[In the Forbes story below Bernard Marr considers the implications of the recent announcement that the group ABBA is reuniting after 40 years for a new album and a concert series in which the members’ recorded de-aged digital avatars will perform with a live band. For more about the concert see coverage in VRScout and a segment (beginning at 23:15) in the official announcement video on YouTube, and for more about ABBA and the album and concert see The Independent. –Matthew] [Image: Source: VRScout] ABBA’s Virtual Concert, The Metaverse And The Future Of Entertainment By Bernard Marr September 6, 2021…

[This Road to VR story describes how physicists and philosophers think we can, and whether we should, gather evidence for the simulation hypothesis. See also a Space.com interview with Rodney Ascher, the director of the new documentary A Glitch in the Matrix that “tackles the theory head-on”; that story includes the film’s trailer (also available via YouTube); here’s an interview excerpt: “SPACE.COM: How did making this film either confirm your belief in simulation theory or make you question it? RODNEY ASCHER: Well there are two ways of looking at simulation theory, either as a scientific possibility that changes everything we…

[In another story that raises questions about the ethics of presence, this report from SoraNews24 takes a sarcastic approach to describe a new product from Japanese toy maker Takara Tomy intended to evoke medium-as-social-actor presence; the original story includes more pictures and watch the video there or via YouTube to get the full impact. –Matthew] Electronic grandchild “Ami-chan” developed by Takara Tomy The future of grandparenting is now! By Master Blaster August 21, 2021 It’s time we faced some hard truths, grandchildren are inefficient drains on our time and money. Sure they have their moments and will sometimes produce goods…

[This TechCrunch story weighs the ethical implications of new software that uses real-time speech recognition and synthesis to create the illusion that a person is speaking with a different accent. The company’s press release is available via AccessWire. What do you think about the promise and peril of this presence-evoking technology? –Matthew] Sanas aims to convert one accent to another in real time for smoother customer service calls By Devin Coldewey August 31, 2021 In the customer service industry, your accent dictates many aspects of your job. It shouldn’t be the case that there’s a “better” or “worse” accent, but…

[Short stories from The Verge and Reuters provide details on a new presence-enhancing feature in the Clubhouse audio chat app. See a February 2021 ISPR Presence News post for more about Clubhouse. –Matthew] [Image: Source: Engadget. Credit: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images] Clubhouse embraces spatial audio for more lifelike conversations Speakers are distributed in 3D space just like the real world By Thomas Ricker August 30, 2021 Clubhouse began rolling out a iOS app update on Sunday that enables spatial audio support. The Android update is “coming soon,” according to the company. The feature works by introducing subtle spatial cues…

[The University of North Carolina Greensboro’s College of Arts and Sciences reports on an interdisciplinary project to reproduce the experience of walking through an historic building in the 1950s; see the original version of the story for five more images and a 3:25 minute video (also available via YouTube). –Matthew] [Image: The UNCG team of designers and computer scientists watch as Melissa Knapp ’20 tours the historic hotel in virtual reality.] Virtual Reality brings the past to life at Magnolia House Story by Elizabeth Keri, College of Arts & Sciences Photography by Martin W. Kane, University Communications August 9, 2021…

[This item from The Brussels Times reports on an unusual presence-evoking art exhibition; The Times says “The exhibition features 1970s works of ‘hyperrealism’ representing the human body with the aim, according to curators, of ‘offering a perfect illusion, giving the feeling of facing an exact replica of reality.’” For more pictures and videos see Tempora’s Instagram. –Matthew] ‘Hyperrealism Sculpture’ exhibit in Brussels invites naked visitors 21 August 2021 A special art exhibition in Brussels invites visitors to examine hyper-realistic sculptures focused on the human form while naked themselves. Located at Tour & Taxis in the Belgian capital, the naturist-friendly exhibit…

[This Washington Post story describes how a company created a voice deepfake for actor Val Kilmer after surgery for throat cancer and addresses some of the ethical and legal implications of the technology. For more information see coverage at Silicon Canals, an apparent press release at About Insider, and the Sonantic blog. –Matthew] [Image: Actor Val Kilmer in Los Angeles on Sept. 7, 2012. Credit: Ryan Miller/Invision/AP] AI gave Val Kilmer his voice back. But critics worry the technology could be misused. British start-up Sonantic used old films of Hollywood actor to re-create his natural voice By Dalvin Brown August…

[In this piece from The Conversation a philosophy professor uses the new film “Free Guy” as a starting point to explain some of the concepts and implications of the ultimate form of presence, in which all of our experience is actually a simulation or illusion. See IMDb for two trailers and Variety for a (positive) review of the film, which is in theaters now and according to Collider will debut “on all major digital platforms on September 28 and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on October 12.” Matt Jones and I are among those who have written about…

[This story from The New York Times describes Disney’s efforts to update its animatronic characters for a new media era. See the original version for many more images and short videos, and see often amusing reactions (e.g., referencing Westworld) in stories from HuffPost and Comic Sands. The San Jose Mercury News reports on a new 10-episode Disney+ series called “Behind the Attraction” and provides some interesting history from it about the early days of the Abraham Lincoln animatronic robot. –Matthew] [Image: Testing silicon skin for elasticity. Credit: Coley Brown for The New York Times] Are You Ready for Sentient Disney…

[Some of the stories about Elon Musk’s announcement that his company is creating a humanoid robot (e.g., in The Washington Post and The Hill) just describe the Tesla AI Day presentation. Others focus on the potential of Tesla Bots to help us explore Mars (Business Insider) or revolutionize health care (Forbes). The CNET story below at least includes an acknowledgement of the ambitiousness of just producing the robot as described, while other stories are more skeptical (Ars Technica), analyze and refute each of Musk’s claims (IEEE Spectrum), or dismiss the whole effort as a strategic distraction from Tesla’s current problems…

[Facebook just hosted a press demonstration of its new virtual reality meeting app Horizon Workrooms; the report below from Engadget describes what it was like. Stories in The Verge, CNBC, CNET, VentureBeat, and to a lesser degree, Wired and CNN, provide more personal observations and assessments from the reporters who attended. The New York Times provides a nice summary of the last few decades of developments in VR and concludes with this: “At the Workrooms event with reporters this week, Mr. Zuckerberg spoke but had to leave at one point and rejoin the room because his digital avatar’s mouth was…