[Yet another application area for telepresence is described in this Baking Business report on a panel discussion at the 2023 conference of Bakery Equipment Manufacturers and Allieds (BEMA). More information on the RealWear HMT technology mentioned near the end is available from RealWear’s website. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Sosland Publishing Co.] Telepresence devices open new opportunities for baking industry By Charlotte Atchley June 29, 2023 PALMETTO BLUFF, SC — One of the greatest technological adoptions seen in the commercial baking industry from the COVID-19 pandemic was the use of telepresence devices for remote maintenance. With bakeries closed off to visitors and…

[An undergraduate student at Indiana University wrote this thoughtful and thought-provoking essay published in the Indiana Daily Student. It’s about some of the potential presence-related dangers of technologies from TV to digital humans. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Illustration by Juliette Albert] OPINION: AI could be detrimental to human relationships By Isabella Vesperini June 29, 2023 In a primarily technology-driven world, I sometimes wonder: what will come in the way of face-to-face interaction next? TV was one of the first things that began the trend. Yes, TV can help educate and inform an audience, but it can also distract people from interacting…

[This very short BBC News story is about an innovative program in the UK that uses virtual reality and presence to stimulate discussion and learning to reduce knife crime. For more specific local coverage about the program see stories in the West Bridgford Wire (May 2023) and Saddleworth Independent (June 2023). For video news reports see a 2:39 minute June 2022 story from Northwest Tonight via YouTube and a 6:43 minute June 2019 story from Channel 4 News. And for much more information about this and related programs see the website of the organization Round Midnight. –Matthew] [Image: Cast and…

[Although books don’t provide the direct sensory stimuli generally associated with presence experiences, they certainly can evoke a strong sense of “being there” with characters in a story world. A new product called the Sol Reader is designed to increase the potential for such experiences. It’s described in the very brief story below from DesignTAXI as well as in stories from New Atlas (“Sol Reader puts bookworms right inside their ebooks“) and Men’s Gear (“Make reading more immersive with the Sol Reader.” For more information see a 4:45 minute January 2023 review from Brad Lynch on YouTube and visit the…

[The essay below from No Proscenium points out that as more people and companies design and market experiences (vs. traditional products and services), and in particular immersive (presence-evoking) experiences that give people agency and either inadvertently or deliberately lead to “transformation change,” we need to take that term, and the responsibilities of designing experiences that  inadvertently or deliberately “show the participant another way of being in the world” seriously. See the original version of the essay for three more images. –Matthew] [Image: The “climate simulator” at ‘Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser.’ Credit: Noah Nelson for No Proscenium] “Transformational Experiences” Are The…

[Here is a thought-provoking essay by philosopher Stephen Asma about embodiment, agency and the nature of consciousness that illustrates the difference between our evolution-based tendency to anthropomorphize machines that look and seem to think like humans (i.e., medium as social actor presence illusions) and potential future accurate, empathetic perceptions of AI-based embodied consciousness. The essay is from the Blog of the American Philosophical Associaton (APA). –Matthew] [Image: Art by Stephen Asma, published with the author’s permission] AI Films and the Fudging of Consciousness By Stephen Asma, a professor of philosophy at Columbia College Chicago. He is the author of ten…

[The potential benefits of evoking presence after a loved one has died are illustrated in this short, personal story from the website of WZZM 13 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. See the two-minute video report in the original story and visit the pages of the Moore to Give website for more details.  –Matthew] Kent Co. man helps families grieve loss of loved ones through virtual reality technology Moore to Give will record a loved one with a 360 degree camera for you to play back in VR, like you’re right in the room with them. By Nate Belt July 4, 2023…

[On this US holiday, here’s a fun presence game to play – as described by HypeArt (and recommended by Free Technology for Teachers), Google’s Odd One Out challenges players to identify AI-generated images and could enhance media literacy regarding AI and presence. Of course, because generative AI is evolving so quickly the task will soon become too challenging unless it’s rigged to allow players to win. The related story from Futurism that follows below illustrates the challenges even companies like Google and Sony face in distinguishing ‘real’ and ‘fake’ images.  –Matthew] Google’s New Online Game Challenges You to Guess Which…

[An AI research lab is beta testing technology that provides users with their own personalized digital AI assistant to not only help them be more productive at work but offer advice for their personal life. The story below  from Venture Beat includes some of the details and touches on some of the benefits and dangers; see the original version of the story for more pictures. Others are working to develop similar technology too; for more information see “Bill Gates says the winner of the A.I. race will be whoever creates a personal assistant—and it’ll spell the end for Amazon” from…

[Local TV stations in the US including NBC-Dallas-Fort Worth, WINK, WISH and WFMZ recently aired the same news report (with their own anchors’ introduction) based on a promising application of presence being explored by researchers at the University of Central Florida, as described in more detail in the UCF Today story below. –Matthew] [Image: A UCF RESTORES team member conducts a simulated therapy session designed to help a patient overcome PTSD resulting from their stay in intensive care] Innovative VR Therapy Helps Patients Overcome PTSD Caused by Hospital Stays Assistant Professor of Nursing Brian Peach is leading the study, which…

[A group of researchers at Ohio State University are using machine learning analyses of old maps to create VR-viewable 3D models of neighborhoods as they existed decades ago. This story is from Ohio State News and an earlier report (at the link in the editor’s note at the end) includes this quote from Professor Harvey Miller: “Our ultimate goal would be to come up with 3D visualizations that are realistic enough to give people a visceral feeling of what those neighborhoods were like… We see this as a crossover between science and humanities.” –Matthew] [Image: A 3D model of the…

[Others have used marketing campaigns, in some cases including presence-evoking technologies like VR, to bring audience members into the world (or ‘universe’) of a film or TV series, but as the Sound & Vision story below explains, Netflix has created a particularly clever cross-media campaign that brings audiences into the dystopian reality portrayed in “Joan is Awful,” the first episode of the latest season of Black Mirror. A story in LADbible describes how some audience members have had their name and picture used in real-world billboards for the campaign; and a story in DesignTAXI that includes more pictures of the…