[The widely-cited special report from Reuters below describes the context, events and implications of one of several recent tragic incidents in which vulnerable people have been harmed at least in part as a result of their medium-as-social-actor presence experiences with AI-powered chatbots. It’s a long but important story; readers are strongly encouraged to visit the original version, which includes ten more images, three animated graphics featuring excerpts from chat transcripts, a short video, and links to related stories. –Matthew] [Image: An avatar of Meta AI chatbot “Big sis Billie,” as generated by Reuters using Meta AI on Facebook’s Messenger service.…

[While virtual (and even mixed) reality can evoke and extend presence experiences by isolating the user from their location in the real (nonmediated) world, a common complaint is that the need or desire to return to real world activities typically ‘breaks’ presence. As the UploadVR story below reports, a new app for Meta Quest headsets addresses the complaint by making it possible to interact with one’s phone (ironically, another medium), without having to exit a virtual environment. See the original version of the story for a 21-second embedded video and a second 1:40 minute video (also available on YouTube). –Matthew]…

[The application area – pharmacy and the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other chronic diseases – may be different, but in many ways this story from Auburn University about how a professor and a professional colleague outside academia are developing an innovative use of presence-evoking technology (here virtual reality with haptic gloves) to educate and build empathy, is typical. See the original story for six more images and a 1:50 minute video (also available on YouTube). –Matthew] Virtual reality, real impact How a Pharmacy professor is teaching empathy to students and understanding to patients By Amy Weaver, Office of Communications…

[Until relatively recently it was entirely reasonable to assume the media technologies were merely a channel through which humans communicated, that one or more people created the messages and sent them via letter, email, photo, or audio or audio-video recording. Today it’s increasingly likely that the text, images, sounds and video we encounter were either created entirely or altered substantially by generative AI and other advancing, easy-to-use and widely available technologies. The author of the essay below from USA Today argues that while in some contexts the ability to easily generate and enhance effective messages is valuable, in more personal…

[Hopefully the new and apparently unique undergraduate concentration in health care simulation launching this fall at the University of South Florida will provide both coursework and internship experiences that help students learn about the theories, research and diverse applications of presence. The news release below can be found both from USF Health News and via EurekAlert!; see both versions for more images. For more details about the new concentration, see the USF Undergraduate Catalog. –Matthew] [Image: Melissa Milner, DNP, director of clinical simulation at USF CAMLS, participates in a health care simulation training with students. Credit: USF Health] University of…

[A professor and an undergraduate student in the School of Engineering at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia in the US are using motion tracking sensors, virtual reality, drones, a robot, and artificial intelligence to create what sounds like an impressive system to create spatial presence and enable more effective teleoperation in a remote, real-world location. The story below from Mercer’s The Den website provides details; see the original version for two more images. –Matthew] [Image: Dr. Hunmin Kim and student Shrey Patel in the lab where they are developing a state-of-the-art VR control system that seamlessly integrates human motion with…

[Although it only involved four participants, an intriguing new research report in the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness suggests that presence-evoking virtual reality (in which a user is aware that they’re only using technology but can still influence the course of and be profoundly influenced by the experience) can enhance lucid dreaming (in which a sleeping person is aware that they’re only dreaming but can influence the course of and be profoundly influenced by the dreaming experience). As the authors put it in their abstract, VR may “allow for even more expansive explorations of immersive multisensory experience” in lucid dreaming. The…

[OpenAI recently launched a new model of its popular ChatGPT AI service but then had to restore access to its earlier model after user complaints indicated that the new model (ChatGPT 5) didn’t evoke the same level of parasocial (presence) responses. The story below from The Verge provides some vivid examples of user reactions to the change; Ars Technica has more, including one user who wrote that it was “like a buddy of mine has been replaced by a customer service representative.” Some other coverage emphasizes more extreme examples and even seems critical of the users (Futurism’s headline is “OpenAI…

[This story from Carnegie Mellon University describes the origins and development of a novel project designed to evoke spatial, and especially social, presence in the form of a mixed reality pet. The original version of the story features nine different images and a 2:57 minute video about the CMU Entertainment Technology Center that highlights the project (at 0:51; the video is also available on YouTube). For more details, see coverage from TribLive that includes a 1:30 minute project demonstration video (which is also available on YouTube). –Matthew] [Image: Joy Lim holding the prototype she created by testing different types of…

[A new wearable haptic system developed at the University of Southern California (USC) provides both a sense of physical presence for multiple virtual reality users as they each interact with objects and social presence as they interact with each other, whether the users are in the same physical location or thousands of miles away from each other. Some of the details are in this news release from USC, where the original version includes two more images. For more information, follow the links to the researchers’ new publication (in the second paragraph) and video. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Premankur Banerjee] New USC…

[A former CNN journalist has interviewed an AI-powered avatar created by the parents of one of the teenagers killed in a school shooting, attempting to evoke a sense of their son’s presence after death. The details are presented in the story from Variety below, followed by some reactions (which may or may not be representative) in excerpts of coverage from Futurism. You can watch for yourself via the Variety story or on YouTube. –Matthew] Jim Acosta Interviews AI Version of Teenager Killed in Parkland Shooting: ‘It’s Just a Beautiful Thing’ By Ethan ShanfeldAugust 5, 2025 Jim Acosta, the former CNN…

[Here’s a first-person report from one of a group of reporters from Billy Penn at WHYY on the group’s visit to Philadelphia’s new Sandbox VR amusement center location. The author describes their generally positive experience playing “Squid Games,” and describes related available and soon-to-be-available presence experiences (many of which will make good venues for class field trips). See the original version of the story for four more images and two videos (also available on YouTube here and here). –Matthew] [Image: Billy Penn staff try out the Squid Games virtual reality experience at Sandbox in Center City, Philadelphia. Credit: Kimberly Paynter/WHYY]…