ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: February 2011

Call: Entertainment Interfaces track at Mensch & Computer 2011

By Matthew Lombard | Published: February 21, 2011

Entertainment Interfaces Track at Mensch & Computer 2011
Chemnitz, Germany, 11.-14. September 2011
http://entertainmentinterfaces.uebermedien.org/

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 20th March 2011

ORGANIZERS

  • Maic Masuch, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
  • Matthias Rauterberg, Technical University Eindhoven, the Netherlands
  • Joerg Niesenhaus, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

AIMS AND SCOPE

The track “Entertainment Interfaces” offers researchers, developers, and designers a platform to present innovative ideas in the area of interactive entertainment with a focus on interaction in games and other entertainment products and to discuss design challenges and the evaluation of entertainment interfaces. The aims of the track are to strengthen the awareness of the relevance of user-friendly and innovative interfaces for entertainment applications in the research community and in the public, to encourage the research activities and the education in this field, and to foster the knowledge transfer between researchers and developers. We like to emphasize the interdisciplinary background of the “Entertainment Interfaces” track and welcome contributions from the areas of computer science, psychology, design and engineering sciences as well as contributions from developers and designers working in the field of interactive entertainment. The track will take place together simultaneously with the German HCI conference “Mensch & Computer 2011″ and the German Usability Professionals (UPA) track in Chemnitz. Attendees of the Entertainment Interfaces track will be able to join all other tracks at no extra cost. Read more on Call: Entertainment Interfaces track at Mensch & Computer 2011…

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The Oscars to use projections to ‘enter the world of virtual reality’

By Matthew Lombard | Published: February 21, 2011

[From

Details of Dramatic Changes for Oscars Telecast

Oscar producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer explain to The Hollywood Reporter that they are taking a radical departure from past shows.

2/18/2011 by Gregg Kilday

The Oscars are entering the world of virtual reality.

This year’s Academy Awards telecast is taking a radical departure from past years. Producers of the Feb. 27 show are abandoning the concept of a traditional set. Instead, they will rely on a series of “projections” to give the show a constantly changing look.

“Our design this year is actually going to reflect more content than you would usually expect of an awards show of this type,” producer Don Mischer tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview with fellow producer Bruce Cohen in the Kodak Theater. “We’re using our environment to take us to different places, different times, and it will change dramatically. The look will change from act to act.”

Producers plan to take viewers on a trip through Hollywood history.

“We’re doing six or seven scenic transitions during the show, but they are each sort of a different concept,” Cohen explains. “In other words, one might be a scene from a film, one might be a more specific time in history, one might be a specific event, one might be a specific genre. The hope is that we briefly leave the Kodak in 2011 — not literally, but metaphorically — and take the audience, both in the room and on television, to a specific time and place.” Read more on The Oscars to use projections to ‘enter the world of virtual reality’…

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Call: Workshop on Cultures in Game/worlds

By Matthew Lombard | Published: February 18, 2011

Workshop on Cultures in Game/worlds

Call for Participation

at the Cultural Studies Association Conference in Chicago, Illinois
24th-26th March
Location: Building S, Room 1306
Hour: March 26th, 9 am and later if scheduling allows

RSVP March 5, 2011

We call the virtual environments that constitute the topic of this workshop “game/worlds.” Game/worlds are 3d virtual environments developed for play and other entertainment, social interaction, cultural exploration, and virtual design/exchange. These worlds have captured the attention of researchers from around the world from a variety of disciplines. This workshop aims to improve the understanding of game/worlds as environments for cultural studies and cultural analyses. It will bring researchers together to collaborate and discuss diverse topics related to the unique problems of researching in game/worlds. We will pursue a schedule integrating workshop participants where they will discuss their work and interests related to four different topics: research methods for game/worlds, histories of game/worlds, cultures of game/worlds, and ethics of research in game/worlds. Some questions for consideration include: How can we better enable cultural studies in this sphere? How can we better enable research? How do we engage these arenas as ethical researchers? Read more on Call: Workshop on Cultures in Game/worlds…

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Researchers use virtual-reality avatars to create ‘out-of-body’ experience

By Matthew Lombard | Published: February 18, 2011

[From The Financial Times, which includes a 2:37 minute long video, and at the web site of EPFL Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience]

[Image: Olaf Blanke conducts experiment to understand the way the brain represents the body by combining VR induced illusions and brain signal readings to better understand the cognitive basis for spatial representation.]

Researchers use virtual-reality avatars to create ‘out-of-body’ experience

Volunteers experienced the virtual bodies as if they were their own, with possible applications in computer games or to transport people digitally to other locations

Alok Jha, science correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 February 2011

In the film Avatar, explorers on the planet Pandora transmit their minds into alternative bodies. Now scientists have come a step closer to recreating the experience in the lab.

They have successfully “projected” people into digital avatars that can move around a virtual environment. The participants experienced the digital body as if it were their own, even if the virtual humans were of the opposite sex.

