Or more interestingly, how do you know you know? We've all had tip-of-the-tongue experiences where you know the name of the actor or group or whatever is there but you just can't get it out. But think about this for a moment, if you can't remember it how do you know that you know? This question has implications on how we access memory or how we search for particular information, what it is it about the process that provides "clues" to the presence or not of the information we are searching for?

Do you like to keep things simple?

As Virtual Reality (Presence) technology improves, ethical issues are bound to arise. Basically, future technologies will make the user strain to differentiate between what is real and what is virtual. Furthermore, as recent research shows, our bodies and brains assess reality at different processing scales. Your guts may be saying that what you are experiencing is real, while your brain knows you are part of an experiment.

(Image: Artist's impression of GIOVE-A. Courtesy of ESA).

TRANSIT, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Compass... Since 1964, various different satellite-based navigation systems with global coverage have been deployed. The TRANSIT system, by USA, started its operational phase in 1964 (only for military purposes) and has been working until 1996. In 1993, the US GPS system began operations while the Russian GLONASS reached its completeness in 1995 (although nowadays, only 10 satellites are fully operational).

Mel Slater is Professor of Virtual Environments at the Department of Computer Science of the University College London as well as ICREA Research Professor at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. His major research interest is the question of what makes virtual reality work, how is it possible to build virtual environments such that people respond realistically to events within them? What scientific explanations are there of this phenomenon?

Are you a fan of motor sports?

If you are, you probably enjoy viewing information about machine performance during a race or training sessions. Thanks to technology, today you can monitor at a glance parameters such as car speed, gear, engine RPMs from your living room television. The driver and support team have access to many more details, including temperature in different locations and oil and tire pressures.As a spectator, how would you like to monitor driver performance?

(Image: a plankton bloom across Ireland captured by Envisat. Courtesy of ESA).

What would a macroscope be? The opposite of a microscope, a device used to study nature at relatively small scales. A macroscope would be a tool to study things at large scales. If we focus on imaging, topics such as astronomy or remote sensing come to mind. But we can more generally think of a macroscope as a conceptual device to study large-scale phenomena.

It is probably fair to say that a virus has not clue that the cells it attacks are actually part of a very large and complex organism (sneeze).

Paul Verschure is Ma. and PhD in psychology. His scientific aim is to find a unified theory of mind, brain and body through the use of synthetic methods and to apply such a theory to the development of novel cognitive technologies.

Presence is a scientific and technological field focusing on understanding and controlling  the experience of being someone, somewhere, with somebody.  It aims to  produce real-feeling experiences through sensorial augmentation or replacement  with digital media.   It is also intensely interdisciplinary:  advances are needed in human cognition, human-machine interaction, and machine intelligence.

A simple measure of success in Presence is this: If it feels real then it is Presence.

Interview carried out by Leo Ruffini of Starlab with Elem3ntal Creative Lab.