[This story from India’s MiD DAY (where it includes other pictures) describes an effort to use presence for education and social change on a vital topic. The goal and power of the approach is described in coverage from The Pioneer: “By integrating technology creatively in the work [the creators] do, they aim to connect more with the young target audience by enabling them to get a realistic immersive experience of what is intimate partner violence.” And coverage in DNA: “You might have figured out where Manoj’s initial transgressions lead, without us elaborating—but it is only the immediacy of the 360 degree experience that…

[I look forward to multiple field trips to the new presence-experience attraction VR World described in this story from Metro US; the original story includes a 16-image photo gallery and two videos. –Matthew] Giant virtual reality arcade VR World opens in Midtown With 50 stations and all the latest equipment, VR World finally gets the future of virtual reality gaming and movies in your hands. By Eva Kis Published: July 15, 2017 | Updated: July 17, 2017 Hold onto your controllers, NYC — a huge new virtual reality arcade called VR World just landed in Manhattan. “You can walk in…

[This story from CBS News details the ongoing evolution of simulator technologies used to train members of law enforcement; in addition to 360 degree immersive virtual environments, the simulators can create a more realistic “fear response” via “an electronic impulse device which can be used to deliver a mild shock to the trainee.” The original story includes a second image and a video. –Matthew] [Image: Monmouth County’s VirTra V-300 simulator in action. The simulator gives officers a 300-degree view using five different screens. Courtesy Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office.] Virtual reality helps reinvent law enforcement training By Tyler Lewis, CBS NEWS…

[As this story from The Verge notes (in the second-to-last paragraph), “The goal of immersive entertainment is to bring people into fictional worlds and situations; to give them agency and presence in a way that blurs the line between fiction and reality,” and “Disney is all-in on the concept, no matter the medium.” The company’s latest project is a vivid example. See the original story for two more pictures. –Matthew] Disney wants to build a Westworld for Star Wars fans A luxury space hotel in a galaxy far, far away by Bryan Bishop Jul 16, 2017 This weekend at its…

[Even without the startling prediction that “by the year 2021, there will be more Alexa-like digital assistants on the planet than humans” the responses to and uses of Amazon’s product described in this story from The New York Times are fascinating examples of medium-as-social-actor presence. It also contains interesting analyses of the reasons for these responses. The original version of the story includes more images. –Matthew] [Image: By Sergio Baradat] ‘Alexa, Where Have You Been All My Life?’ Siri is so five years ago: How a sleek, smooth-talking cylinder from Amazon stole our hearts, bamboozled our spouses and enchanted our…

[The new film Dunkirk in full IMAX format promises to create compelling presence experiences. This short story from The Verge includes the 4 minute “Behind the Frame” featurette. A detailed story in the Los Angeles Times includes this: “[A]s Nolan sees it, ‘Dunkirk’ is not a war movie per se but rather a kind of Hitchcockian suspense thriller, and his goal for the picture, which he filmed almost entirely in IMAX, is to create an immersive white-knuckle ride that puts the viewer in the shoes of soldiers fighting for survival. ‘We’re trying to create an experience that I talk about…

[This story from Stanford Medicine is about the powerful benefits of using data from brain scans to create presence experiences for neurology patients and surgeons. –Matthew] [Image: The virtual reality system is helping train residents, assist surgeons in planning upcoming operations and educate patients. It also helps surgeons in the operating room, guiding them in a three-dimensional space. Credit: Paul Sakuma] Virtual reality system helps surgeons, reassures patients Stanford Medicine is using a new software system that combines imaging from MRIs, CT scans and angiograms to create a three-dimensional model that physicians and patients can see and manipulate — just…

[This story from The Register describes a research program that involves the use of spatial presence via VR to develop ethical guidelines for the behavior of self-driving cars that evoke medium-as-social-actor presence; note the conclusion in the last paragraph that how the cars make these life-and-death choices needs to be transparent for consumers to accept the new technology. –Matthew] New work: Algorithms to give self-driving cars ‘impulsive’ human ‘ethics’ It’s just preliminary research, don’t freak out By Andrew Silver 5 July 2017 In a version of the infamous Trolley Problem, you’re sitting in a runaway train on a fatal collision…

[The technology described in this story from The Economist represents a dark side of presence illusions, a tool to support the increasingly blatant and shameless promotion of false claims about facts and events. On the positive side, the story notes several ways of countering the danger. –Matthew]   Fake news: you ain’t seen nothing yet Generating convincing audio and video of fake events Print edition | Science and technology July 1st 2017 Earlier this year Françoise Hardy, a French musician, appeared in a YouTube video (see link). She is asked, by a presenter off-screen, why President Donald Trump sent his…

[The mixed reality room described in this Engadget story looks like it creates compelling presence illusions (a Mashable video says it “could have you questioning what’s reality”). See the original story for two videos including the 3:11 minute demo video mentioned (also available on Vimeo). For more, see the Theoriz website and Vimeo page, and a related post from February 2016 in ISPR Presence News. –Matthew] Théoriz recreates the Holodeck with AR tech and projectors A French company has created a new kind of dramatic, Illumiroom-like reality. Steve Dent June 28, 2017 If you had to list the most mind-blowing…

[This story from Quartz succinctly lays out the key ethical questions raised by medium-as-social-actor presence; the answers depend on our understanding of human nature and the malleability of our behavior. The emphasis is on the peril rather than promise – the author doesn’t say much about the potential advantages of human-like technologies (which include for me, the reduced likelihood of my damaging them in a fleeting moment of anger). The original version of the story includes two videos. –Matthew] [Image: Would you punch a printer? What if it looked like you? (Office Space/20th Century Fox)] Is it unethical to design…

[As this story from Digit notes, using VR for human-human weddings is one thing but using it for human-virtual character weddings is quite another. The original story includes other images and two videos; for background see coverage in RocketNews24; for more details about the ceremony see coverage in VR Scout (where the story says 100 men have participated); and for a story about a man who married his smartphone in Las Vegas in 2016, see Oddity Central. –Matthew] [Image: Source: Grape] Japanese men are tying the knot with their favourite Anime characters in VR weddings Yes, someone actually married an…