[Presence via virtual reality has been used to increase the empathy of health care professionals for patients who are at the end of their lives by simulating the patient’s experience (e.g., see a 2018 WBUR story that includes a 3:31 minute video of a simulation by Embodied Labs). But a collaborative teaching project at Augusta University in Augusta, Georgia is providing students with the caregiver’s perspective to help them develop empathy and learn how to navigate these difficult experiences by practicing, and then discussing and refining, their interactions with these patients. The story below from the University’s Jagwire describes the…

[With interesting details about the evolution of CAVEs and Google’s Tilt Brush, and using the language if not the terminology of presence, this article from PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) describes how collaborations “among artists, coders, and computer scientists” have made and are continuing to make “the barrier between the real and virtual world vanish” to benefit both art and science. See the original version of the article for high resolution versions of the image below and a second image, of Alison Goodyear’s Topsy Turvy. –Matthew] [Image: Computer scientist and artist Daniel Keefe has been combining virtual…

[The post below is a mashup of Elon University’s summary of a new Pew Research/Elon report about the possible futures of presence-evoking technologies, and the introduction to the extremely long full report from the Pew Research website. See the original versions of either or both sources for many more details about the methods, participants, findings and quotations from the report. –Matthew] The Metaverse in 2040 Hype? Hope? Hell? Maybe all three. Experts are split about the likely evolution of a truly immersive ‘metaverse.’ They expect that augmented- and mixed-reality enhancements will become more useful in people’s daily lives. Many worry…

[This CBC Radio story uses examples and interviews to describe some of the appeals of, approaches to, and views about the increasing use of presence-evoking virtual settings for attending church. The comments and predictions in the last two paragraphs are particularly interesting. The original version of the story includes five more images and a link to the recent 53-minute “How COVID rewired religion” edition of the CBC Radio program Tapestry, where the first segment focuses on “virtual church.” –Matthew] [Image: Jason Poling’s digital avatar greets visitors to his virtual-reality church community in a program called Alt Space. Poling is based…

[This example -and link- filled post from The Conversation (“Academic rigor, journalistic flair”) describes ways presence-evoking technologies can be used effectively in environmental education; see the original version for three videos. –Matthew] Virtual reality can support and enhance outdoor environmental education July 11, 2022 By Micheal Jerowsky, PhD Candidate, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia and Ann Borda, Associate Professor, Melbourne Medical School, The University of Melbourne The use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) for environmental education is controversial. Some are concerned that these technologies might replace or disrupt outdoor experiences that can connect students to…

[With yet another advance in language models, the author of this story from The Atlantic warns that the science-fiction threats of sentient machines are a distraction from the questions and challenges raised by the improving ability of ‘artificial intelligence’ to imitate consciousness and confuse humans: “The line between our language and the language of the machines is blurring, and our capacity to understand the distinction is dissolving inside the blur.” For interesting, related perspectives, see two July 2022 stories: “Moving beyond mimicry in artificial intelligence: What makes pre-trained AI models so impressive – and potentially harmful” in Nautilus, and “Nick…

[A new app allows users to experience art masterpieces in virtual reality (or on a smartphone) but goes beyond trying to reproduce the museum experience both in the design of the interface and because the original artworks aren’t available because they’ve been stolen. This story from Smithsonian Magazine provides details about the app and related efforts along with links to other coverage and a short video about The Stolen Art Gallery. Boing Boing has a very short first-person report on what using the app with a Meta Quest 2 is like, while the press release via PR Newswire includes this…

[There aren’t any easy answers and it’s unclear how or even whether conclusions in the specific context of Shakespeare’s plays can be generalized, but this story from EdSurge highlights a significant debate regarding what forms and degrees of immersion produce presence responses that are most useful for learning (and other goals). Perhaps the ideal solution is a combination of approaches. See the original story for two more images. –Matthew] [Image: Acting out a scene through Play the Knave. Credit: Photo courtesy of Play the Knave.] What ‘Shakespeare Karaoke’ Teaches About the Virtual Reality Future Does technology work better as a…

[Without giving too much away, this story from GameSpot describes some of the challenges of adapting the 1960s classic television series The Twilight Zone – a personal favorite that dramatically illustrated real-world issues and human dilemmas by putting characters in strange new versions of reality – from a passive, two-dimensional, third-person viewing experience into an active, three-dimensional, first-person experience in virtual reality. See the original story for two more images and a 1:56 minute video, the Twilight Zone VR website for more about the new version, and Wikipedia for more about the series and how it’s been re-envisioned for a…

[The Charlotte Observer’s description of a touring exhibition called “Unseen Oceans” doesn’t use the term but describes a variety of presence responses it evokes, including the one in the first paragraph (which is echoed in the original New York Times review; a reviewer in The Verge wrote that “[i]n a sense, the exhibition felt to me like an interactive, American version of Blue Planet II, minus the soothing David Attenborough narration”). The Charlotte Observer story includes several more pictures and see the Discovery Place press release and the American Museum of Natural History’s exhibit page for more materials including a video…

[The short story below from Psychology Today describes a new study related to sex dolls, which are designed to evoke medium-as-social-actor presence. The study authors compared “personality traits, emotional functioning, attachment styles, and tendencies for sexual aggression” of sex doll owners and non-owners and found few differences. For a related (and long) story, see “Ghosting the machine: Humans, robots, and the new sexual frontier” in the May 2022 issue of Harper’s Magazine. The two central figures in that story, other than a doll named Emma, are Markie Twist, “a sexuality educator, sexologist, relationship therapist, and professor at the University of…

[This short story from VRScout (where the original includes two more images) reports on the use of presence-evoking technologies for this year’s Tour de France cycling race. It’s based on a press release available via PR Newswire that also includes this: “MATSUKO’s solution is not an animated avatar but a fully expressive hologram. Using mixed and augmented reality and artificial intelligence, MATSUKO creates 3D holograms for remote communication between people. This eliminates the problems often encountered on video calls: lack of non-verbal cues, lack of engagement, and missing special feeling.” See the websites of Immersiv.io and MATSUKO (where the company’s…