The research is aimed at understanding how the brain integrates information coming from the senses in order to determine the position of the body in space. But the results could also be used in next generation computer games or for people who want to transport themselves, digitally, to other locations. Read more on Researchers use virtual-reality avatars to create ‘out-of-body’ experience…

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Call: Re-Thinking Technology in Museums 2011: Emerging Experiences

By Matthew Lombard | Published: February 17, 2011

“Re-Thinking Technology in Museums 2011: Emerging Experiences”

Hosted by the UL Interaction Design Centre and the Irish Museums Association, with the support of IxDA Limerick

University of Limerick, Ireland
May 26-27, 2011

http://www.idc.ul.ie/techmuseums11

New Deadline for paper submissions: 20th of February

Themes of the Conference

in 2005 “Re-Thinking Technology in Museums” brought together a group of academics and practitioners discussing novel ways of conceptualizing the museum experience in light of the presence of interactive technologies. The second edition of this conference on the theme of “Emerging Experience” will further the discussion on novel approaches for understanding people¹s experiences in museums and galleries, and for designing interactive technologies to support these experiences. In recent years, the increased presence of mobile smart appliances such as smart phones, and the growth of social media and social networks have impacted on the strategies deployed by museums and exhibition sites to invite, engage and connect with visitors and stakeholders. It’s important to reflect on how museums/galleries and visitors have been affected from an experiential point of view: what have museums and galleries become? And what about the role of visitors? How are meaningful and rewarding experiences emerging in this context? Read more on Call: Re-Thinking Technology in Museums 2011: Emerging Experiences…

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Webcast funerals: Convenient, dehumanizing

By Matthew Lombard | Published: February 17, 2011

[From here]

Opinion

Webcast funerals are dehumanizing

By Amy Leadbetter
Published: February 16, 2011

The progression of technology and its dehumanizing effects has hit an all-time low.

An article published last week in The New York Times titled, “For Funerals Too Far, Mourners Gather on the Web” by Laura Holson, addressed the recent popularity of funerals broadcast online.

Holson’s article informs the reader that this is seen as a blessing for those who live too far or who are unable to make it to the service. Hence, webcast funerals are seen as a convenience.

All the technological advances our lives are now consumed with (email, text, the Internet, social networks, etc.) began as conveniences.

Our culture has become so complex that these “conveniences” have necessitated their way into our everyday lives. We have become reliant on their expediency, which has consequently led to less face-to-face human interaction. Read more on Webcast funerals: Convenient, dehumanizing…

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Call: Perceiving Others’ Minds

By Matthew Lombard | Published: February 16, 2011

Perceiving Others’ Minds

Friday 1st July 2010
Boardroom, Arthur Lewis Building
University of Manchester
M13 9PL

http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/philosophy/events/pom/

Speakers:

Read more on Call: Perceiving Others’ Minds…

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$US500 iRobot hack lets you be two places at once

By Matthew Lombard | Published: February 16, 2011

[From

$US500 iRobot Hack Lets You Be Two Places At Once

By Kit Eaton – FastCo on February 12, 2011

A hacker has put together a viable home-brew telepresence robot using easily available components that’s good enough (if not pretty enough) to rival much more expensive peers like Anybot’s QB. More than anything this suggests telepresence virtual working is an imminent phenomenon.

The enterprising chap in question is Johnny Chung Lee. Temporarily separated from his partner after a work-driven relocation, he wanted to create a simple way to maintain a presence in their previous home. Telepresence droids would be the ideal tool, but Lee decided to go the DIY route. Read more on $US500 iRobot hack lets you be two places at once…

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Call: Designs on eLearning Conference: Creative learning spaces of the future

By Matthew Lombard | Published: February 15, 2011

The 7th International Designs on eLearning Conference
DeL 2011: Creative learning spaces of the future

Aalto University
September 13 -16 2011

http://www.designsonelearning.net/conferences/face_to_face/sept2011/del_sept2011.htm

Aalto University is a new multidisciplinary university, where science and art meet technology and business. The University is located in Espoo and Helsinki in Finland.

Call for papers

The notion of space regains fresh momentum every time we interact with the world around us. As mobile devices weave into the fabric of everyday life, we are no longer confined to a specific location, time and place in accessing and interacting with communications technologies. Interfaces become more adaptable and fluid according to the user’s needs; capable of switching seamlessly between augmented, real and virtual information and communication techniques and practices.

In educational contexts, however, we are still largely entangled in the three-dimensional space of Euclidian geometry which we commonly associate with the institutional space of action.

Thus the conference aims to delve into these temporal intertwined modes of action between individuals, networks and institutions so as to uncover unarticulated concepts and experiences that will help us to co-develop the creative learning spaces of the future. Read more on Call: Designs on eLearning Conference: Creative learning spaces of the future…

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Transmedia of future to engage the populace in an immersive and interactive way

By Matthew Lombard | Published: February 15, 2011

[From

[Large image available conference regarding just what exactly ‘transmedia’ is, and perhaps where it’s going. Although the meaning of the phrase changed somewhat depending upon who you talked to, the core of the explanations I received was simply this: transmedia engages an audience across multiple platforms, such as television, film and the internet.

The key word here is ‘engage’.

From one speaker‘s point-of-view, as a producer you need to engage your audience in an almost immersive experience, where your property – factual or fictional – melds itself into your audiences’ lives as seamlessly as a mobile phone. It’s just… there. You moonlight as a spy for an international human-rights syndicate. You work as a botanist for a prestigious university, cataloguing rare insects that you find in your back garden.

Some experiences are serious – some perhaps even deadly; others are not, mere frivolity.

Another speaker felt that transmedia could simply be other secondary levels of engagement around a primary property, such as a motion picture or a television series.

This could be as plain as a website – although that has become about as generic as slapping a poster on the side of a tavern wall – or as complex as a long-term viral marketing campaign, such as the ‘Y SO SRS’ campaign used for ‘The Dark Knight’.

These, however, tend to only involve the internet for delivery – although they may involve text, images, sound and video, it’s all coming from the same place.

Mixed-mode delivery of multi-media content was the focus of another speaker, who demonstrated an ‘experience’ (there really is no better term at present; feel free to make one up!) wherein participants interacted with the fictional entities present within it through the telephone, internet and so-forth.

I can imagine taking this much, much further – publish a ‘clue’ inside a newspaper, and prompt your audience to go to the library to discover it; install a physical fixture to which your audience needs to travel (or convince a friend or family member to do likewise) in order to get the next clue and carry on with the experience.

The possibilities are endless. Read more on Transmedia of future to engage the populace in an immersive and interactive way…

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