[A new 5:50 minute film features Hanson Robotics robot Sophia interacting with actress Evan Rachel Wood, who plays robot Dolores in HBO’s Westworld. I’ll refrain from playing reviewer, but stay tuned for after-the-credits feature “Questioning Reality with Evan and Sophia.” CNET’s coverage includes this: “SophiaWorld manages to plunge us through almost as many layers of existence as an actual Westworld episode. It’s the perfect way to pass the time while waiting for season 3 to arrive in 2020. Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? After you watch SophiaWorld, the answer will be yes.” The story below is…

[It’s not hard to imagine that near-future refined technologies that evoke greater presence among users will create more frequent and more severe versions of the problems discussed in this Refinery29 story. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Eylul Aslan] “I Worried To The Point Of Obsession” – How Virtual Beauty Apps Prey On Insecurities Anna Behrmann 3 September 2019 I can change my lipstick from bright pink to intense red in a fraction of a second. I can try on a ‘Vegas’ look from a virtual makeup artist complete with false lashes, four different shades of perfectly blended eyeshadow, heavily defined eyebrows and…

[The telepresence robot described in this story from Tom’s Hardware is designed to mimic human interaction for parents and children. The original story includes two more pictures and some of the robot’s technical specifications; see the Indiegogo page for much more information. –Matthew] Hug Your Kid When You’re Out of Town With the Cushybot One Telepresence Robot by Brittany Vincent August 27, 2019 For children with long-distance parents, things can get a little lonely. Home robotics company Cushybots wants to change this with a new telepresence robot, the Cushybot One, launching today on Indiegogo. The Cushybot One is an adorable…

[Several types of presence feature prominently in the ‘mega themes’ identified in this story from Forbes. As usual, the potential roles of presence represent both promise and peril. –Matthew] The Twelve Mega Themes That Will Drive Our Future World Sarwant Singh, Contributor August 28, 2019 The blurring of the human-machine divide, the ability to immerse ourselves in new augmented/virtual/mixed reality worlds, the prospect of being able to recycle everything in our homes, the joys of having an intelligent assistant take over our chores at home and work, the dilemma over the double-edged sword that is data, the thrill of having…

[This VentureBeat story uses vivid examples to explain the potential of mixed reality and presence to enhance the psychological impact and the financial health of journalism. –Matthew] [Image: The New York Times in augmented reality] Journalism needs help — and mixed reality is coming to the rescue Kenny Kline August 26, 2019 Traditional print journalism is dying, fast. According to statistics published by Pew Research, hundreds of daily newspapers have been scratched off the national roster since the 1970s, and about a third of the United States’ largest papers have suffered layoffs since 2017. The industry is struggling to stay…

[IEEE Spectrum reports on the latest advances in telepresence robots; see the original story for two other pictures and a 0:53 minute video. –Matthew] New Double 3 Robot Makes Telepresence Easier than Ever With mapping and semi-autonomous navigation, even you can drive a Double 3 By Evan Ackerman August 27, 2019 Today, Double Robotics is announcing Double 3, the latest major upgrade to its line of consumer(ish) telepresence robots. We had a (mostly) fantastic time testing out Double 2 back in 2016. One of the things that we found out back then was that it takes a lot of practice…

[The story below from Propmodo compares the under-valued impact of Google Glass to the potential impact of a new virtual reality design platform for the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. The 1:40 minute  promo video includes multiple forms of presence and a compelling ‘life size’ (1:1) scale collaborative display. –Matthew] New Virtual Reality Design Platform May Transform How the AEC Industry Collaborates Logan Nagel August 20, 2019 The story of Google Glass, the augmented reality spectacles that were once hailed as game-changing, is a fascinating one that once seemed like a failure. Not too long ago, Glass was perhaps…

[This link-filled story from Truthout highlights the potential of presence (though it doesn’t use the term) for propaganda and other unethical persuasion: “[T]he novelty of VR lies in how it induces physiological and psychological effects in us comparable to those produced by lived experience, irrespective of any background consciousness of artificiality. … It’s because of this power that VR is likely to be used increasingly for propagandistic purposes, and as anyone familiar with the modern history of propaganda could expect, it won’t only be governmental agencies using it to propagate partial and potentially misleading information.” –Matthew] [Image: A man uses…

[This short story from Next Reality describes USA Today’s expanding use of augmented reality to evoke compelling presence experiences, focusing on a new virtual exhibit that includes a trip aboard a slave ship. See the original version for four animated gifs and a tweet. –Matthew] USA Today’s Latest Augmented Reality Story Takes Readers on Sobering Trip Aboard Slave Ship By Tommy Palladino August 22, 2019 Augmented reality as a storytelling medium can do some extraordinary things words and images alone can’t convey — such as transporting readers 400 years into the past. On Thursday, to recognize the 400 year anniversary…

[The short New World Notes blog post below describes a new way to quickly scan the real world with regular smartphones and create a virtual 3D mirror version of it, with important implications for presence experiences in virtual worlds and augmented reality. See the original post for the 0:51 minute video (also available via YouTube). For more information see AR Insider. –Matthew] Watch: Real World Location Virtually Recreated To Scale In Minutes Wagner James Au August 20, 2019 This is a pretty impressive tech demonstration from 6D.AI, a startup that’s creating a 3D mirror world of real life from the…

[Complimenting the announcement of a fourth Matrix film (see Variety for details), the very positive CNN Business review below of a new VR experience set in the world of HBO’s Westworld series highlights the value of fiction to illustrate and explore presence phenomena. It also touches on the current status and challenges of VR. Follow the link in the second paragraph for more information and a video trailer, and see other positive reviews in The Verge and UploadVR. –Matthew] A new Westworld game actually delivers on virtual reality’s promise By Rachel Metz, CNN Business August 20, 2019 San Francisco (CNN Business)…

[In addition to the wonderful picture below, this opinion piece from Metro UK highlights a variety of intriguing issues and phenomena related to medium-as-social-actor presence. –Matthew] [Image: Zoltan’s daughter with her robot partner on their ‘wedding’ day. Credit: Zoltan Istvan] Should I have let my daughter marry our robot? Zoltan Istvan, Transhumanist, speaker, entrepreneur and author July 24, 2019 I pride myself on being open-minded. I am a transhumanist, and our culture pushes us to use science and technology to always want to be more than we are. My friends do everything from injecting themselves with self-created genetic treatments to…