[This press release from The Guardian announces a new virtual experience designed to help increase empathy and understanding of autism; for other similar efforts, see articles in the Times of Malta and Lovin Malta, and the UK’s National Autistic Society. –Matthew] Guardian launches The Party – A virtual experience of autism 9 October 2017 The Guardian is pleased to announce the launch of The Party – A virtual experience of autism, the publisher’s latest virtual reality (VR) project. The Party places viewers in the shoes of newly-diagnosed Layla, a 15-year old, autistic girl at her mother’s surprise birthday party.…

[It’s encouraging to see the potential impacts of new presence-evoking technologies lead to discussions about ethical guidelines for designing presence experiences. This story about the ethics of presence in the context of journalism is from Undark. –Matthew] Virtual Reality and Journalistic Ethics: Where Are the Lines? VR can transport viewers directly into news stories. But questions linger about how the stories are produced, and how audiences remember them. 09.27.2017 / By Dan Robitzski Imagine if you could spend a morning climbing a skyscraper, running with the bulls in Spain, or even walking on Pluto. As news outlets experiment with immersive…

[A new system developed at MIT will make it possible to communicate more naturally with robots, in many different contexts, via medium-as-social-actor presence. The story is from MIT News, and a 2:25 minute video is available in coverage by Design News and on YouTube. –Matthew] Robot learns to follow orders like Alexa ComText, from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, allows robots to understand contextual commands. Adam Conner-Simons | Rachel Gordon | CSAIL August 30, 2017 Despite what you might see in movies, today’s robots are still very limited in what they can do. They can be great for…

[As this story from Forbes notes, we’re living in an era that “used to be science fiction” – the ‘Brainternet’ project raises a variety of interesting and potentially scary prospects for forms of presence enabled by networked brain-computer interfaces. For more details see the press release from University of the Witwatersrand and coverage in Motherboard, both of which include a 2:45 minute video. –Matthew] Are You Ready To Have Your Brain Connected To The Internet? September 24, 2017 David DiSalvo, Contributor (Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own) By now we’re all familiar with the “Internet of Things” and have…

[This story from the New Statesman describes both the benefits and ethical challenges of incorporating multiple types of presence, particularly medium-as-social-actor presence, in education. –Matthew] “Eton for all”: will robot teachers mean everyone gets an elite education? From Shakespeare holograms to mental health, how artificial intelligence could transform our schools. October 2 2017 By Lizzie Palmer There are a few certainties in this world: death, taxes, and that our jobs will eventually be taken by robots. However, some professions are under greater threat than others. Accountants and couriers should probably worry. But doctors and teachers will be fine, surely? Even…

[This story about the award-winning VR film “Bloodless” describes a media creator’s perspective on the important differences between film and interactive,  immersive virtual reality; it’s from the AP via Philly Voice. For more information, see coverage in the Korea Herald and the Gina Kim‘s website. –Matthew] [Image: Source: Samantha K. Kim] Director turns to virtual reality to tastefully show tragedy By Youkyung Lee Associated Press October 02, 2017 SEOUL, South Korea — For 25 years filmmaker Gina Kim wanted to make a movie about the true story of a South Korean sex worker killed by an American soldier, but struggled…

[This short story from PsyPost is about a logical and potentially valuable application of presence for accurately diagnosing social anxiety. Note: ISPR Presence News will be away on Thursday and Friday and return on Monday. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung] Virtual reality technology could be a powerful tool in diagnosing social anxiety disorder Eric W. Dolan September 23, 2017 A team of German researchers is hoping to use virtual reality technology to diagnose social anxiety disorder. Their initial results have been published in the scientific journal Computers in Human Behavior. “Most of the work done with VR so far (including from…

[As with other presence-evoking technologies, advertising in VR and AR can easily cause breaks in presence; this story from Venture Beat describes how one company is working to minimize the likelihood of this frustrating and counter-productive phenomenon (the CEO uses the phrase “breaking immersion”). –Matthew] Advrty brings native ads to virtual reality Stephanie Chan September 21, 2017 Advrty wants to offer a new avenue of monetization for virtual reality developers, which doesn’t involve full field-of-view pop-up ads. Instead, it’s a platform aimed toward designing and incorporating nonintrusive product placement. It’s in beta. “Initially, think billboards, posters and product placements using…

[Adding more personality to voice assistants could increase medium-as-social-actor presence for users. This story from Digiday, which includes a 1:20 minute video, describes an interesting example created by the B-Reel agency. The experience might be optimized if users could adjust the degree, and even type, of personality expressed. –Matthew] This agency created a voice assistant inspired by a Swedish grandmother September 25, 2017 by Ilyse Liffreing Google Home, Echo and other voice-activated devices have many capabilities, but one agency believes they lack something essential for the future of voice: personality. B-Reel designed a virtual assistant that takes on the persona…

[This story from Smithsonian Magazine is an effective reminder that VR is just the latest popular attempt to use technology to create presence experiences (example quote: “The world in a stereoscope seemed transcendent, hyper-real”). I agree with the concluding suggestion that VR will eventually become just another tool and perhaps fade from use, but I’m confident we’ll continue to be driven to develop (and popularize) technologies that are increasingly effective at evoking presence. The original story contains many more images and a link to a related book. –Matthew] [Image: This Underwood & Underwood stereograph (c. 1901) shows a woman viewing…

[I’m just back from the IBC2017 Conference, where I gave a talk, got a glimpse of new technologies and had a series of valuable and enjoyable conversations about presence; great thanks to long-time presence advocate and producer of the IBC technical sessions Nick Lodge (info; video). The story below from Fast Company describes a VR project that raises a series of intriguing questions about presence without ever using the term; if only Horton and Wohl, who originated the term parasocial interaction, could see “Fall in Love VR.” The original version of the story includes a second image and a 0:29…

[This story from Digital Trends is a realistic, and in the end hopeful, look at what it’ll take to turn browsing the web into a presence-evoking experience; the original version includes a second image and two videos. –Matthew] VR Web Browsing Needs Revolution More Than Evolution By Jon Martindale September 9, 2017 Virtual reality has given us new ways to play games, and has the potential to bring us closer to loved ones around the world, but it’s yet nail down how to let us browse the internet properly. We’re still far from having a VR headset replace an entire…