[The new virtual safari experience for PlayStation VR described in this short story from Push Square is a good example of how presence can give us vivid experiences we normally wouldn’t be able to have and change our perceptions of the world in the process; in the more detailed press release at PR Newswire, our colleague Jeremy Bailenson “predict[s] this project will be a huge success in motivating people to learn more about nature and ecosystems.” The Push Square story includes a 4:40 minute video of gameplay and a 3:00 minute video introduction is available on the Virry VR website.…

[Aside from the very positive applications of presence it discusses, I like this story from Australia’s ABC because it brings together presence that results from mediated environments (VR) and social technologies (robots). The original story includes a 1:16 minute video and more pictures. –Matthew] [Image: Colin Farmer plays rock, scissors, paper with Alice the robot. ABC News: Rebecca Turner] Dementia patients using robots, virtual reality to engage By Rebecca Turner Sun April 2, 2017 High-tech tools, like humanoid robots and virtual reality are transforming the lives of people living in Australian dementia care facilities. The technology — used to engage,…

[This story from BC News discusses a variety of potential benefits of adapting literature for new presence-evoking technologies. The original version includes two more images and a 3:45 minute video. For more information see joycestick.com. –Matthew] ‘Grand and preposterous’ Can gamification help you learn about ‘Ulysses’? BC’s ‘Joycestick’ team is keen to find out By Sean Smith | University Communications January 17, 2017 A literary critic once asserted that the characters in James Joyce’s Ulysses – the sprawling, modernist opus that has bewitched or bedeviled readers for decades – were not fictitious: Through them, Stuart Gilbert said, Joyce achieved “a…

[Note the many references to types of presence in this story from techdigg about an app that immerses users in historical events. See the Kickstarter page for much more information, including videos, and to donate. –Matthew] Timebound: New App Travels Back in Time to Relive History as It Happened By Kevin Ott March 20, 2017 Some ideas are so brilliant, yet so simple, that it’s almost frustrating to learn about them. “Why didn’t I think of that?” is usually the first thought. The new app Timebound, estimated to be available for iOS and Android as soon as May 2017, has…

[Echoing the excellent series Humans, the latest advanced sex doll includes a broader set of AI-based behaviors. The first story below, from LADbible, describes Sergi Santos’ creation; the second story, from MIC, considers some of the many ethical issues it (she?) raises. See the Synthiea Amatus website for much more information including images and videos.  –Matthew] Meet The AI Robot Who Can Switch Between ‘Family’ And ‘Sexy’ Michael Minay in MORE March 20, 2017 Meet Silicon Samantha. An artificial intelligence robot who has a functioning G-Sport and can switch between ‘family’ and ‘sexy’ mode. She’s been revealed to the world…

[This is a good example of the movement toward presence-evoking formats in media campaigns, in this case for fire safety. The story is from StopPress, where it includes two videos and more images. More information and pictures are available in a story from NZ TechBlog, which includes this additional detail: “People are prompted to enter their address when commencing the Escape My House VR activity. Once they reach the end and have made it out of the house safely onto the street, they will be confronted with an image of their own home burning down in front of them, pulled…

[I highly recommend watching the 24 second viral video available in this short Huffington Post story. For more internet reactions see coverage in NDTV. And for more items like this, please join us in the (free and public) ISPR Presence Community Facebook group. –Matthew] Young Girl Mistakes Water Heater For A Robot And It’s Adorable “I wuv you wobot.” By David Moye March 27, 2017 It’s an age-old story: Girl meets water heater, thinks it’s a robot and falls in love. Actually, it’s not that age-old ― it’s the basic plot of a YouTube video called, “Rayna meets a ‘robot’”…

[The technology described in this widely cited story from New Scientist moves us closer to sharing richer and more diverse sensory experiences over time and distance; the original story includes a 0:35 minute video and a second 1:08 minute video is available on YouTube. See Nimesha Ranasinghe’s website for more information, including the earlier Digital Lollipop project. –Matthew] [Image: Source: [TEI2017] Virtual Lemonade: Let’s Teleport Your Lemonade! via YouTube] Virtual lemonade sends colour and taste to a glass of water By Timothy Revell 24 March 2017 When life hands you digital lemons, make virtual lemonade. A system of sensors and…

[Here’s a good example of the evolution of presence-evoking technology and (though it’s not discussed in this story from idealog), the obvious ethical issues it raises. The idealog story includes more pictures and two videos; MIT Technology Review’s coverage includes a 1:42 minute video of Nadia; and more information is available from the Soul Machines website. For a related story that raises some of the ethical issues, see “Can Alexa lie?” from Shelly Palmer’s blog. –Matthew] Soul Machines unveils its first emotionally intelligent, lifelike avatar By Elly Strang 17 Feb 2017 A Kiwi company at the forefront of humanising AI…

[This short story from Quartz describes an intriguing use of virtual reality and presence: data from scans of a person’s eye are used to produce an interactive VR experience that doctors can experience together for collaborative diagnosis and treatment, and patients can use to better understand their condition. The scan data can also be used to print a 3D version of the eye. See the original Quartz story for a 1:32 minute video, and the Wellcome Image Awards website for more information including profiles of the team that developed the technique and a different 1:52 minute video (a 4:15 minute version…

[Disney Research has taken another intriguing step toward compelling presence illusions; this story from Gizmodo (where it includes a 2:47 minute video) outlines some of the applications, and coverage in Mashable goes further: “if you really want to go long on futurecasting, this may also be an early look at a real Star Trek holodeck, a fictional room that allows users to feel real impacts from virtual objects. Whether we get there through haptic feedback suits, real world object tracking, or perhaps a combination of the two, Disney Research’s experiment is yet another indication that we’re just at the beginning…

[This story from Nature describes the potential of presence to lead to new discoveries in mathematics; the original version includes another image, two videos, and references; for much more information about the project see eleVR’s website. –Matthew] Mathematicians create warped worlds in virtual reality Immersive experience set to become accessible to all. Davide Castelvecchi 21 March 2017 “It feels like the entire universe is within a sphere that is maybe within a couple metres’ radius,” says topologist Henry Segerman at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. He is describing, not an LSD trip, but his experience of exploring a curved universe…