[The new robot toy described in this story from Mashable replicates, some would say eerily, a (fictional) animated character in Pixar’s Cars movies and so is very likely to evoke medium-as-social-actor presence, especially in young children. See the original story for a 1:30 minute video, many pictures, and a link to a recent story about the Sphero BB-8 toy that ‘watches’ Star Wars movies with you and moves and ‘speaks’ in response to key scenes and characters. –Matthew] This Ultimate Lightning McQueen robot is awesomely real By Lance Ulanoff May 24, 2017 Pixar’s original Cars movie worked because you believed…

[This interesting article from The New Yorker explores the application of environmental psychology to the design of presence experiences for the workplace. See also a 2014 ISPR Presence News post about virtual windows. –Matthew] [Image: Mure VR, an Icelandic startup, hopes to cure the workplace doldrums using the power of fake nature. Courtesy Breakroom] The Virtual-Reality App That Turns Your Office Into A Vacation Paradise By Dawn Chan May 30, 2017 The British writer Charles Lamb was no stranger to workplace-induced despair. In 1792, to make ends meet, he took a job as a bookkeeper at the East India Company,…

[There are lots of examples of technologies designed to evoke presence in the ‘Home of the Future’ described in this story from Advertising Age. The original story includes a large photo gallery, there’s a 3:24 minute 360 video tour on Vimeo, you can explore the Home in interactive 360 images or VR at the Home of the Future website, and the press release is available from Unruly. –Matthew] Marketers Take a Trip to 2020 in News Corp.’s Home of the Future By Emma Hall. Published on May 11, 2017. A wardrobe that matches your outfit to the weather forecast.…

[The tool described in this story from Motherboard addresses, and hopefully will raise awareness about, a key ethical challenge of evolving presence-evoking technologies: the obligation to make presence experiences voluntary. It reminds me of the tools, such as ad skipping features in DVRs, developed in the conflicting efforts of advertisers to reach consumers and consumers to avoid forced exposure to advertising messages, but with potentially much more far-reaching consequences. –Matthew] [Image: Flickr/Abode of Chaos] This Dystopian Wearable Detects AIs Pretending to Be Humans The ‘Anti-AI AI’ will literally send a chill down your spine. Jordan Pearson May 26, 2017 As…

[A treatment that uses presence to treat schizophrenia is yielding promising results, as reported in this story from CBC News (where it includes four more images and related links). –Matthew] [Image: The Philippe-Pinel Institute’s pilot project has patients such as Richard Breton designing and facing their inner demons with the help of virtual reality technology. (Radio-Canada)] Montreal schizophrenia patients face their demons through virtual reality New experimental treatment has patients interact with avatars they design to reflect what they see and hear CBC News May 23, 2017 A pilot project at Montreal’s Philippe-Pinel Institute has patients with schizophrenia confronting voices…

[Presence via virtual reality lets us explore places most of us can never visit but that we need to better understand. This story is from Mashable, where it includes more images and a 4:37 minute video. See also coverage in Wired, and a closely related December 2015 post in ISPR Presence News. –Matthew] ‘North Korea VR’ is an extraordinary glimpse of the world’s most oppressive country By Gianluca Mezzofiore May 04, 2017 U.S. President Donald Trump has really upped the war of words with North Korea in the past few months, prompting an endless flow of news reports about the…

[This news release from Newcastle University describes a new study that raises important questions about the ethics of presence in the context of sexuality; see also researcher Matt Bloom’s opinion piece in The Conversation. –Matthew] The ‘reality’ of virtual reality pornography How the latest digital technology could blur the line between reality and fantasy, pushing the dangers of porn to a whole new level. Published on: 19 May 2017 Experts at Newcastle University, UK, are investigating how virtual reality is changing the experience of pornography. Through headsets such as the Facebook owned Oculus Rift and Playstation VR, the technology allows…

[The creative marketing tool described in this story from Medium raises interesting questions about the roles of scale, personalization and nostalgia in presence experiences. The original story includes other images and both mentioned videos; an interactive 360 degree demonstration video is available from Audi Norway and on YouTube. The project is a logical extension of the AR Sandbox created at UC Davis. –Matthew] A VR Sandbox for Your Inner Child Alice Bonasio Feb 27, 2017 This sandbox 2.0 VR installation promises to make test-driving a whole lot more fun. The experience was created as a partnership between Audi Norway, MediaMonks…

[This story from The Atlantic is about how a variety of technologies will increasingly allow us to reproduce vivid memories; note the important comments near the end about some of the ethical implications of these developments (some of which echo concerns about telepresence after death). The original story includes an infographic titled “The Machinery of Memory: A Timeline.” –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Alvaro Dominguez] The End of Forgetting Technology delivers nostalgia on demand. Ben Rowen June 2017 Issue When Uncle Joshua, a character in Peter De Vries’s 1959 novel, The Tents of Wickedness, says that nostalgia “ain’t what it used to…

[This story from The New York Times describes a presence experience with the potential to alter opinions on a timely social issue, addresses some of the challenges of designing experiences in emerging media, and comments on the role of artists in determining the future success of those media (see the last paragraph in particular). The original story includes an additional image. –Matthew] Iñárritu’s ‘Carne y Arena’ Virtual Reality Simulates a Harrowing Border Trek By Jason Farago May 17, 2017 CANNES, France – After weeks in the desert, dehydrated and afraid, refugees and migrants who are apprehended crossing the United States-Mexico…

[This long piece from Backchannel provides an optimistic but realistic status report on the evolution of presence technologies, including details on Google’s new stand-alone VR headset; the original version of the story includes more images. –Matthew] Inside Google’s Slow-Mo VR Moonshot Clay Bavor knows immersive computing is a long-term project. Here’s what he’s doing to make it happen faster. Steven Levy, Editor of Backchannel May 17, 2017 No one in Silicon Valley loves virtual reality or believes in its future as much as Clay Bavor. As vice president of VR and AR for Google, he’s a passionate advocate for the…

[Today’s story is about the use of the technology of modern sculpture to create a presence illusion, this one with an important message. The original story in Mashable includes more images and two videos; more information is available via the project’s website and press release, My Modern Met, as well as Open Culture, where the author writes that “nobody who visits Venice during the Biennale could fail to pause before Support, a work whose visual drama demands a reaction that temperature charts or data-filled studies can’t hope to provoke by themselves. And even apart from the issue at hand, as…