[KQED reports on a program at the University of California San Francisco that uses virtual reality and the presence experiences it creates to build empathy and combat unconscious biases of doctors and nurses that contribute to disturbing racial inequities in medical care and outcomes. The story includes valuable perspective on the challenges and open questions involved; see the original version for three more images. –Matthew] [Image: Nova Wilson, program coordinator for the UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences, instructs Dr. Mike Reid on using virtual reality equipment at UCSF offices in San Francisco on Dec. 10, 2021. The VR program…

[This short story from PYMNTS describes a parasocial interaction experience designed for Chicago sports fans (and soon for many others). See the press release for a short video (also available on YouTube). –Matthew] Augmented Reality at Chicago’s United Center Powers the 5G Connected Fan Experience By PYMNTS December 14, 2021 Sports fans visiting the United Center in Chicago will soon be able to take video and photo selfies with augmented reality (AR) versions of players and mascots. This “Pose with the Pros” experience results from a partnership between AT&T and two teams: the Chicago Blackhawks and the Chicago Bulls.…

[This CNN Business story describes a very positive application of presence via chatbots; see the original story for three other images. For more information see a press release on The Trevor Project’s blog. –Matthew] How chatbots are being used to train crisis counselors By Rachel Metz December 7, 2021 Drew, a 21-year-old in Irvine, California, needs help: He’s transgender, and after starting hormone replacement therapy he’s facing harassment from coworkers. It’s gotten so bad, Drew tells a crisis counselor via a text-based chat session, that he’s considering suicide. He can’t quit his job, however, because he needs the money. “i think…

[Many people and organizations are raising concerns about the infringement of rights in virtual and extended reality environments including the nascent metaverse. For example, see “Virtual Worlds, Real People: Human Rights in the Metaverse” by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and an interview in The Ghost Howls blog with Kristina Podnar about how we need to fight for “Privacy & Safety and Digital Human Rights.” But this essay in ZDNet makes an even more basic argument about the human right of autonomy in virtual platforms and how to address threats to it. See the original story for a 5:27 minute…

[CNBC reports on how advertising will, or should, evolve for a metaverse that will give users a “feeling of presence”; the story describes a transition from the decades-old model in which messages mostly interrupt users’ experience to one in which brands “create experiences people actually want.” See the original story for two videos, and see Influencer Marketing Hub for “A Deep Dive into Metaverse Marketing.” –Matthew] [Image: Source: Influencer Marketing Hub] Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse, how will the world of advertisements look? November 20, 2021 By Todd Wasserman Imagine at a point in the near future, you are taking your…

[We so often focus on the visual and to a lesser extent the aural senses, but the author of this essay from The New York Times uses vivid and personal examples to remind us how important the sense of touch is to presence experiences. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Ariel Davis] We’re Longing for the One Thing the Metaverse Can’t Give Us By JoAnna Novak November 26, 2021 When Mark Zuckerberg announced the rebranding of Facebook to Meta late last month in a “founder’s letter,” I was on a video call with my writing group, discussing the tactile joys of our craft…

[I strongly endorse the vision of the author of this interesting piece from The New Yorker for a practical and user-friendly technology that uses spatial presence to create a digital version of environments that enhance “immersive single-tasking” work (and I’d add creativity). As he notes five years after first exploring the topic, we’re not there yet but we’re getting closer. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Illustration by Ben Denzer; Source photographs in animated gif in the original story by Paul Denzer; Stephanie Denzer; Kathleen White; Lily Offit; Akshay Almelkar] Can Virtual Reality Fix the Workplace? The struggle to create a digital alternative…

[A 2018 ISPR Presence News post described how the new Tokyo café DAWN (Diverse Avatar Working Network), was using OriHome robots to allow physically disabled staff to work from home, and a new story in Quartz reports that the café recently won a prestigious design prize. Now a local Japanese government is using the robots to help people with extreme social anxiety interact with others from home and hopefully venture out for future in-person social experiences, as reported in the story below from VICE. For more about the company that makes the robots, and its valuable use of medium-as-social-actor presence,…

[Check out the 2:49 minute video included in this story from VRScout (and also available via YouTube) to see how an XR developer has creatively used the passthrough capability of virtual reality to create a compelling mixed reality presence illusion. See the original story for two more images and another video. –Matthew] Amazing VR App Turns Any Room Into A Mixed Reality Stargazing Lounge This mixed reality stargazing experience for Quest opens the windows into outer space. By Bobby Carlton November 24, 2021 When Facebook—now Meta—introduced its Passthrough API Experimental earlier this year, it opened the doors for developers, allowing…

[As the short story below from Futurism reports, a video of a new robot from the company Engineered Arts named Ameca is going viral because the robot’s facial expressions are unusually realistic. Coverage in Nerdist begins this way: “The population of humanoid robots on Earth continues to grow unabated. Everybody and their IT person has seen Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot, for example. And what’s going on with bipedal bots at Caltech would make a T-1000 sit up and take notice. But nothing—as far as we know—appears to be more realistic than Engineered Arts’ new robot, Ameca.” LAD Bible includes these…

[As The Next Web story below explains, South Korea plans to use virtual reality to determine whether older citizens retain the necessary “driving, cognitive, and memory skills” to renew their driver’s license. Could the presence-evoking technology be used for all driver’s tests at some point in the future? –Matthew] [Image: Figure 2 from Sooncheon Hwang et al.: Stimuli used in study of driver performance using virtual reality in daytime and at night. Incident 1: A dog runs into the driving lane. Incident 2: A car cuts into the driving lane. Incident 3: A truck approaches from a cross road to…

[Having become a vegetarian many years ago after being bothered by the idea of eating animals (“anything with a face”), I have absolutely no interest in replicating the experience of eating chicken with skin and bones, but the new Nestle product described in this story from DesignTAXI is an interesting attempt to evoke presence. See the original story for a second image and follow the links at the end for more details. –Matthew] Nestlé Backs Vegan Chicken Wings That Come With ‘Skin’ & ‘Bones’ By Mikelle Leow November 23, 2021 It’s been said that bone-in wings taste better. Soon, vegetarian…