[In this vision for the future, “Facebook doesn’t just create the big social network for virtual reality (the ‘metaverse’ as it is sometimes called). It also makes Oculus Rift into the fully realized platform it deserves to be… far more like an evolved Second Life than it is like a VR Newsfeed.” This is from TechCrunch, where the post includes another image. –Matthew ] Facebook, Oculus And The Future Of Virtual Reality Posted Mar 15, 2015 by Dan Kaplan Editor’s note: Dan Kaplan helps startups tell their stories. He’s done marketing for Twilio, Asana and Salesforce and blogs about marketing,…

[Despite the uniqueness of the SNL 40 event, it seems likely that this or related technology will be applied to other television programming; this story is from AdWeek; a video of the SNL segment is on YouTube. –Matthew ] Wild Virtual Reality Experience Puts You Right in the Audience at SNL 40 Chris Milk’s latest project comes to SXSW By Tim Nudd March 15, 2015 It remains mostly unclear what kinds of virtual reality experiences will be most compelling to people. But NBC, Samsung and director Chris Milk presented one VR experience at South by Southwest this weekend that everyone…

[In the new film Ex Machina Swedish actress plays a convincingly human robot; a promotion at the SXSW festival cleverly evoked presence. This story is from AdWeek, where there’s another image; the film has an official website where you can watch the trailer; for a discussion about the film see coverage in TechCrunch. –Matthew ] Tinder Users at SXSW Are Falling for This Woman, but She’s Not What She Appears – ‘Have you ever been in love?’ By Tim Nudd March 15, 2015 Well, this is sneaky—and for some, a little heartbreaking. Tinder users at the SXSW festival on Saturday were…

[Another innovative use of VR and presence; this is from The Australian, where you can see more images and watch Samsung’s 6:18 minute video (also on YouTube); the press release is available from PR Newswire; for a somewhat less enthusiastic take, see coverage in the Sydney Morning Herald. –Matthew ] Father watches son’s birth on Galaxy VR headset from 4000km away Virtually visiting relatives in hospital may soon be possible following the demonstration of a Perth man witnessing his son’s birth from afar in Chinchilla on a VR headset. March 16, 2015 Chris Griffith, Senior Technology Journalist, Sydney Wife Alison…

[Insights into how media content, not just form, evokes presence (and another example of the explicit use of that term)… this is from Gamasutra. –Matthew ] [Image: A player sees themselves as the character Chell in Portal] Writing presence: How good storytelling helps a VR game feel real March 3, 2015 | By Alex Wawro The business of virtual reality design is booming, but the tools are still a bit clunky and untested. It’s hard enough to make a VR game that’s comfortable and satisfying to play for extended periods of time; how do you tell a good story in…

[Some interesting insights about VR and presence (though not by name) from Disney’s Bei Yang; the story in Wired includes a 1:13 minute video. For more on Disney’s plans for VR, see coverage in Venture Beat. –Matthew ] [Image: At experiences like Goofy’s Paint ’n Play at Disney Tokyo, immersion goes beyond the usual VR headsets.] For Disney, the Future of VR Goes Beyond a Headset Chris Baker 03.09.15 SAN FRANCISCO, CA—This year’s Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco was full of buzz about head-mounted virtual reality displays. Valve unveiled the HTC Vive headset running Steam VR, Sony gave us…

[Would brain responses to sensorially richer virtual environments, or even a Holodeck, be more similar to those for nonmediated environments? This is from BrainBlogger. –Matthew ] Brains Aren’t Fooled By Virtual Reality by Viatcheslav Wlassoff, PhD | February 24, 2015 The scenes and the environments in World of Warcraft games appear so real that, for a moment, you forget you are staring at the screen. Technology has advanced so much that we can not only recreate reality but also engage with it. But however real the virtual may seem, the brain knows the difference! According to the recently published findings,…

[Telepresence robots are changing the experience for teacher and students at Michigan State in this article from Campus Technology; more details from are available directly from MSU, and Slate has a similar story about the introduction of the robots in high schools. –Matthew ] Michigan State Tests Telepresence Robots for Online Students By Leila Meyer 02/24/15 Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI, has been experimenting with telepresence robots that let online students participate in face-to-face classes. The university offers a doctoral program in educational psychology and educational technology, which is available in both face-to-face and distance education formats, but…

[This installation creates an interesting set of embodiment illusions; the creators explain the origins and purpose of the project in the second half of this post from the Leap Motion blog, which includes lots of pictures and videos. –Matthew ] Reach into the Uncanny Valley with the Augmented Hand Series Golan Levin / March 5, 2015 An earlier version of this post appeared on flong.com. The Augmented Hand Series is a real-time interactive software system that presents playful, dreamlike, and uncanny transformations of its visitors’ hands. Originally conceived in 2004, the project was developed at the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative…

[This story focuses on a central aspect of presence, the technology becoming invisible to the user; it’s from Fast Company, where you’ll find several more pictures. By the way, note the Samsung “Presence sensor” in the image (upper right in the middle). –Matthew ] The Future of Consumer Tech Is About Making You Forget It’s There Microsoft, Samsung, GoPro, and others take their best guesses at the next five years of consumer electronics. By Jared Newman February 27, 2015 When Apple introduced the iPad 2 in 2011, it laid out a noble goal for the future of technology. “Technology alone…

[Several reporters who experienced a demo of the Valve and HTC collaboration Vive VR system at recent conferences have written mostly glowing reviews (see stories in BBC News, PC World, Re/Code, Venture Beat and a review roundup in the Christian Science Monitor). The most enthusiastic, and the one that most explicitly mentions presence, is in Gizmodo – here’s an excerpt: “What this headset nails—and I mean f***ing nails—is a sense of presence. A sense that you’re not just seeing a different world, but that your actual body is being transported there. Strap on the Vive and you are somewhere else.…

[As I mentioned in a post in the ISPR Members Facebook group yesterday, I’ve noticed what seems to be an increase in the use of the term presence in the tech industry and press; here’s a good example from AMD; this is the company’s press release but it’s been covered in venues like Slashgear and Forbes, and Sasa Marinkovic, the head of software marketing for AMD’s computing and graphics group, writes about it in detail in a new piece in TechCrunch titled “First Rule of VR: Don’t Break the Presence.” –Matthew ] AMD Takes Aim at Exceptional Content, Comfort and…