[This story from TechRadar demonstrates the increasingly common recognition of the central role of presence in the evolution of technology, includes observations about the use of fictional portrayals to promote presence technologies and experiences, and argues that shared presence experiences are and should remain superior to private ones. The original story includes an additional image; see the CES Asia 2018 website for more details about that recent event. –Matthew] Forget Ready Player One – the future of VR is a physical experience Time for a reality check By Cat Ellis June 14, 2018 CES Asia is a full-on experience. The…

[This story is about the use of virtual reality to preserve the experiences of people and places, “cultures and landscapes,” being lost to the rising sea. As with our use of photos and recordings, and perhaps soon more immersive technological artifacts, to preserve our personal and family memories, this is an extremely meaningful, valuable and important application of presence technologies. The story is from Hakai Magazine, where it includes a second image; follow the My visit with Billiot link to watch a video of the VR experience described in the story. –Matthew] [Image: Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, home of…

[This story from Robotics Business Review provides a status report on the challenges and potential of the telepresence robot market. See the original for several more pictures, links to 10 leading telepresence robot companies, and to sign up for the RBR Newsletter. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Ava Robotics] Telepresence Robots Attempt to Move Back Into the Spotlight High costs, end user difficulties, and poor audio/video have hampered the growth of telepresence robotics. Can new models and applications help grow the market beyond niche uses? June 13, 2018 Keith Shaw The public’s first exposure to telepresence robots likely came during a 2010…

[Experiment participants “felt understood by, trusted, and liked the presence of [a] robot significantly more after” hugging and being hugged by it; this interesting story about medium-as-social-actor presence from IEEE Spectrum’s Automaton blog includes an interview with the study’s lead author in which he suggests that in the future robots will have “emotional intelligence” and that we may send each other remote customized hugs via robot. See the original story for a second image and a 1:11 minute video, as well as a link at the end to sign up for the blog. –Matthew] The Importance of Teaching Robots to…

[Oculus and the Anne Frank House museum have debuted a new 25 minute virtual tour across space and time to the Secret Annex where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazi over seven decades ago. As this post from the Oculus Blog notes, “Hopefully it [will help] to encourage reflection on the dangers of anti-Semitism, racism, and discrimination and the importance of freedom, equal rights, and democracy.” See the original post for five images from the tour and a 0:57 minute video. –Matthew] Introducing ‘Anne Frank House VR,’ an Immersive Experience that Recreates Amsterdam’s Secret Annex and Preserves…

[Other coverage of the latest iteration of AI-based video manipulation of humans (e.g., in Gizmodo and TechCrunch) includes more details while noting the remarkably fast evolution of the technology, and the website of Stanford visiting professor Michael Zollhöfer includes much more information and a statement about both its positive and negative applications, but this short piece in Co.Design describes the implications most starkly. The articles all include the new 7:04 minute video, which is also available via YouTube.  –Matthew] [Image: Screenshot from Deep Video Portraits demo video. Source: TechCrunch.] This new face-swapping AI is scarily realistic The end of reality…

[This first story from BBC Capital’s new Augmented Reality column provides a vivid, link-filled overview of medium-as-social-actor presence responses to robots. The original version includes six more pictures. –Matthew] [Image: German Chancellor Angela Merkel meets Pepper the Robot on Girls’ Day on April 26, 2017 in Berlin, Germany. The event is meant to encourage young women to pursue careers in all parts of the German economy, especially in sciences, information technology and engineering, and this year the event occurs simultaneously with the W20 women’s empowerment summit, sponsored by the G20 Group of 20 major economic powers. Photo by Adam Berry/Getty…

[The CBC report below is about a niche but potentially life-saving application of presence-evoking technology; the original story includes three different images. For more information listen to the 4:27 minute report from CBC’s Daybreak North radio program and see the VR Safety Training Solutions website. A short piece from MyPrinceGeorgeNow includes these additional quotes: “’From the people we have talked to who have taken the [regular] training, they aren’t always confident that they would know how to use it effectively in the field even though they’ve taken the training,’ explains CEO Kelly O’Neill. ‘So we wanted to be able to…

[The profound implications of the innovation described in this story from the MIT Media Lab is clear in this sentence from the second-to-last paragraph: “We see a future in which our designed world will be carefully integrated within our nature: a world in which what is biological and what is not, what is human and what is not, what is nature and what is not, will be forever blurred.” See the original story for an additional image, three videos, an FAQ and more. Futurism’s coverage, titled “Artificial Limbs We Forget Are Artificial,” links to a story in Popular Mechanics with…

[Oculus Venues is a new platform for social VR and this story from Wired describes some of the key design choices its creators faced; it includes both explicit and indirect references to presence. The original version includes different images; for more information about what the Venues experience is like see stories in CNET and Mashable. –Matthew] [Image: Source: VRScout] With Venues, Oculus and Facebook Push Social VR Into New Territory Peter Rubin May 30, 2018 Tonight, more than 9,000 people will fill Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside Denver to listen to Vance Joy, an Australian singer-songwriter with a name like a…

[This new telepresence robot has capabilities that make it more like a “real life” avatar for users. The short story is from SoraNews24, where it includes a different image and a 1:45 minute video. For more information see a story in Forbes that considers the robot’s potential use for remote shopping, and a press release via Digital Journal. –Matthew] Japanese telecom company unveils robot that lets you see, hear, and feel through it [Video] The only problem is that it looks like a killing machine compared to domestic robot Pepper. Koh Ruide June 4, 2018 When Japanese telecommunications company Softbank…

[This story examines a recent study of the potential of a film that provides both male and female perspectives in an unusual split-sphere 360° video format to create empathy and attitude change. The story is from Medium, where the original includes three different images. It’s worth looking at the study itself (via Dropbox), in which presence and other aspects of the technology and experience are considered. A related recent story worth a look is “Walking in another’s virtual shoes: Do 360-degree video news stories generate empathy in viewers?“ in Columbia Journalism Review. –Matthew] [Image: Source: UTURN creator Nathalie Mathe] The…