[A January 4, 2021 item in The Ghost Howls blog highlights an interesting and potentially valuable resource, an interactive compilation and classification of over 100 different methods of locomotion in virtual environments. –Matthew]   Discover all the available VR locomotion methods Some amazing researchers have collected and classified all the known VR locomotion methods, for a total of more than 100! There are all the most common solutions, like smooth movement and teleporting, but also some crazy ones like changing the gravity of the world using your fingers. All the data is available for free to everyone on GitHub, so…

[The terminology for presence is different, but this story from Hackaday provides a valuable review and assessment of our progress toward compelling presence experiences. See the original version for an additional image. –Matthew] All the Good VR Ideas Were Dreamt Up in the 60s By Donald Papp January 4, 2021 Virtual reality has seen enormous progress in the past few years. Given its recent surges in development, it may come as a bit of a surprise to learn that the ideas underpinning what we now call VR were laid way back in the 60s. Not all of the imagined possibilities…

[This short story from Forbes describes Microsoft’s efforts to create audio and audio-visual chatbots based on specific people, including people who have died. Other coverage notes the idea’s similarity to the plot of the Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back” and/or refers to the bots as ‘ghostbots.’ For more on this topic see a new 22:46 minute WSJ documentary “How Tech Can Bring Our Loved Ones to Life After They Die,” which is also available via YouTube and is described in a short profile in The Verge. –Matthew] Microsoft Could Bring You Back From The Dead… As A Chat Bot…

[The ambitious project Odeuropa will use AI to analyze descriptions of smells from Europe’s past and then recreate them for use in immersive cultural heritage attractions. This story from Blooloop provides details. The original story includes a second image and for a press release and 2:59 minute video visit the Odeuropa website (which also features a series of interesting blog posts). Coverage in the Minnesota Star Tribune has more details about the challenges of measuring and reproducing smells, and a New York Times item focuses on the idea of a personal smell museum and links to an interactive example: “The…

[In this short piece from Wired, the CEO and co-founder of online gaming platform Roblox predicts the pandemic-accelerated increase in 2021 and beyond of social and spatial presence experiences in 3D virtual worlds, which will “become a human co-experience utility.” –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Leonie Bos] The Metaverse is coming A 3D virtual world where millions meet online will become our key social hub By David Baszucki, an inventor and the CEO and Founder of Roblox January 2, 2021 We will see a shift in the way people play, work, learn or simply hang out in 2021. Some of this connection…

[The pandemic has accelerated the development of innovative ways to link and merge virtual/mixed reality and designed physical spaces to create compelling entertainment experiences, as reported in this story from the Los Angeles Times (where the original includes two more pictures). –Matthew] [Image: “Star Wars: Tales From the Galaxy’s Edge” VR screenshot: View from inside a ship. Credit: ILMxLab / Disney / Oculus] How the new virtual reality ‘Star Wars’ experience gets us closer to a theme park ‘metaverse’ By Todd Martens, Game Critic December 28, 2020 After a fulfilling and action-focused ending to the second season of “The Mandalorian,”…

[Reading this new story in PsyPost about a study demonstrating interesting effects of the illusion of having an opposite-sex body led me to the lead author’s earlier study of the effects of seeming to switch bodies with a friend. That study is nicely presented in a link-filled Vice story from August 2020 that reviews embodied cognition research based on these kinds of presence illusions. –Matthew]   Experiencing the illusion of having an opposite-sex body in virtual reality can shift aspects of gender identity By Beth Ellwood December 23, 2020 A new study published in Scientific Reports offers insight into how the…

[After ten months in which actual travel is risky or impossible, virtual travel options look more appealing, especially the personalized one offered by Cooee and described in this short story from Fast Company (the original includes three more pictures). On behalf of myself and ISPR I wish you, and us all, a much brighter year ahead. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Paul Szewczyk/Unsplash] Missing vacation? Take a custom Zoom tour of Cambodia or Peru Cooee is finding ways to keep tour guides in business during the pandemic—and let people get a view of somewhere besides their own house. December 23, 2020 By…

[MotorTrend reports on a Nissan intern’s innovative car design, which the company has brought to life in a full-scale model. The Nissan GT-R(x) 2050 allows the driver to share control via a brain-to-vehicle connection and “feel as one with the car.” See the original story for 35 photos and a 3:38 minute video. The Nissan press release (which includes even more images and the video) includes this quote from David Woodhouse, vice president of Nissan Design America: “JB [Choi] has essentially envisioned a new mode of transportation that people could experience like clothes, ‘wearable,’ instead of a traditional vehicle ‘carriage.’…

[This story from Davidson College describes the potential for presence-evoking technology to reduce the negative effects of gender stereotypes. See the original story for two more images and for links to Professor Peck’s publications on this and other presence-related topics see Google Scholar. –Matthew] Virtual Reality Holds Promise in Combatting ‘Stereotype Threat’ December 22, 2020 By Mark Johnson Harvard’s president lost his job. So did a Google researcher. Mattel recalled a new version of “Barbie.” Each was a consequence of reinforcing the harmful stereotype that girls and women can’t compete with boys and men in science and math. The stereotype…

[As this first-person report on the new VR mode in Microsoft Flight Simulator makes clear, there are many early-day bugs to overcome, but the experience evokes a strong sense of spatial presence and presence as realism. See the original Engadget story for three more images and a 4:51 minute video. A 6:52 minute video review by a professional pilot is available on YouTube, along with the same pilot’s sparsely narrated 23 minute video of a bush flight and flights around New York and San Francisco. –Matthew] Microsoft Flight Simulator’s new VR mode haunts my dreams When virtual reality meets dream…

[The theory that our entire existence is an advanced simulation is going viral on TikTok, as reported in this link-filled short story from Futurism. The December 22 Your Tango roundup it mentions has more examples and notes that “The simulation theory hashtag on TikTok already has 27.4 million views and the simulation hashtag has 624.4 million views — that means it’s gaining a ton of traction on TikTok.“ The September 2020 Bustle story “#GlitchTok Viral TikTok Videos Are The Best Way To Creep Yourself Out” says “There are thousands of videos to lose yourself in, and comment sections to theorize…