[A recent post here of a story from Haaretz raised provocative questions about the morality of using VR and presence to evoke empathy in users; the story below from The Atlantic describes some important limitations of VR to evoke meaningful empathy beyond situations that involve an immediate physical environment. Read the last three paragraphs for the author’s argument for a technology that’s better for evoking empathy for psychological situations rather than physical ones. –Matthew] [Image: Visitors at MSF’s “Forced From Home” exhibit in DenmarkReuters] It’s Ridiculous to Use Virtual Reality to Empathize With Refugees The technology isn’t the moral game-changer…

[If you’re in or near New York City, you might want to check out this intriguing event that features portrayals of telepresence (we’re studying a wide variety of them in an ongoing research project here by the way). The story below is from Broadway World; see the La MaMa website for more information including images, a video, and descriptions of two more plays in the performance (“Action” and “Simultaneous Transmissions”). And a La MaMa Blogs post features an interview with Jason Trucco, co-director of Hi-Fi / Wi-Fi / Sci-Fi, including his answer to the question “How are you integrating the…

[This story from Digital Trends outlines the challenges the NFL (and other sports leagues) are addressing as they work to bring live, full game coverage in VR to audiences; in a related development, you can watch highlights of this Sunday’s Super Bowl in VR – see coverage in SportTechie for details. –Matthew] You Won’t Watch A Live NFL Game in VR This Year. Here’s Why By Keith Nelson Jr. January 16, 2017 You can experience almost anything in virtual reality. You can be on stage as Paul McCartney performs. You can travel around the globe. You can even watch a…

[This feature from an SMPTE Newswatch email is a long and at times a bit technical but very interesting discussion of the ways mediated images may and may not ever be able to fully reproduce reality for our visual perceptual systems, but may not have to. –Matthew] Hot Button Discussion Human Image Perception By Michael Goldman (bio at end) January 31, 2017 As engineers push ongoing image display technology enhancements, and content creators experiment with how they can utilize those enhancements to tell stories, a few questions naturally come up. How do either engineers or content creators know what average…

[You can observe the new U.S. president in an eerie up-close experience in the Oval Office in the new (free) virtual reality creation Wide Awake; this first person report on the experience is from TechStack247; for more information including images and videos, see the MacInnes Scott website. You can download Wide Awake from Viveport. –Matthew] Trump at 2AM: The new Oval Office in virtual reality By Temidayo — January 21, 2017 Donald Trump stands before me with a grim look on his face, lightly leaning against the Oval Office’s Resolute desk. Moonlight pours in through the office’s rear windows as a phone…

[Real-time collaborative virtual environments like ‘MasterpieceVR’ have exciting potential to evoke presence and enable creativity and other positive outcomes; this story from Upload VR features several more images and two videos; an update includes another image and video and notes that the software is “available for download on Steam — entirely for free for a limited time” and that “the player count will increase to 4 in the next few weeks and grow steadily over the life of the platform.” –Matthew] ‘MasterpieceVR’ Brings Cross-Platform Multiplayer Painting And Sculpting To Rift And Vive By Danny Bittman December 23rd, 2016 Creating art…

[Matt Jones and I have argued that sexuality represents an important context for studying presence experiences and this story from Upload VR (where it includes more images) provides a progress report that illustrates why. For example, one industry figure notes that current technology “brings us one step closer (essentially the closest) to feeling the person on the other end without actually being in the same physical space – a heightened level of intimacy” and another says “The adult industry is undergoing a seismic shift as we transition away from the traditional towards a more immersive experience that is delivering a…

[Simple haptic cues increase presence and a variety of effects sought by advertisers; this story (which I’ve lightly edited for typos) is from MediaPost, where it includes the short video mentioned; for more information see the press release from Immersion Corporation via Business Wire (also excerpted below). –Matthew] [Image: Source: Immersion Corporation] Interpublic Tests Ads That Reach Out And Touch Someone, Finds Lift by Joe Mandese January 25, 2017 Sight, sound and motion have long been the Holy Trinity of Madison Avenue’s sensory perception — and of TV’s and video’s dominance of advertising formats — but new research from Interpublic’s…

[Even though it’s the 2D version that’s been nominated, this is big news for VR; this short story is from Adweek and you can watch the short film by following the first link in it below. For more details about Pearl see earlier coverage in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and especially USA Today. –Matthew] Google’s Virtual Reality Short Film Earns an Academy Award Nomination First VR film ever to be up for an Oscar By Marty Swant January 24, 2017 Google is now competing with the Ryan Goslings and Emma Stones of Hollywood. Today, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts…

[This could be big step toward the wider adoption of AR– the story is from Tom’s Hardware where it includes several different images and a 2:44 demonstration video. –Matthew] Introducing HoloLamp: Portable, Projector-Based, Glasses-Free Augmented Reality by Kevin Carbotte January 5, 2017 Source: HoloLamp You could say that CES 2016 was the year of VR, but at CES 2017, it may be AR’s time to shine. This year at the big show, augmented reality moves from a futuristic idea towards a tangible consumer product. Microsoft started selling its Hololens developer kits in 2016, but one of those will set you…

[Saturday’s historic marches on Washington, D.C. and around the world were captured in immersive 360 videos and photos by many news organizations; I’ve compiled a selection of links to them below. It’s interesting to compare the sense of presence and related impacts created by the different combinations of content and form used in these efforts to give users a sense of the experience of being there. Some of these and others are also available on YouTube (search for “women’s march on Washington 2017 360”) including C-SPAN’s 9:00 minute video (not on their website since it didn’t air). Standard format videos are…

[The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is creating a “vast catalogue” of detailed, 360 degree virtual versions of Washington area sites – “think of it as virtual reality that allows you to travel through any transportation asset as if you were there”; this story is from The Washington Post. –Matthew] [Image: A construction worker looks at scaffolding being put up Jan. 11, 2017, near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington as part of a stage to be used in the inauguration festivities for President-elect Donald Trump. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)] TSA team works to ensure inauguration safety with library of ‘virtual’ sites By…