[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…

[Complex ethical and other challenging issues related to medium-as-social-actor presence are raised in a new report from the Foundation for Responsible Robotics (FRR). This story is from The Guardian, where it features a 16:25 minute video; for more information see coverage by BBC News, which includes several links and a 1:46 audio clip. –Matthew] [Image: Catalan nanotechnology engineer Sergi Santos holds the head of Samantha, a sex doll packed with artificial intelligence providing her the capability to respond to different scenarios and verbal stimulus, in his house in Rubi, north of Barcelona, Spain, March 31, 2017. Source: REUTERS/Albert Gea] Sex…

[Queen’s Brian May is a VR innovator and the rock group has launched a new 3-song virtual concert film, as detailed in this short story from Digital Trends. Follow the VRTGO link for a preview and for more information (including two videos, one with May discussing his Owl VR kit, and a comment from Morton Heilig) see coverage from last year in Music Ally. And for even more, see a story in Creators about the earlier Bohemian Rhapsody Experience, available for IOS and Android.  –Matthew] Queen Will Rock You in Virtual Reality Concert Film ‘VR The Champions’ By Brad Jones…

[This story from StateTech is about another context in which presence is having important positive impacts. For more details see CDW’s expanded version and an earlier story in StateTech. –Matthew] 3 Ways Connected Courtrooms Enhance the Justice System Telepresence and collaboration tools don’t just streamline justice delivery, they also connect those in the system to families, bail options and more. By StateTech Staff June 28, 2017 Anytime deputies have a chance to avoid transporting an inmate from a jail cell to an external location, it may mean fewer risks for all involved. For instance, less contraband could be coming in.…

[This story from Yale News describes a project designed to evoke presence to help users better understand the poet John Ashbery and the inspiration for his work; for more information and the link to the website (when it launches July 1), see the project’s web page. –Matthew] [Image: Award-winning poet John Ashbery stands outside his Victorian home in this screenshot taken from a new Digital Humanities Lab project. John Ashbery’s “Nest” takes visitors on a virtual tour inside of his house, and invites them to “walk” through the spaces that the poet inhabits to learn about the objects that have…

[This thoughtful column by a marketer comes as Google has announced its first prototype of an ad format for virtual reality. The column is from Mumbrella and you can read about and see a demo of the VR ad on the Google Developers Blog. –Matthew] It’s not long now until we’re playing God! As marketers explore the potential of virtual and augmented reality worlds Shae Duncan asks whether enough thought has been given to the ethical aspects of the products, in a post which is part of the LinkedIn Agency Influencer program. By Shae Duncan, a business executive at Society…

[It’s early days, but there’s great potential for the use of presence by surgeons. This story is from New Scientist and for more information see the press release from Cambridge Consultants and coverage in MIT Technology Review and Forbes. –Matthew] Augmented reality goggles give surgeons X-ray vision By Matt Reynolds 11 May 2017 Augmented reality could soon let surgeons peer inside a patient’s body without needing to make a large incision, helping them to carry out keyhole surgery. By donning an augmented reality headset, a surgeon will see a virtual 3D map of a patient’s internal organs overlaid directly onto…

[Eye fatigue is a barrier to effective presence experiences and the research described in this news release from the Optical Society of America suggests a possible solution that shifts the operation of displays to match how humans see. –Matthew] [Image: The new display creates a 3D image using optical mapping. An OLED screen is divided into four subpanels that each create a 2D picture. The spatial multiplexing unit (SMU) shifts each of these images to different depths while aligning the centers of all of them with the viewing axis. Through the eyepiece, each image appears to be at different depth.…