[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…

[This story from MIT News describes what sounds like a valuable course at MIT, one that explicitly covers presence. My colleague Laura Zaylea and I have been doing something similar in a cross-course collaboration (Emerging Media Production and Psychological Processing of Media), initially focusing on 360 videos and augmented reality. If you teach or know of other courses like this, please let me know (at [email protected]). –Matthew] [Image: In MIT’s hands-on humanities class CMS.339 (Virtual Reality and Immersive Media Production), students are grappling with multiple dimensions of making virtual reality, from technical challenges, to philosophical questions, to the art of…

[This story from Inverse describes a clever new way to manipulate VR users’ perceptions to create more natural walking (and thus presence) experiences in virtual worlds. –Matthew] [Image: Source: Digital Trends] VR Worlds Where You Can Actually Walk Around Are on the Way Goodbye, room-limited HTC Vive games! By Mike Brown May 30, 2018 Ready to go on an infinite journey through virtual reality? Researchers at Stony Brook University, working with Nvidia and Adobe, announced on Tuesday that they’ve taken a big step toward making virtual worlds feel vast and expansive. By manipulating the eye’s natural movements, the researchers say…

[Although it doesn’t cover specific steps to bring about institutional change, this opinion column from Times Higher Education makes the compelling argument for the incorporation of presence-evoking technologies in higher education. –Matthew] [Image: CAVE2 at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Source: UIC] Universities should immerse themselves in virtual reality Embracing immersive content would aid public engagement and bring research and teaching closer together, argue Vincent Tong, Sam Smidt and Matilda Katan May 3, 2018 By Vincent Tong, Sam Smidt and Matilda Katan While universities bill themselves as pioneers of technology, they are…

[This story from Artsy describes the trend towards technology-based experiential art and attractions, focusing on Meow Wolf’s installation in Santa Fe (coming soon to Denver, Las Vegas and elsewhere); the company’s CEO “envisions a future where the lines between things like art, theme parks, role-playing games, and augmented reality will be blurred. The emerging term, he explains, is ‘alternative reality.’” The original story includes a large photo gallery, and for more information see Meow Wolf’s website and a 2:20 minute video on YouTube (which will lead you to other videos). Two related news stories from the last few weeks may be…

[Thank you to everyone who joined us for PRESENCE 2018 last week in Prague, either in person or virtually. Special thanks to organizing committee members SongYi (Grace) Lee, Kun Xu, Hocheol Yang and Jihyun Kim. For me at least, it was another rewarding, intellectually invigorating and very enjoyable combination of presentations and informal discussions about different aspects of a fascinating topic. In our concluding session we identified a variety of challenges we face as presence scholars and we’ll be following up soon on some of the steps we developed towards addressing them. In the meantime, the story below is about…

[One last news item before ISPR Presence News takes a break for a few weeks: This piece from Big Think considers the role of VR and other presence-evoking technologies in defining, and controlling, our personal reality; the original includes more images and three videos. –Matthew] [Image: You are who you are because of your environment. What happens in a virtual world? Credit: Shutterstock/Big Think] How will virtual reality change your mind’s consciousness? May 16, 2018 by Derek Beres Over a half-century ago, Canadian professor and philosopher Marshall McLuhan wrote one of the most influential books on media theory ever. Understanding…

[A Villanova University professor is using a CAVE to evoke spatial presence and help baseball players train; this story is from Philly.com, where it includes two more images. –Matthew] [Image: A Villanova professor developed a program to help Wildcat players improve at the plate. Sam Margulis, a freshman outfielder, demonstrates the virtual reality setup located in “The Cave” in a campus library. Credit: Michael Bryant / Staff Photographer.] Taking a swing at virtual reality: How Villanova baseball is using tech to improve at the plate Updated: May 10, 2018 by Frank Fitzpatrick, Staff Writer Heads down, hoods up, hands buried…

[Peter Rubin’s new book covers a wide range of interesting presence topics; this interview with the author is from The Verge (where it includes a different image). –Matthew] Why the real promise of virtual reality is to change human connection It’s not all about gaming By Angela Chen Apr 17, 2018 All the talk about virtual reality revolutionizing the gaming industry is “just first-day stuff,” says VR expert Peter Rubin. Forget 360-degree video and video games, he says. That’s just the beginning, and focusing too much on these uses takes away from the true potential of VR: a social technology…

[I somehow missed this important story from last fall about a project that uses presence to help people experience the microaggressions that result from implicit bias, “quiet, coded moments of racial bias that shape [a black person’s] worldview and sense of justice over time.” The story is from Engadget, where it includes more images. For more information on the project, created through a collaboration with our colleague Jeremy Bailenson, see the 1000 Cut Journey page on the Tribeca Immersive website and coverage in VR World that includes Courtney Cogburn’s TED Talk. For discussions of the broader potential of VR and…