IMMERSION Forum & Showcase, Party & Awards!
May 24, 2010, London, UK: IMMERSION is the leading international Forum & Showcase, focused on the business of games and immersive & social media. Ground-breaking sessions, leading strategy, world-beating developers and commissioners, exclusive networking. Virtual goods, micro-transactions, iphone, funding .. just some of the topics. Read more on Call: IMMERSION Forum…
[From MIT’s 
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Augmented-Reality Floor Tiling
Take a walk on a floor that gives tactile, audio and visual feedback.
By Kristina Grifantini
Researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Canada have developed floor tiles that can simulate the look, sound and feel of snow, grass or pebbles underfoot. Such a tool could perhaps be used for augmented reality applications, tele-presence, training, rehabilitation or even as virtual foot controllers.
The modular “haptic” floor tiling system is made up of a deformable plate suspended on a platform. Between the plate and platform are sensors that detect forces from the user’s foot. And the plate can give off vibrations that mimic the feeling of stepping on different materials. A top-down projection and speakers add visual and audio feedback. Read more on Augmented-reality floor tiling…
Call for Participation: “Heritage Inquiries: A Designerly Approach to Human Values”
August 16-17, 2010
Aarhus, Denmark
An ACM DIS 2010 workshop
http://www.dis2010.org/
URL: http://engagingexperience.dk/dis2010
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
This two-day workshop will bring together the interdisciplinary community of scholars and practitioners involved in the design of interactive systems and sharing a common interest in heritage matters. Read more on Call: Heritage Inquiries: A Designerly Approach to Human Values workshop…
[From 
Culture
Men Show Off to Impress Women Even in Virtual Setting
By Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience Contributor
posted: 27 April 2010
Even in virtual-reality settings, men will take risks to impress the opposite sex.
Past research found that males take more risks when someone is watching. However, it was uncertain whether this showing off was aimed more at other males or females. For instance, male pedestrians are more likely to cross busy roads if females are watching, but male drivers are less likely to wear seatbelts if male passengers are present.
“Risk-taking is a significant cause of vandalism, injury, and even death — as such, risk-taking affects not only the risk taker, but also other people,” said experimental psychologist Willem Frankenhuis at the University of California at Los Angeles. “For this reason, understanding male risk-taking has practical implications — for example, prevention of drunk driving.”
To uncover the roots of such risky business, Frankenhuis and his colleagues turned to virtual reality. They reasoned that by doing so, they could expose volunteers to hazards that are too dangerous to subject people to in real life but at the same time make them feel in peril, enough perhaps to reveal what might actually cause men to overcome their fears and show off. With virtual reality, the scientists could also precisely manipulate every aspect of the environment, allowing control over variables that might otherwise confound experiments. Read more on Men show off to impress women even in virtual setting…
Dear colleagues:
The Journal of CyberTherapy & Rehabilitation (JCR) is a quarterly, peer-reviewed, scientific journal that explores the uses of advanced technologies for therapy, training, education, prevention, and rehabilitation and is currently indexed with PsycINFO, Gale and EBSCO. Led by an internationally renowned editorial board consisting of top clinicians, academicians, and researchers, JCR welcomes your manuscript submissions for publication in its future issues. To review previous issues, please visit our website at http://www.vrphobia.eu/. Read more on Call: Journal of CyberTherapy & Rehabilitation (JCR)…
[From here]
Report: Are virtual holidays going to replace real ones?
A generation of ‘Go-Nowhere Gamers’ could turn their back on out-of-home leisure in favour of gaming, social networking, and ‘always on’ media unless the travel industry responds to their needs, says a report commissioned by lastminute.com.
Apr 26, 2010
The Future of Free Time report, produced by the online travel and leisure retailer in association with think-tank Future Foundation, looks at how travel and free time will change over the next five to 20 years, and says that the travel industry must cater for an increasingly connected generation. Read more on Future of Free Time Report: How travel industries must adapt to a generation turning to mediated leisure…
FutureEverything Conference, 12-15 May 2010
The FutureEverything conference for 2010 is our best and most ambitious yet. We are also delighted to present the world’s best speakers under our conference themes of ImagineEverything, Unlimited Connectivity, Open Data and The City Experiment. 12-15 May 2010 Manchester England
The FutureEverything conference will take you on a journey through the most cutting-edge developments in a range of exciting fields. Join us to hear about why governments should open up the data that they hold, and what we can do with this information to change our lives. Listen to leading artists and scientists discuss what we can dream and do with unlimited bandwidth. Visionary speakers will illuminate the science of the web, the ways the networked city is being rewired, how poetry can be encoded into DNA, ways we can play the city like an instrument, and how relationships between generations are going to change over the next hundred years. Read more on Call: FutureEverything Conference…
[From 
Using Virtual Reality To Make Nuclear Reality Safer
by Mike Shuster
April 26, 2010
At Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico — home of the first American atomic bomb — scientists are using video-game technology to enhance training for the inspectors who monitor civilian nuclear activities around the world.
The goal is to use virtual models of nuclear facilities to provide much more realistic training — an effort to revolutionize global efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Read more on Using virtual reality to make nuclear reality safer…
4-6 NOVEMBER 2010:
The 11th Consciousness International Reframed conference ‘MAKING REALITY REALLY REAL’
In cooperation with the Planetary Collegium, University of Plymouth, England, TEKS – Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre, Trondheim, Norway, is hosting the 11th Consciousness Reframed International Research Conference, with the title of ‘MAKING REALITY REALLY REAL’. The conference will be part of Norway’s new biennial for art and technology, Meta.Morf, that takes place in Trondheim from October 7 to November 7, 2010.
The Consciousness Reframed conference series was founded by Roy Ascott at the University of Wales in 1997. Consciousness Reframed is a forum for trans-disciplinary inquiry into art, science, technology, design and consciousness, drawing upon the expertise and insights of artists, designers, architects, performers, musicians, writers, scientists, and scholars, usually from at least 20 countries. Read more on Call: 11th Consciousness International Reframed conference: ‘MAKING REALITY REALLY REAL’…
[From here]
April 23, 2010
Picture the possibilities with 3D Lego animations
by Tim Hornyak
Having trouble picturing what that Lego monster castle/spaceship/robot will look like when assembled? Lego is rolling out augmented-reality store displays that show shoppers, in 3D animation, what a completed kit will look like. The move follows other toy makers bringing AR to action figures and baseball cards. I’m waiting for cereal boxes in my supermarket to start spewing 3D cornflakes.
Read more on Picture the possibilities with 3D Lego animations…
