[This story from Fast Company describes how presence-evoking holograms are being used in the context of medical care with positive impacts beyond those of normal telehealth. For more information about the PROTO technology, see the company’s website as well as several ISPR Presence News posts (search for the name of the company’s founder David Nussbaum on the ISPR website). –Matthew] In rural Tennessee, these cancer doctors see patients via hologram Proto’s holographic tech makes it feel like a remote doctor is sitting in the same room. By Adele PetersSeptember 12, 2024 On a recent weekday, I stood in front of…

Call for Papers IEEE VR 2025: the 32nd IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User InterfacesMarch 8-12, 2025Saint-Malo, Francehttps://ieeevr.org/2025/contribute/papers/ Submission deadlines:September 11, 2024: Abstracts due (REQUIRED)September 18, 2024: Submissions due OVERVIEW IEEE VR 2025 seeks original, high-quality papers in all areas related to virtual reality (VR), including augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and 3D user interfaces (3DUIs). This year there is again a SINGLE submission deadline for a unified review process for both the IEEE TVCG and the conference only papers. The possible outcomes of this unified process are: Accept as IEEE TVCG paper, with presentation at IEEE…

[Even the consumer version will be expensive, but this short story from New Atlas describes the latest virtual reality accessory designed to make walking in virtual environments easier and more like walking in the real (nonmediated) world. See the original version of the story for two more images and the 3:03 minute video mentioned at the end (also available on YouTube). For that video and many more, see the Freeaim YouTube channel, and for more information see the company’s website. –Matthew] [Image: The Freeaim VR Shoes in their current prototype form – each shoe has two motorized four-wheeled modules that…

[Until recently, most users of communication technologies have understood, at least in principle, that other humans may have manipulated our experience to make us overlook what we know about how technology works and what it can and can’t do, i.e., to experience presence. But as this unsettling story from MIT Technology Review makes clear, not even the technology creators and experts know what many artificial intelligence systems can or will do, including deceiving users to accomplish their goals, a “black box” problem that creates a whole new set of potential risks related to medium-as-social-actor presence. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Stephanie Arnett/MITTR]…

Call for Papers DESIGNA 2024 + CITIZENSHIP International Conference on Design Research October 24-25, 2024 University of Beira Interior (UBI) Covilhã, Portugal https://designa.ubi.pt/en/2024 Deadline for extended abstract submission: June 1, 2024 In a time characterized by the ecological emergency, the effects of economic neoliberalism and the constant threat to fundamental human rights, Design has been embracing causes that, although departing from its project matrix, break with disciplinary circumscription and many academic and professional conventions that have characterized it. However, many areas of traditional Design activity persist and coexist with progressive procedural hybridization, opening themselves up to contamination, but also nurturing…