[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…

[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…