[This story from Adweek (where it includes an additional picture) is about promoting brands and products with presence experiences in an interesting setting, one with some unique challenges (see the last two paragraphs). –Matthew] [Image: A screenshot from Geometry Global’s campaign promoting Jim Beam Devil’s Cut bourbon] Is Virtual Reality the Next Big Form of In-Bar Entertainment? Jim Beam and Dos Equis have been quick to embrace the trend By Lauren Johnson April 9, 2015 Would you strap on an Oculus Rift headset at your favorite bar? In the latest example of how marketers are embracing virtual reality, alcohol brands…

[Another creative use for presence; this story is from Digital Trends, where it includes the 4:58 minute video of the proposal. More details and pictures can be found in SlashGear’s coverage and with the video on YouTube. –Matthew] Watch this man propose to his girlfriend with a VR headset By Andy Boxall — April 8, 2015 Mike Rios doesn’t do simple marriage proposals. When he decided to pop the question to his girlfriend Maggie Jensen, he went all out to make it as memorable as possible. How do we know this? Because he turned the whole thing into a viral…

[This story from The New York Times (where it includes another image) sets the stage for rich discussions about different types of presence: Technology marches on, “But will passengers ever set foot on [a] plane piloted by robots, or humans thousands of miles from the cockpit?” –Matthew] Planes Without Pilots By John Markoff April 6, 2015 MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Mounting evidence that the co-pilot crashed a Germanwings plane into a French mountain has prompted a global debate about how to better screen crewmembers for mental illness and how to ensure that no one is left alone in the cockpit.…

[Looking for evidence that presence-evoking technologies are ‘important’? This story from TechCrunch, which includes another chart, presents new forecast analyses for the AR and VR markets from Digi-Capital. –Matthew] Augmented And Virtual Reality To Hit $150 Billion, Disrupting Mobile By 2020 Posted April 7, 2015 by Tim Merel (@DigiCapitalist) Editor’s note: Tim Merel is the managing director of Digi-Capital. Virtual reality and augmented reality are exciting – Google Glass coming and going, Facebook’s $2 billion for Oculus, Google’s $542 million into Magic Leap, not to mention Microsoft’s HoloLens. There are amazing early-stage platforms and apps, but VR/AR in 2015 feels a…

[Here’s an unusual context for presence: ‘Fake food’ is apparently common in Japan’s restaurants, and now it’s expanded into fashion; this story from Munchies includes several more pictures. See also “Japan’s newest trend: Bacon n’ eggs on the iPhone” from CNBC (!). –Matthew] This Japanese Fake Food Artist Makes Ramen and Bacon Wearable By Hilary Pollack April 1, 2015 In Japan, fake food is more than a menu enhancer or a quirky decoration: It’s a straight-up artform. Making an egg appear gelatinous, a bowl of noodles appear still-warm, or a piece of bacon appear juicy requires more than just a…

[This story from Newsweek only begins to raise some of the implications – for presence and otherwise – of customizable robot personalities stored in the cloud. –Matthew] [Image: MIT’s social robot Nexi; from Popular Science] Google Patents Customisable Robot Personalities By Luke Hurst 4/2/15 at 12:02 PM Google is preparing for a world in which robots possess human-like personalities after filing a patent for the technology in the United States. Quartz, a tech and business news website, reports that the patent, awarded this week to the technology giant, will allow for the downloading and customization of robot personalities which could…

[Interesting take (note the date) on first order (biology) and second order (technology) mediation, i.e., presence and telepresence; this is from Tom’s Hardware, where the story includes more pictures. –Matthew] Move Over, Virtual Reality: Literal Reality Is The Next Big Thing By Seth Colaner, Fritz Nelson, Niels Broekhuijsen, Lucian Armasu, Rexly Penaflorida II April 1, 2015 Move over, Oculus Rift. Get lost, HTC Vive. Don’t even bother, Microsoft’s Hololens. There’s an unbelievable new tech in town called literal reality (LR) that completely blows away the best VR or AR experience you’ve ever had or could hope to have. An entity…

[Howard Lichtman, founder and president of the Human Productivity Lab, an independent consultancy and research firm that helps organizations design visual collaboration strategies and deploy solutions (and a keynote speaker at PRESENCE 2009 in Los Angeles), is also Chief Creative/Commercial Officer of Array Telepresence, which takes a different approach to creating immersive telepresence experiences for the high-end TP market. Details are below from Telepresence Options, and a video interview with the company principals is available here. –Matthew] Array Telepresence Debuts Immersive Telepresence Using Your Existing Videoconferencing System at Enterprise Connect March 16, 2015 Array Telepresence, a start-up telepresence solution provider…

[Some of the use cases in the very entertaining 2:26 minute video that accompanies this story from The Hyped Geek could be very useful and popular (note: the creators didn’t take John Oliver’s pledge!) –Matthew] Taste food off your phone with Maxis Screen Savour Posted By Boss Geek on Mar 30, 2015 Ever drooled over a well taken food pics on Instagram? Some look so good you wish you could just lick them of your screen and taste them. Of course if your idea of a good taste is the salty taste of your face sweat or the dull taste…

[Another way to get immersed in mediated experiences, from PlayStation.Blog, where you’ll find many more pictures and a 2:31 minute video (note: the creators didn’t take John Oliver’s pledge!) –Matthew] Introducing PlayStation Flow A watershed moment in wearable tech By Ariel Ingannare, Wearable Tech Manager Posted 1 April At PlayStation we’ve always been dedicated to bringing gamers immersive experiences. From innovative features like Remote Play and Share Play to the endless possibilities of the upcoming Project Morpheus, PS4 is continually creating new ways to play. Here at the PlayStation Wearable Entertainment Technology (P-WET) group we are ready to add to…

[Most of the coverage of the anxiety-treatment VR experience Deep refers to this story from VICE, which includes other images. For more information, including many more images and videos, be sure to visit Owen Harris’ website. –Matthew] Experiencing ‘Deep,’ the Virtual Reality Game That Relieves Anxiety Attacks March 24, 2015 By Joe Donnelly From the column ‘VICE Vs Video Games’ I remember the first time I realized my anxiety had become a problem. I was with friends in a popular Glasgow bar watching Sunday afternoon soccer. It was quiet, and alongside our table stood three vacant chairs: two with sturdy…

[This looks like another step toward effective mobile/wearable augmented reality (I like the heading “Mixing Virtual Reality and Reality Reality”)… The article is from ReadWrite, where there’s a 0:41 minute video; more coverage, including more videos, is available from 3D Printing Industry. –Matthew]   Here’s A New Way To Step Into A Virtual World Occipital’s mobile 3D-scanning sensor goes virtual. Signe Brewster Mar 27, 2015 When you strap on an Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset, you’re free to look up, down and around. But as soon as you try to explore the virtual world further, you’re stuck. You can’t interact with…