. And Google just revealed that it’s…

[Road to VR reports on a new, very large lab for presence experiences at Colorado State University. See the original version for two more pictures and for more information see a CSU story from April 2019 and the University’s Virtual Reality Initiative webpages. –Matthew] Colorado State University Has Deployed a 100 Headset VR Lab for Biomedical Education By Ben Lang October 10, 2019 Colorado State University has deployed a new VR lab; designed to accommodate up to 100 students simultaneously, the lab’s headsets run custom software which allow students to visualize life-sized virtual cadavers and medical imagery in a shared…

[SlashGear is among those reporting on the latest vision for the future of ‘travel’ via telepresence by Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA). See the original story for three images. A three-part video from the CEATEC 2019 demonstrations is available from The Japan Times via YouTube here, here and here. And see ANA websites for a press release and vivid descriptions of Avatar-in, ANA-Avatar and the $10 million Avatar XPRIZE. –Matthew] [Image: A diagram shows how ANA’s concept envisions connecting an avatar and its operator. Credit: ANA Holdings Inc. Source: GeekWire] ANA Avatar-in lets you “teleport” to places using robots JC…

[Having grown up in Los Angeles, I can relate to this short story from the Daily Titan about a mobile earthquake simulator used to increase public awareness and safety. For more information see coverage (including a 1:17 minute video) from Seattle’s KING5 TV, the Big Shaker website and the Great Shakeout Earthquake Drills website (October 17 is International ShakeOut Day). For two different approaches to earthquake simulators, see ReleifWeb for information on international “VR-based disaster resilience training simulations” and the University of California, San Diego for information on the world’s largest outdoor earthquake simulator. –Matthew] Big Shaker event simulates Ridgecrest…

[This thoughtful piece from Quartz provides several vivid examples of possible future applications of presence-evoking augmented reality and highlights not just their benefits but the dangers they represent for individuals and society. –Matthew] [Image: Seeing the world through a whole new type of rose-tinted glasses. Credit: Chris-McRobbie] SEEING ISN’T BELIEVING We’ll soon be able to experience reality as we want it. But is that a good thing? By David Rose, Founder, supersight.org October 1, 2019 The human eye is an extraordinary organ. Packed with over 120 million photoreceptor cells, it can discern 10 million different colors and is the body’s…

[In an interview in Tech Republic, author Romina Garber describes a new effort to use virtual reality and presence to enhance the experience of reading her books and draw more readers to them. The original version of the story includes a 7:42 minute video of the interview, and for more information see the Abelana VR website and Romina Garber’s tumblr. –Matthew] [Image: Source: Abelana VR] How VR creates an immersive experience for readers Penguin Random House is using virtual reality to enhance how people read and appreciate books. Author Romina Garber discusses how VR is used with her Zodiac series.…

[This IEEE Spectrum story features an interview with one of the creators of a new social robot designed specifically to evoke medium-as-social-actor presence by being emotionally engaging rather than performing tasks. See the original for 3 more pictures and a 1:46 minute video. –Matthew] This “Useless” Social Robot Wants to Succeed Where Others Failed The creators of Kiki believe they can build an emotionally engaging social home robot that is also “completely useless” By Evan Ackerman September 19, 2019 The recent high-profile failures of some home social robots (and the companies behind them) have made it even more challenging than…