[This short story from Interesting Engineering is a great example of why I think presence is both fascinating and important. For more see coverage in Futurism. –Matthew] Japan Grants Residency to a 7-Year-Old AI ‘Boy’ The local government in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward has decided to give residential documents to an AI robot, a bold step in legitimizing the presence of AI in our society. By Mario L. Major November, 07th 2017 An AI character—a boy of only seven years old—has been given an officially registered ID in one of Tokyo’s busiest district. The event took place on Saturday, and since…

[It’s good news that the VR industry is funding programs like the ones described in this story from SiliconANGLE to expand the applications and availability of presence-evoking technologies and experiences. For more information see the HTC Vive press release. –Matthew] HTC Vive launches program to bring the arts into virtual reality By Kyt Dotson 08 November 2017 Smartphone marker and virtual reality headset developer HTC Corp. today announced Vive Arts, a new multimillion-dollar global VR program designed to bring the arts into the living room. The Vive Arts program will help cultural institutions, such as museums, documentary projects, educators and…

[The project described in this story from Huffington Post UK is another example of the potential power of presence, including in this case “collaborative immersion”; the original version includes more images and a 1:36 minute video. For more information see the Scan Pyramids VR project page on the Emissive website. –Matthew] Virtual Reality Goggles Can Now ‘Teleport’ You Into The Pyramid Housing A Mysterious Void Walk in the footsteps of the Pharaohs… November 8, 2017 Sara C Nelson, Senior Editor, The Huffington Post UK A team of scientists have created a virtual reality tour that allows users to ‘teleport’ themselves…

[Fictional portrayals of people experiencing presence and its positive and negative effects and consequences can be both entertaining and thought-provoking (a group of us are studying them here); this story from Slate is about portrayals, and the possibility of actual, addiction to presence (and includes a quote from our colleague Skip Rizzo). You can find the new film OtherLife on Netflix and read a review in The Guardian (warning: spoilers). For more on Dr. Mehta’s research with rats, there’s a 46 minute interview with him on the Smart Drug Smarts podcast. –Matthew] The Ultimate Escapism Sci-fi has been warning us…

[A new series of successful video ads for IKEA seems to violate the rules of successful advertising but perfectly illustrates the power of presence; the story below is from AdWeek and includes three of the ads and a 2:22 minute ‘case study’ video; and coverage in Bustle makes the connection to ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response). –Matthew] Ikea Just Made the Most Boring Preroll Ads, Yet They’re Totally Mesmerizing Åkestam Holst does its own version of unskippable spots By Angela Natividad October 30, 2017 Ikea touts itself as a brand that draws inspiration from the everyday lives of people. In…

[This story from Study Breaks is about the use of augmented reality to create presence illusions for a serious and extremely valuable purpose. The original story includes several more images. –Matthew] ‘HOLOGRAMS FROM SYRIA’ REFUSES TO LET YOU IGNORE THE HAUNTING IMAGES OF WAR Bennington College student Asad J. Malik, also known by his alias 1RIC, seeks to bring the gruesome reality of war to the forefront with his latest project “Holograms from Syria.” By Marissa Cortes, Stony Brook University November 1, 2017 Early in the morning on September 2, 2015, before the sun had risen and the pops of…

[The original version of this widely-cited story from the Daily Mail includes many more pictures of the new East Valley of Science and Fantasy; for more information see the project’s (English) website. –Matthew] Spectacular pictures show China’s £1 billion virtual reality sci-fi theme park which lets tourists visit aliens, ride UFOs and fight dragons Virtual reality attraction is developed by the stock market listed Oriental Times Media Corp’s animation unit The massive park is situated in Guizhou province, China, and the first phase is set to complete in December A main feature is an impressive 174ft tall transformer structure constructed…

[This new product adds the “4D” element of wind to VR to enhance the sense of presence, and the ZephVR website says “Beyond wind, our technology will enable all sorts of peripherals and physical effects—temperature, vibration, rain, or anything else people can think up—so that they work with all VR content, automatically.” The story is from BGR, where it includes an additional image. For more information see the ZephVR website and press kit. –Matthew] Meet the new accessory that lets you actually feel virtual reality Andy Meek October 30th, 2017 The team behind a new accessory for virtual reality headsets…

[As those who know me know, Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, I’m sure in part because the whole thing is about presence illusions (and very delicious pumpkin flavored foods). Here are a few Halloween Presence links – for more, see the (public) ISPR Presence Community Facebook group. Happy Halloween to all! –Matthew] Tiffany Blaze creates scary make-up illusions 18-year-old Tiffany Blaze cultivates a disturbing mastery of gory SFX makeup looks, all of which she creates using common household items. Though the ingredients she uses (like instant espresso for road rash and banana for fatty tissue) aren’t pricey, the looks…

[This new all-virtual art museum, an apparent milestone, has the potential to provide a high presence experience that eventually will be available to more people than a brick-and-mortar museum. The story is from Bloomberg, where it includes a second image and a 1:19 minute video. –Matthew] Virtual Reality Museum Puts Rembrandt in High-Def Visitors can don a headset, enter an architect-designed VR gallery and view the Kremer Collection’s 70 Old Masters. By Molly Schuetz October 26, 2017 The Kremer Collection has spent the past two decades loaning out its collection of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish art to museums and galleries…

[This interview with Kathleen Richardson, Professor of Ethics and Culture of Robots and AI and co-founder of The Campaign Against Sex Robots, raises important and disturbing ethical implications of medium-as-social-actor presence. It’s from Conatus News, where the original includes five additional images. I’ve included two of the four comments from readers (as of this writing) that make thoughtful contributions to the discussion. –Matthew] Kathleen Richardson, professor of ethics at De Montfort University, speaks in depth about the ethical problems with sex robots. Terri Murray October 25, 2017 Kathleen Richardson is Professor of Ethics and Culture of Robots and AI at…

[The technology is closer than ever to being ready, but creators and designers need to employ it carefully to evoke presence and retain users; this story from Venture Beat explains (see the original for more images and a video). –Matthew] 3 keys to improving user retention in virtual reality Michael Park October 23, 2017 5 Virtual reality’s failure to live up to its hype is well documented. Poor user retention plays a significant role in this matter, as it does with any other technology product. However, disappointing retention is often mainly a function of a poorly designed product and user…