[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…

[As a commenter notes, it’s surprising this hasn’t been investigated sooner; the story is from Ars Technica and more information, including the article abstract, is available from Purdue University’s coverage. –Matthew] Virtual noses keep real-world VR sickness at bay Simulation sickness solution may have been sitting right in front of our faces. by Kyle Orland – Mar 25, 2015 As the new wave of virtual reality headsets barrel ever closer to consumer reality, the effects of “simulator sickness” on a significant portion of the population remain a concern. A group of researchers at Purdue University say they’ve found an easy…

[As the second headline in this story from Popular Science suggests, we could recreate the experiences of, and learn about and prepare for, a variety of natural disasters using presence-evoking technology. You can watch the Weather Channel segment on MSNBC’s website and read detailed information about the tornado recreation in Virginia Tech’s coverage. –Matthew] [Image: Tornado recreation in the Cube: Re-creating the storm in the Cube at the Moss Arts Center enables researchers to see the entire storm in 3-D, which offers great potential for research into how storms form. Credit: Virginia Tech] Walk Through The Belly Of A Tornado…

[This informed view of the market for high-end telepresence systems is from NoJitter, where the story includes the mentioned video and two more images. –Matthew ] [Image: Rowan Trollope’s IX 5000 demo at Cisco Collaboration Summit 2014] Immersive Telepresence: New Systems for a Declining Market Super big video conferencing systems may only serve a niche in the enterprise, but that hasn’t stopped ongoing development from Cisco, Polycom, and Huawei. Brian Riggs | March 02, 2015 When it comes to video conferencing these days, virtual meeting rooms, mobile and desktop clients, cost-effective cloud services, and similarly democratizing solutions are in. Super…

[The author’s answer to the question in the headline is no. This is from Forbes. –Matthew ] Are Virtual Reality Headsets Too Immersive For Their Own Good? 3/23/2015 Seth Porges In the burgeoning world of virtual reality, to use is to believe. With few exceptions, I’ve found it takes but a quick demo on an Oculus Rift (or one of its growing number of competitors) for skeptics to realize how awesome—and awesomely immersive—the tech can be. Five minutes, and all your held-over-from-the-nineties notions of VR (and, as the show Community recently pointed out, its disastrous effect on nineties cinema) are…

[If they can solve the motion sickness issues, biking in VR has great potential – watch just a little of the video included in this story from VentureBeat to see how it’s different than current screen-based biking exercise equipment; the story also includes a photo gallery of virtual environments. –Matthew ] Widerun brings virtual reality to indoor cycling March 20, 2015 Paul Sawers Virtual reality (VR) is creeping into just about every orifice of our lives, across music, gaming, sports broadcasting, and more. There’s even a dedicated accelerator for VR startups. Now, an Italian company is making moves to embed…

[Here’s an inspiring story about the potential of presence to improve people’s lives; it’s from CNN Money, where it includes another picture; see also a related story, “Bedroom-bound quadriplegic develops drone to see the world,“ posted in ISPR Presence News last November. –Matthew ] [Image: Kavita Krishnaswamy virtually visits the Seattle Art Museum.] Will robots help the bedridden see the world? By Heather Kelly, CNNMoney (San Francisco) March 12, 2015 Kavita Krishnaswamy hasn’t left her house in six years, but that hasn’t stopped her from wandering around the Seattle Art Museum and taking in concerts at the National Music Museum…