[Though scholars too rarely study it, presence and sexuality is a fascinating topic – the story below is from Digital Trends, where it includes a 3:56 minute video. More reactions to the CES demonstration are detailed in coverage in PCWorld and Mashable (which features a 3:22 minute video); a thoughtful different analysis can be found in Slate. –Matthew] [Image: Source: Slate] I tried VR porn in a CES hotel suite, and I’ll never be the same By Will Fulton — January 12, 2016 Porn has always been a trailblazer. Throughout the last few decades, the pornography industry has been an…

[This Microsoft project suggests the potential of AR to create social (tele)presence; the story is from MIT Technology Review; for a closely related 5:19 minute video, see coverage in Numrush. –Matthew] Augmented Reality Study Projects Life-Sized People into Other Rooms A Microsoft Research study uses augmented reality to project a life-size person into a room with you, perched in an empty seat. By Rachel Metz on January 19, 2016 Nothing beats talking to another person face-to-face, but a group of researchers are considering whether a life-size projection of a person who appears to be sitting across from you in an…

[Presence has a big role to play in the evolution of brick and mortar retail in the age of online shopping; this story is from Forbes, where it features more images. –Matthew] The Future Of Retail: Beyond Stories Told, To Stories Experienced By Rachel Arthur Jan 26, 2016 If you’d visited a mall housing a J.C. Penney store over the holidays, you may have been welcomed by a virtual reality experience that took shoppers on an immersive ride to the North Pole. Created with marketing and technology agency Narrative, the “Twas The Flight Before Christmas” initiative was in place in…

[To me this illustrates the true promise of effective presence illusions; the story is from MTV and features two more images; more information on the VR project is available on the Specular Theory website. –Matthew] This Virtual Reality Experience Shows Police Brutality From Both Sides “Perspective; Chapter 2: The Misdemeanor” is a harrowing VR project that lets you experience police brutality first hand. by Crystal Bell January 26, 2016 Most people think of video games when they think of virtual reality, but a burgeoning group of innovative filmmakers are producing narrative VR experiences with the unprecedented ability to affect us…

[The application of virtual reality and presence to the work of surrealist Salvador Dali (and presence experience creator Walt Disney) seems particularly appropriate; this story is from the AP via Business Insider; a 1:16 minute promotional video, a 5:09 minute 360 degree navigable version of the experience, and more information, are available from The Dali Museum. –Matthew] Virtual reality experience highlight of new Dali Museum show Beth J. Harpaz, Associated Press Jan. 22, 2016 Visitors to a new exhibition at The Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, won’t just be looking at art. Thanks to virtual reality, they’ll be exploring…

[As this and other articles on the artist’s work note (without using the term), it’s hard to suppress a presence response to these realistic dolls. The story is from the Huffington Post and features more pictures; for a recent update on research on the Uncanny Valley, see coverage in Slate. –Matthew] Don’t Blink! These Russian Dolls Are So Lifelike They Could Move Captivating videos show Michael Zajkov eerily whittling away blocks of clay into lifelike human beings. 01/21/2016 Nina Golgowski Trends reporter, The Huffington Post When it comes to dolls, Michael Zajkov is not playing around. The Russian artist’s collection…

[This discussion from The New Yorker is full of incomplete but provocative ideas about the nature of our experience of both reality and mediated/virtual reality. –Matthew] [Image: Credit Sarah Lee / eyevine / Redux] Werner Herzog Talks Virtual Reality By Patrick House January 12, 2016 “I’m a skeptic of 3-D, but when I saw the paintings I knew I had to use it,” Werner Herzog told Judith Thurman in 2010, after the New York première of his documentary “Cave of Forgotten Dreams.” The film examines some of the world’s earliest known paintings, which cover the walls of the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave,…

[Even inexpensive VR gear is becoming more realistic and likely to evoke presence; this is from Motherboard. –Matthew] [Image: Screenshot from Google’s sample app for audio spatialization.] 3D Sound Is Coming to Google Cardboard to Make Virtual Worlds More Real Michael Byrne, Editor January 14, 2016 Google’s goofy but cool Cardboard virtual-reality platform is getting an audio upgrade. On Wednesday, Cardboard project manager Nathan Martz announced via the Google Developer’s Blog that software development kits (SDKs) for both the Java-based (Android) and Unity-based (iOS) implementations of the VR headset API would be getting support for audio spatialization. Now, Cardboard apps…

[This Panasonic prototype seems to evoke presence in multiple ways (the headline in The Verge is “Panasonic’s transparent display is hard for your eyes to believe”); the story below is from Digital Journal, where it features a different image and the 2:05 minute video from YouTube. For a nice summary of this and a wide variety of other presence-related tech at CES 2016 see coverage in CNN Money. ––Matthew] [Image: Source: CNN Money] Panasonic’s transparent TV disappears when you wave at it By James Walker Jan 12, 2016 As part of its demonstrations during CES 2016 last week, Panasonic unveiled…

[Without using the term, this story from Engadget covers key current challenges and future prospects for designing effective presence illusions; for more details see coverage in The Verge. –Matthew] [Image: Source: The Verge] Fox pushes virtual reality to the limit with 30 minutes on Mars Being Matt Damon has never been easier. Joseph Volpe January 08, 2016 I wasn’t prepared for The Martian VR Experience. All I’d known before sitting down in a padded seat in a near-pitch-black booth, tucked away in the Library bar at Vegas’ Marquee nightclub, was that I’d be enveloped in virtual reality for up to…

[We usually study individual, brief presence experiences, but the ‘performance’ in this story looks ahead to when VR and presence is a way of life. It’s from The Creators Project, where you’ll find four more images and two videos. –Matthew] This Guy Just Spent 48 Hours in Virtual Reality By DJ Pangburn — Jan 14 2016 After decades of broken dreams, virtual reality appears to be fulfilling its promise. It’s not just that the hardware and software are finally arriving with Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear headsets (motion sickness not excluded); it’s that artists, game designers, filmmakers, and other creatives…

[No need to imagine what the game player will see – these clever people “injected an actor into a scene using VR” and then captured their performance; the story is from Ars Technica, where it includes the 3:50 minute explanatory video. See the studio’s blog for more information and images. –Matthew] Is this the world’s first full virtual-reality motion/voice capture session? Actors combine mo-cap suit, HTC Vive to become characters, see virtual teleprompters. by Sam Machkovech – Jan 13, 2016 Forget latex suits and white ping-pong balls. Motion-capture sessions for video games and films have only gotten more intense over…