[The partners in QuantVR “think there’s a very good and logical argument that by using and exploring stock market data in virtual reality, it’s going to really allow people to make better decisions”; is (spatial) presence a mediating variable? This is from TechRepublic, where the story includes another picture. –Matthew] QuantVR wants to turn stock market data into immersive virtual reality experiences Imagine a navigable city built from stock market data that you could travel through. QuantVR is building VR apps for visualizations to help you better understand the data. By Erin Carson June 1, 2015 Visualizing data is becoming…

[The 0:52 minute video featured with this story from The New York Times presents a first-person view of the journey through NYC history, and the One World Observatory just opened so you can experience it directly (if you do, let us know what you think). A related Fast Company story describes presence-evoking technology in the Observatory itself. –Matthew] [Image: Lower Manhattan in 1779, as portrayed in the elevator video. Reuben Hernandez for The New York Times] On Time-Lapse Rocket Ride to Trade Center’s Top, Glimpse of Doomed Tower By David W. Dunlap April 19, 2015 An imposingly realistic vision of…

[Another amazing place most of us will never see in person but that we can now ‘visit’ via presence technology. The National Geographic story includes a 1:15 minute video and the high resolution interactive 360 panoramas. –Matthew] Dive Into ‘Infinity’ With Dizzying Views of A Colossal Cave A series of 360° panoramas allows anyone with an internet connection to experience Vietnam’s Son Doong cave, one of the planet’s biggest. By Jane J. Lee Interactive and photographs by Martin Edström Published May 20, 2015 Son Doong is one of the world’s largest caves, with enormous chambers that can comfortably fit a…

[Even without the jump to VR, the ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) phenomenon has links to flow, synesthesia, and presence; this story from Boing Boing includes a 12:13 minute video and the link to the 17:18 minute interactive 360° ASMR video available from Littlestar. If nothing else, read the last sentence of the story below, and for more background, see an earlier piece in Boing Boing and a recent story about the early evidence regarding ASMR in New York Magazine. –Matthew] The whispery world of ASMR enters virtual reality For the first time, ASMR experiences are pioneering beyond simple soft…

[A vision of the future of presence in the context of work; this is from The Wall Street Journal, where the story includes a 2:22 minute video. –Mathew] [Image: Students at The University of Pennsylvania have created DORA, a robot that both mimics the movements of and sends visual information to a virtual reality headset. Their goal is to give users the experience of actually inhabiting the robot’s body, even if it’s halfway around the world. Photo: Drew Evans/The Wall Street Journal] The Future of Remote Work Feels Like Teleportation Virtual-reality headsets, 3-D cameras help make videoconferencing immersive By Christopher…

[If there have to be ads in VR, this may be a promising way to do it, and as the author of this piece in Road to VR notes, the analytics may be useful to (presence) designers. –Matthew] [Image: Here a pre-roll screenshot of another VR game is shown before another VR experience. Floating gaze-based menu options allow users to skip or interact with the ad.] Retinad’s Promising VR Ad and Analytics System is Now Backed with a $500,000 Investment By Ben Lang – May 20, 2015 Retinad, a company working to bring immersive advertising and analytics to virtual reality,…

[The key phrase in this report from BT (which features more pictures and two videos) is that the study’s results “[add] to the argument that 3D movies are more like watching real-life”; more details are in coverage by Forbes. –Matthew] How watching 3D movies could be good for your brain A scientific experiment has shown 3D movies to have a positive impact on brain activity. Last updated: 22 May 2015 If you’ve been to a 3D movie in the last couple of years, you can probably appreciate that it creates a more immersive experience. However, a group of scientists and…

[One of many ways presence experiences can be used to bring about positive change; this is a press release from Amnesty International UK. In coverage from May 21 in Civil Society News a spokesman says “we’ve had a really good response” and that “we are hoping to use them [VR headsets] in other campaigns as well if we have the right material.” –Matthew] [Image: Last month local activists recorded at least 85 barrel bomb attacks in Aleppo city, killing at least 110 civilians © Amnesty International (Khalil Hajjar)] ‘Virtual reality Aleppo’ street fundraising campaign launched 08 May 2015 ‘This is…

[This should enhance social presence in interesting ways; the story is from MIT’s Technology Review and includes the 0:56 minute video mentioned. –Matthew] [Image: The software combines data from sensors tracking the upper and lower parts of the face and matches the result onto a 3-D model of a face.] Oculus Rift Hack Transfers Your Facial Expressions onto Your Avatar Facebook teams with researchers to transfer your smiles and frowns into virtual reality. By Tom Simonite on May 20, 2015 Virtual reality is set to get a vital dash of social reality. Researchers at the University of Southern California and…

[I wonder what Van Gogh would think about this use of modern technology to expand on his work; this is from Good magazine, where the story includes more images and a 1:23 minute video; follow the link to the Oculus Mobile VR Jam for more information. –Matthew] Explore This Gorgeous Virtual Recreation of a Van Gogh Masterpiece by Rafi Schwartz May 13, 2015 Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh is widely held as one of the most significant and influential artists of all time. Van Gogh’s explorations of light and color blazed a luminescent path upon which subsequent artists have spent…

[Along with practical and ethical concerns, this raises interesting issues regarding the boundaries of ‘medium as social actor’ presence. It’s from IEEE Spectrum; the image is from coverage by The Sydney Morning Herald (which also includes two videos). –Matthew] [Image: Three-year-old Samantha Kraft was among the first Australians to receive Sony’s AIBO robotic dog in 2001. Photo: David Gray] Robots Might Be the Necessary Future of Urban Pet Ownership By Evan Ackerman Posted 13 May 2015 We all love our pets. We love them a crazy, ridiculous amount that is often entirely out of proportion to reality: you don’t want…

[This article from The Washington Post explores how compelling ‘artificial’ social interaction can be, and the implications of that as technology evolves; the provocative film Ex Machina, which I just saw with a group of presence scholars, carries the logic even further, to a physically embodied rather than virtual technology. –Matthew] Love in the time of bots By Dominic Basulto March 17, 2015 Convincing people to have a romantic relationship with a computer might be easier than it sounds. At this year’s SXSW in Austin, a chatbot on Tinder convinced a number of users that she was a cute 25-year-old woman…