[This story from MIT Technology Review describes a particularly powerful application of social presence, and illustrates how maximizing the level of perceptual realism should not always be the goal. Here are four key quotes from the story; see the original version for pictures of Claire and Ted Matte and Tom Nicel and his avatar: “’The lightbulb went off in my head—people feel like they’re really together in VR,’ [EvolVR founder] Jeremy [Nickel] says. That feeling of true presence, as if avatars were really sharing a room together, convinced him that a spiritual community could form among people wearing headsets.” “The…

[This CNET story provides an interesting first-person tour of the current (and likely future) options for providing haptic sensations that enhance presence experiences. See the original story for five more images and three videos.  –Matthew] [Image: Trying out HaptX haptic gloves in Las Vegas: These are considered the best, but they’re absolutely huge. Credit: Scott Stein/CNET] The Revelation I Got From Experiencing HaptX Is Wild I tested gloves and buzzing things in Las Vegas to see where the future points. By Scott Stein January 9, 2023 I put my hands out flat and loaded them into a pair of gloves…

[For more technical details about how it works, see coverage in Ars Technica, but this story from New Atlas captures some of the implications of the dizzying pace of progress in AI-generated images, videos and here voices, during these “interesting times.” See the original story for an embedded Tweet on the topic and visit Microsoft’s Vall-E website for many more details and to listen to examples. –Matthew] [Image: “A robot stealing a human’s voice, in the style of Picasso.” Generated by DALL-E] Microsoft’s new VALL-E AI can capture your voice in 3 seconds By Loz Blain January 10, 2023 Microsoft…

[Here’s an idea: Get rid of the headset and glasses all together. This first-person Mashable report from the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas explores some of the new options for high resolution 3D displays that can evoke presence without having to be worn on your head. See the original story for three different images and a 49 second video (also available on YouTube) about the Brelyon Fusion; the Brelyon press release is available from PR Newswire and there’s more information on the company’s website.  –Matthew] CES 2023: The future of Metaverse and VR depends on these glasses-free…

[The recent study described in this story from Psychology Today focuses on a type of presence phenomenon Matt Jones and I identified in a 2015 book chapter (and supplementary interactive online figure) as parapresence, a “perception that a person or entity is physically present in one’s environment when they are not, and could not logically be, present.” While it can be evoked using technology (e.g., complex magnetic fields), in this case technology is not involved. Aside from being fascinating, the parapresence in this story is a good reminder of how malleable our perceptions of reality can be. –Matthew] What It…

[As reported in this CNBC story, the ABBA Voyage concert experience that features 3D digital avatars of the music group performing in a dedicated arena in London has been a huge success and, despite some significant challenges, is expected to lead to more presence experiences that simulate live musical performances. See the original story for five more images and a 2:16 minute video. –Matthew] [Image: View of the ABBA Arena on May 26, 2022 in London, England. Credit: Dave J Hogan / Getty Images] ABBA’s successful avatar show in London offers a glimpse at a daring new direction for live…

[It may seem basic, especially for those familiar with the work of scholars like Short, Williams and Christie (specifically their 1976 book The social psychology of telecommunications), but this story from The Irish Times describes new research and a new framework that demonstrates how to best match the purpose, content and other characteristics of a meeting to the most appropriate level of presence and therefore mode (from audio conference to telepresence to face-to-face). See the original story for an additional picture and read the new article in Business Horizons, “Business meetings in a postpandemic world: When and how to meet…

[With heavy, uncomfortable headsets and even glasses a major source of interference with presence. there’s long been talk of a contact lens or other eye-based alternative technology. This short story from Futurism’s The Byte and the excerpts from a Futurism interview that follow it don’t provide too many details but they reinforce the hope not only for improving the prospects of restoring vision with prosthetic eyes but eventually creating “the ultimate AR/VR display technology.” –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Getty / Futurism] Neuralink Cofounder Says New Company’s Eye Implant Could Be “Ultimate” VR Tech “We Think We See a Way To Create…

[As some of us have with presence and presence-related terminology, the author of this essay in VentureBeat argues that we need to “tame the jargon” related to mixed and virtual reality and the metaverse. While the essay doesn’t credit the people who developed the “reality-virtuality continuum,” it provides useful insights about design considerations for current and future presence experiences. Here’s the missing citation (you can download the article from ResearchGate): Milgram, P., Takemura, H., Utsumi, A., & Kishino, F. (December 21, 1995). “Augmented reality: A class of displays on the reality-virtuality continuum.” Proceedings of SPIE 2351, Telemanipulator and Telepresence Technologies.…

[The author of this story from Business Insider describes her “undeniably cool” spatial and social presence experiences in a demonstration of the high-end Meta Quest Pro headset in the company’s Horizon Worlds Workrooms meeting environments, as well as the significant challenges to making the technology an effective alternative to in-person meetings and standard video conferencing platforms. See the original story for two more pictures.  –Matthew] I tried out Meta’s $1,500 virtual reality headset to attend a meeting in the metaverse. The tech was undeniably cool, but after 20 minutes I was relieved to take it off. By Sawdah Bhaimiya December…

[A long first-person essay in n+1 magazine describes the author’s experiences maintaining the medium-as-social-actor presence illusion that a chatbot is a human being. The Guardian published a shorter version and the version below (which combines elements of the headlines from each) retains material I thought particularly relevant to presence. See the other versions for more examples, details and observations from the author. –Matthew] [Image: Rochelle Goldberg, Consent (detail). 2022, concrete, shellac, acrylic paint, steel cables, wire, and cell phones. Dimensions variable. Credit: Photo by Roberto Marossi. Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Federico Vavassori.] HUMAN_FALLBACK Becoming a chatbot: My life…

[In a years-long interdisciplinary initiative, researchers are using presence-evoking technologies to help doctors better understand and treat cancerous tumors. As two key quotes from this Cancer Research UK story put it: “[Cancer researchers] never actually get to see what they’re working on; they never actually get to visually and viscerally see the results of the things that they’re doing.”… “By making it possible to look at tumours as they appear in the body, and not just as isolated clumps of data about individual cells, IMAXT could take analysing biopsies to the next level.” See the original story for more pictures…