[This Sky News story from March presents an interesting ‘case study’ that illustrates the potential impacts of presence experiences with AI chatbots. It also includes some analysis by a London-based couples therapist. See the original version for 11 more images including some chat excerpts. –Matthew] ‘I fell in love with my AI girlfriend – and it saved my marriage’ A man who was struggling to support his depressed wife says his AI girlfriend has given him the love he needed to keep their family together. By Alexa Phillips, news reporter March 6, 2022 A man who had been planning a…

[This story from Horsetalk describes an unusual application of presence-evoking technology to provide hippotherapy, which the American Hippotherapy Association says “refers to how occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech-language pathology professionals use evidence-based practice and clinical reasoning in the purposeful manipulation of equine movement as a therapy tool to engage sensory, neuromotor and cognitive systems to promote functional outcomes.” A quick web search indicates that there are already many types of horse-riding simulators (e.g., from Navi-IT), but the one in this story, and the new study in the journal Designs, was created specifically for children with cerebral palsy. See the…

[Technology has brought us far from the classic 1977 short film “Powers of Ten” by Charles and Ray Eames. This story from North Carolina State University describes the Scale Worlds virtual environment being developed to help students better understand size and scale in science by providing vivid, interactive experiences that humans can’t have with objects in the nonmediated world (the story also reviews some other available tools less likely to evoke presence). See the original version for a 1:48 minute video, and for more on “the broad spectrum of frameworks and attitudes towards scale” see the website of the June…

[As the excellent technology writer Mike Elgan reports in this story from Protocol, both video and audio deepfake technologies are already commonly used by a variety of fraudsters in remote hiring and will represent an increasingly serious threat as the ability to fool employers with deepfakes improves. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: z_wei/iStock/Getty Images Plus; Protocol] You just hired a deepfake. Get ready for the rise of imposter employees. New technology — plus the pandemic remote work trend — is helping fraudsters use someone else’s identity to get a job. By Mike Elgan, a journalist, opinion columnist and author August 22, 2022…

[Food Safety News reports on an unusual application of presence-evoking technology to simulate a free-range environment for hens, which a study shows can reduce their stress levels and increase their resistance to disease (though it also raises ethical questions about only simulating better treatment of many kinds of animals). –Matthew] [Image: Figure 1 from “Exposure to a Virtual Environment Induces Biological and Microbiota Changes in Onset-of-Lay Hens.” Representative pictures of Virtual Reality (VR) outside (A,B) and inside (C) of the chickens’ Pens. VR images were projected onto the vinyl projector screens placed against each pen wall in the VR group only.]…

[This may reach you after today’s NASA launch but I’m sure replays of the innovative VR presentation described in this story from The Hollywood Reporter (which explicitly mentions presence), will be available afterwards. For more on viewing options, see coverage in Space.com and see the extended excerpt from a story in The Debrief that follows below for discussion of “how this may be just the beginning of how events are viewed remotely going forward.” –Matthew] [Image: A look at NASA’s Artemis I rocket. Credit: Courtesy of Felix & Paul Studios] Artemis I Launch: How an Emmy-Winning Team is Prepping a…

[The Toronto Star reports on a collaborative pilot project that uses virtual reality and artificial intelligence to help adult immigrants learn English. The impacts include not just the language learning but increased comfort and confidence; the story notes apparent advantages of using cartoon avatars rather than more perceptually realistic ones. See the original version of the story for two more pictures and for more context see the related April 2019 ISPR Presence News post “Believing VR is a Promising Tool for Learning Languages, Companies and Colleges Invest.” –Matthew] [Image: From left: Yusra Doro, Manar Mustafa, and Adlais Hitou are seen…

[This story from Pittsburgh Inno describes some of the technology Meta is using to develop more effective social presence illusions. See the original version for 12 more images, and for more Meta developments see a related story from NEXTpittsburgh, “Inside Pittsburgh Tech: Walking a Mile in the Ekto One Virtual Reality Boots” (which includes a 1:53 minute video). –Matthew] [Image: Meta’s Reality Labs in Pittsburgh. Shown here is Mugsy, a system with 170 cameras and hundreds of lights in a sphere-like shape that’s nearly 10 feet tall. It’s used to recreate someone’s face with impressive detail. Credit: Nate Doughty] Making…

[MediaPost reports on a new tool available to anyone to create apparently real news anchors delivering apparently real news, which provides an excellent example of the potential perils of presence illusions. See the original story for a second image, read the press release in Yahoo! Finance, and watch a short demonstration video on the Hour One website. –Matthew] Human Avatar Developer Moves Into News, Enables Anyone To Have Their Own ‘Anchor’ By Joe Mandese August 23, 2022 At a time when many in the media industry are debating the authenticity of some sources of news and information, a developer of “virtual…

[An expert in deception and manipulation wrote this warning about the dangers of presence for The Washington Post; it concludes with recommendations to study and develop technology to counter them. For more about the author  see his LinkedIn page. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Matt Chinworth for The Washington Post] Opinion Facebook misinformation is bad enough. The metaverse will be worse. By Rand Waltzman, adjunct senior information scientist at the Rand Corporation August 22, 2022 Here’s a plausible scenario that could soon take place in the metaverse, the online virtual reality environments under rapid development by Mark Zuckerberg and other tech entrepreneurs:…

[This story from Wired describes two services that use social (co)presence (and in the case of the second, also spatial presence) to increase the productivity of people who work remotely. There’s no discussion of *why* it works, but the ‘About’ page of the Focusmate website includes this: “You choose a time to work, and Focusmate pairs you with an accountability partner for a live, virtual coworking session that will keep you on task. Research in psychology and behavioral science shows that regular human connection reduces the likelihood that a worker will procrastinate or become distracted. The Focusmate virtual coworking model…

[Despite the humorous description in this review by TonyVT (Skarredghost) in his excellent The Ghost Howls blog, and modern echoes of the Pet Rock phenomenon, “Rock Life: The Rock Simulator” is a real, apparently presence-evoking game for VR and other platforms. I see a sly but important message here about the ability of even simple, low resolution, limited interaction simulations to create effective, and in these stressful times, appealing, presence experiences. See the original blog post for more images, and a 7:28 minute video version of the review on YouTube; there’s also a 4:20 minute un-narrated gameplay video on YouTube.…