[Museums are still figuring out how to best utilize, and fund, virtual reality and the presence experiences it creates, but are impressed with its wide appeal. The director of HTC’s VIVE Arts “says VR will soon be just as important to a museum as its website.” This story is from The New York Times – see the original for several more images. –Matthew] [Image: A staff member at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris demonstrating a new permanent virtual reality installation about evolution. Credit: Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times] European Museums Get Adventurous With Virtual Reality By…

[Investment firm Fidelity has replaced classroom sessions in which trainees are told to empathize with customers with experiences using virtual reality that help make them more empathetic. This story about a positive use of presence is from The Observer. –Matthew] [Image: Jason Cooper, director of multimedia for Horizon Productions in Durham holds a pair of virtual reality goggles. N&O file photo] Fidelity is teaching employees compassion with virtual reality By Max Diamond March 07, 2018 DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA – Phone associates at Fidelity Investments no longer just sit in a classroom and listen to an instructor for training, instead they…

[A new study at Northwestern University demonstrates how mammals use smells to navigate space and the technology developed for the experiment has the potential to improve presence experiences in future VR systems. This story is from WTTW-TV in Chicago and includes supplementary information from Northwestern Now and The Daily Northwestern. –Matthew] [Image: Northwestern University researchers created a virtual environment for mice to navigate based solely on smells. (Courtesy Northwestern University)] Sniff Test: Study Incorporates Smell into Virtual Reality Alex Ruppenthal March 5, 2018 Imagine strapping on a pair of high-tech goggles and immersing yourself in the sights, sounds and even…

[In addition to describing a new VR app from the company Orbital Views designed to change users’ perceptions of our planet and its place in the cosmos, this article from Space.com contains the interesting fact that the same company offers participants aircraft flights that let them experience the lack of gravity and “makes [VR] headsets available … so that the participants can feel as though they [are] floating in space, or walking on the moon or Mars.” The original story includes a 0:50 minute video and different images. See the Orbital Views website for more information, and an ISPR Presence…

[A Texas startup has developed a new potential solution to the problems of motion sickness while using presence-evoking technologies, as recounted in this story from VentureBeat (where the original includes more images). For related coverage see VentureBeat’s “How and why our experiments with virtual reality motion made us ill,” and an Adweek story about companies’ demonstrations of the effect of even small lags in VR to promote 5G wireless technology. –Matthew] [Image: How BodyNav works. Credit: MonkeyMedia] MonkeyMedia’s BodyNav lets you navigate VR without getting sick Dean Takahashi February 6, 2018 Motion sickness is one of the challenges holding back…

[A new “emotionally smart” humanoid robot assistant is scheduled to join the astronauts on the International Space Station. This story is from Motherboard (where it includes more pictures), and the Airbus press release makes the designers’ goal of evoking medium-as-social-actor presence clear, e.g., when it says “with its face, voice and artificial intelligence, [the robot will be] a genuine ‘colleague’ on board” and “[astronaut] Alexander Gerst also had a say in the selection of CIMON’s screen face and computer voice so that he, too, could ‘make friends’ with his electronic colleague.” –Matthew] Astronauts Will Welcome a Free-Floating Robot Head to…

[This story from the Naperville Sun describes a current effort by University of Illinois students to use virtual reality and presence for good. The GoFundMe page for the project includes a 2:35 minute video, Chicago’s WCAI-TV has a short news story on the project, and more information is available on the website of the students’ YouMatter Studios. –Matthew] [Image: Jewel Ifeguni, of Naperville, top left, hopes to raise enough money to make a virtual reality film with fellow University of Illinois students, Mia Ruggiero, bottom left, Katie Mimnaugh, top right, and Apurva Chakravorty, bottom right. (Credit: Jewel Ifeguni)] U. of…

[A new virtual reality installation and a display of items from the evolution of immersive media will be on display in Bradford in the UK through May. This story is from The Telegraph & Argus and more information is available from the Thresholds page on the Museum’s website. I want to go! –Matthew] [Image: Inside the virtual reality environment of Thresholds, a replica of William Henry Fox Talbot’s 1839 photography exhibition] Time-travelling through virtual reality Emma Clayton, Leisure and Lifestyle Editor 23rd February In 1839 the world’s first major public exhibition of photographs took place at King Edward’s School in…

[Amazon’s Alexa Prize challenges AI experts to create a more natural (presence-evoking) social bot; the original, unabridged version of this long story from Wired describes the background, the competition process and results, and notes that Amazon has another Alexa Prize contest in 2018. –Matthew] INSIDE THE ALEXA PRIZE Amazon is in a pitched battle with its rivals to bring truly conversational AI into our homes. So the company is staging a contest—a mad dash toward an outlandish goal: Cook up a bot capable of small talk. James Vlahos February 27, 2018 The first interactor—a muscular man in his fifties with…

[As this story from The Next Web notes, Facebook’s new DensePose technology represents a new capability for altering the reality presented in video material. As always, the deception could logically have both positive and negative implications. See the original story for a second image and a 3:49 minute demo video. –Matthew] Facebook’s body-swapping AI has Hollywood written all over it By Tristan Greene February 7, 2018 If you thought DeepFakes, the AI that swaps celebrity faces into any video (like porn), was scary wait until you see what Facebook’s DensePose can do. Facebook’s AI research (FAIR) division last week revealed…

[This in depth discussion of the need for robots to act based on a system of ethical guidelines, how those guidelines should be constructed, whether robots can not only act but ‘be’ ethical, and how humans should ethically behave toward robots, is from the Desert News. See the original story for 21 more pictures and a 7-item survey about robot ethics. –Matthew] Personal robots are coming into your home. Will they share your family values? By Jennifer Graham February 14, 2018 HARTFORD, Conn. — When a Czech playwright coined the word “robot” in 1921, he described mechanical creatures that have…

[I believe presence is a powerful tool and that presence scholars and creators have a particular responsibility to consider, warn against, and work to prevent its use for unethical ends. Reminiscent of a Black Mirror story, this cautionary opinion column explores the potential of presence-evoking technology to subvert the mechanisms that prevent the most extreme forms of societal inequality. It was published in Bloomberg View. –Matthew] [Image: Enjoy. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg] Are You Poor? Here’s Your Virtual Hamster Cage Technology could erase the limits of inequality. By Cathy O’Neil February 21, 2018 What are the limits of inequality? In…