[The benefits and dangers of evoking a sense of the presence of people after they die is receiving new press coverage, prompted by the granting of a Meta patent application. The AOL version of a paywalled story from Business Insider is below, followed by additional details from coverage by Mashable, Cybernews and Dexerto. –Matthew] Death isn’t the end: Meta patented an AI that lets you keep posting from beyond the grave By Sydney BradleyFebruary 12, 2026 Does Meta want to make our social media accounts immortal? The company was granted a patent in late December that outlines how a large…

[Researchers at Colorado State University are using presence-evoking virtual reality to teach undergraduate students about veterinary care to help address the shortage of people going into careers as veterinarians. This story is from The Rocky Mountain Collegian, where the original version includes a second image. See also the related June 2025 ISPR Presence News post “Training your farm workforce: Virtual reality (and presence) as an aid in livestock care.” –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Courtesy of Sangeeta Rao] Researchers utilize virtual reality to address veterinary shortages, receive USDA NIFA grant By Chloe Rios, Staff ReporterFebruary 4, 2026 In 2025, food animal veterinarians…

[Below you’ll find the introduction to, and then a few excerpts from the transcript of, a 37:31 minute episode (EP184) of Business Lab, a podcast produced by MIT Technology Review’s Insights. The guests are from the company Shure and the Perception & Cognition Laboratory at Yale University and although they only refer to it indirectly, they discuss the importance of presence in communication via technology. You can learn more about the research they discuss, and listen to audio clips from the study, in the podcast episode or via the online article: Walter-Terrill, R., Ongchoco, J.D.K., & Scholl, B.J. (2025). Superficial…

[Researchers at the University of Utah’s John and Marcia Price College of Engineering are using artificial intelligence to take over some of the control of the movements of robotic arms and hands to make the experience more natural and intuitive (i.e., make it easier for those with prostheses to overlook the role of technology in their experience). The original version of this story includes two video demonstrations (which are also on YouTube here and here). For related news, see “How much can an autonomous robotic arm feel like part of the body” from Toyohashi University of Technology (TUT) via EurekAlert!…

The Magic Table: A (presence-evoking) dinner that knows a few tricks [The new immersive dining experience described in this story from The Philippine Star is designed to evoke presence – a perceptual illusion of technology that magically doesn’t seem like technology. See the original version of the story for nine more pictures. For more about the creators’ earlier work, see the June 2015 ISPR Presence News post “Presence delights: Le Petit Chef brings projection mapping to your dinner plate.” –Matthew] [Image: Dinner, dealt with a sleight of hand] The Magic Table: A dinner that knows a few tricks At the…

[The short description below of a presence-evoking immersive media attraction now in New York is from TimeOut; an October 2025 Metro UK review of the attraction when it was in London provides additional context and includes a 2:08 minute video and this assessment: “The virtual journey is possibly the closest yet to imagining what Rome was really like thousands of years ago. And it feels almost too real as you’re standing at the edge of the balcony in the Colosseum, contemplating whether you should jump off to see what happens. It’s fantastically life-like.” Excerpts from another review from BroadwayWorld follow…

[Unfortunately, just as those who employ increasingly powerful presence-evoking technologies for positive applications, scammers use them to deceive their victims; another disturbing example is described in this story from Gizmodo (the original Wired report it references is behind a paywall for many readers). You can find the 9:23 minute cautionary video by Fr. Mike Schmitz described in the story on YouTube. For related information, see the AFP story “AI-generated Pope sermons flood YouTube, TikTok” and the MinistryWatch story “How scammers use AI and cryptocurrency to defraud churches.” –Matthew] [Image: Source: Ascension Presents on YouTube] Deepfake AI Pastors Are Stealing From…

[In what sounds like a very early step toward the Emergency Medical Hologram in the Star Trek franchise (“The Doctor” on Star Trek: Voyager), researchers at Arizona State University are developing AI-guided augmented reality technology to provide real-time instructions for providing emergency medical care for people in remote environments such as space and rural areas on Earth where there is no internet service. See the original story from Arizona State University Engineering News for two more pictures. An interview with the lead researchers is available in text and audio formats from KJZZ in Pheonix. –Matthew] [Image: Pooyan Fazli (left), an…

[A new humanoid robot named Moya is drawing attention on social media and in the press for some of its realistic attributes. The story below is from New Atlas, where the original version includes the mentioned 1:33 minute video from Shanghai Eye (the video is also available on YouTube). Additional details from Interesting Engineering and TechRadar follow below. More videos are available from the South China Morning Post (1:11 on YouTube), Hola Fujian (0:28 on Facebook, with the tagline “Science fiction coming to life”), and AI Revolution (a detailed 13:30 minute report). –Matthew] [Image: Source: Interesting Engineering] She walks, shows…

[A government’s use of AI to alter images of real people and events to manipulate perceptions of media users is clearly unethical and a serious peril of increasingly sophisticated presence-evoking technology. This story from AP describes examples of this behavior by President Trump and his administration along with the views of several experts regarding the dangers it brings. See the original version of the story for an interactive version of the header photographs as well as a second image. –Matthew] [Image: An image of Nekima Levy Armstrong posted by Kristi Noem (left) and a manipulated image of her posted by…

[This story from Penn State Schuylkill provides another example of how an interdisciplinary team of experts, supported by their university, can use presence-evoking technology to enhance student experiences and learning outcomes. Follow the link in the story for more information. –Matthew] [Image: Penn State Schuylkill students, Noy Halimi and Jayden Blankenhorn using VR headsets in Theatre 105 class. Credit: Penn State.] Theatre students use virtual reality to explore ancient performance spaces February 3, 2026 SCHUYLKILL HAVEN, Pa. — Students in Theatre 105 at Penn State Schuylkill are stepping into the past using modern technology, exploring ancient and historic performance spaces…

[A mismatch between the sound of a robot’s voice and the movements of its lips draws attention to the technology during an interaction, making a presence response impossible. Engineers at Columbia University are addressing the problem by having their robot EMO learn to move its lips by watching itself in a mirror and watching recordings of humans speaking and singing. As the lead researcher explained to the author of this story from Columbia Engineering, “human faces are the ultimate interface for communication, and we are beginning to unlock their secrets.” For more information, watch a 1:16 minute video of EMO…