[Here is a long interview from Game Rant with the directors of a new media experience that combines advanced presence-evoking technologies to create a first-person story about the promise and perils of advanced technologies. The directors describe some of the challenges they faced in designing and producing Human Within, many of which involve maximizing, and avoiding breaks in, the user’s sense of presence. See the original version of the interview for ten more images and a video trailer (also available on YouTube). –Matthew] Human Within Interview: A Compelling Live-Action VR Experience [EXCLUSIVE] By Joey BrownJanuary 11, 2025 Signal Space Lab’s…

[This Newsweek story describes the latest example of the use of technology to purposely blur “the line between what is real and what is faked,” i.e., evoke a presence misperception (the more abrupt question in the title of this post comes from a 404 Media email newsletter promoting a related story from that organization). In addition to these stories see fact-checks from Snopes about the Hollywood sign and NewsMeter about that and other misrepresentations of the Los Angeles fires. –Matthew] [Image: Source: NewsMeter] How AI Convinced World Hollywood Sign Was Burning Down in LA Fire By Melissa Fleur Afshar, Life…

[AP News reports that a renowned television journalist with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) was able to return to broadcasting thanks to AI-based technologies; the story highlights both this type of positive application of presence-evoking technology and the concerns about negative applications. See the original story for a different image from the mentioned preview video and the 41 second video itself (also available directly from AP). For a related story, see an August 2021 ISPR Presence News post about how similar technology was used to restore the voice of actor Val Kilmer. –Matthew] ALS sidelined this Israeli TV journalist. AI is…

[A new invention by Stanford and MIT researchers has the potential to create more realistic simulations of touch for users of virtual reality without the obtrusive and uncomfortable weight and solid structure of current haptic devices. The introduction from coverage in Hackster below makes the implications for presence clear, and the story from Stanford Report that follows provides lots of details. The original versions of both stories include a 1:16 minute video that is also available on YouTube. –Matthew] [Image: Haptiknit sleeve worn on the arm, including the control system on the upper arm. Credit: Susan Williams, MIT Self-Assembly Lab]…

[A presence-evoking immersive installation at Princeton University this month uses virtual reality and spatial sound to enable audience members to (seem to) move around in the same spaces as performing orchestra musicians. Details about the public event are in the announcement from Princeton Online below; follow the links at the end for more information (the two-minute preview video is also on YouTube). Earlier coverage is available from WHYY and The Daily Princetonian. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Source: Inside Princeton.] Groundbreaking Virtual Reality & Spatial Sound Installation Returns to Princeton University Concerts Princeton University Concerts (PUC) brings the fan-favorite…

[TimeOut Hong Kong reports on an interesting use of realistic sets first used to evoke presence in film audiences and then repurposed to evoke presence in visitors to two iterations of an immersive physical exhibition. See the original report for five more images; the South China Morning Post has a more extensive gallery; and Hong Kong Guide provides a guided tour of the exhibition in a 3:35 minute video available on YouTube. For more about the Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In film, see IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. –Matthew] ‘Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In’ exhibition Transporting us all back…

[It’s bad enough when products stop working because the company that provides externally-stored and updated software stops supporting them (I’ve had the frustrating experience with the expensive Glance Clock), but it’s particularly distressing when the product is a robot companion designed to evoke medium-as-social-actor presence in young users. The current example of Moxie and the company Embodied is reported in the story below from Popular Science (it also mentions an even more disturbing case involving a brain-computer interface); see the original version of the story for three videos. Reactions to Moxie’s shutdown are the focus of a 5:10 minute monologue…

[A new online platform for musicians addresses the presence-breaking problem of latency by using avatars presented in virtual reality and powered by algorithms so they can display the subtle timing adjustments between performers. A news release from the University of Birmingham Enterprise via EIN Presswire provides a description; more details are available from the University directly, and a 1:04 minute video is on YouTube. –Matthew] Bringing the magic of playing music to the virtual world The Joint Active Music Sessions (JAMS) platform has the potential to develop a social network where musicians can learn, connect, and perform. News Provided By…

[This interesting column from Forbes considers some of the psychological and other impacts and implications of the advancing abilities of technologies used in “stay alive at all costs” survival games to blur ”the line between truth and simulation.” –Matthew] [Image: A member of a British Army eSports team experiences a game via a virtual reality headset. Credit: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images.] Survival Games and the AI, VR Revolution: Fears, Hopes and Challenges By Anisha Sircar, a journalist covering tech, finance and society [more info at https://anishasircar.com/]December 27, 2024 I was sitting on the couch, half-watching my partner play Dota…

[The Daily Mail story below describes an unusual use of technology-based images to replace windows, apparently in part as a safety measure in a mansion built in an area of Florida subject to dangerous hurricanes. See the original version of the story for many more images, and the current Realtor.com and Zillow.com listings for the home for more information and images. The label “virtual reality” certainly stretches the traditional meaning of that term, but the idea of using static or dynamic images on a display screen to substitute for a transparent window or ceiling in a home, office, or hospital…

[Presence would seem to have an important role in the findings of research conducted by an undergraduate kinesiology student and a professor at Pennsylvania State University Berks, who found that participants perceived the same exercise as requiring less effort when it was combined with the use of virtual reality, suggesting a way to promote physical activity in sedentary college students. See also a related story from BBC News. –Matthew] [Image: Diana Stoltzfus, left, takes baseline measurements of her study participant, right, before beginning exercise on the stationary bike using the VR headset. Credit: Samantha Bower / Penn State.] Virtual reality…

[The author of this first-person report from The Guardian on what it’s like to use virtual reality at the end of 2024, including the presence experiences VR provides, is optimistic about the medium’s future; the original version of the report includes a second picture. For a less optimistic view, focusing on the Apple Vision Pro “spatial computing” headset and on Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, see a new report in The Verge. –Matthew] [Image: Ed Newton-Rex prepares tea while wearing the Meta Quest 3 virtual reality headset at his home in California. Credit: Marissa Leshnov/The Guardian] I spent a week working,…