ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: June 2011

Call: Being There, Doing It: The Challenge of Embodied Cognition for Design Workshop

By Matthew Lombard | Published: June 30, 2011

Being There, Doing It: The Challenge of Embodied Cognition for Design

Workshop to be held at Creativity and Cognition 2011 conference, Thursday, November 3rd 2011, in TSRB on Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta, USA.

Jelle van Dijk & Joep Frens

Web site: https://sites.google.com/site/cc11embodied/

This workshop offers designers/researchers a deeper understanding of the way human beings, designed artifacts and the surrounding environment figure in situated and embodied couplings – and invites discussion of the role of artifacts within those couplings. It investigates how to apply embodied principles to interaction design, a complex challenge we believe deserves to be discussed amongst designers more thoroughly than is now the case.

As designer-researchers, we approach this discussion in a creative, ‘designerly’ way by combining embodied experiences, hands-on prototyping techniques and theoretical reflections. Concrete design proposals in the form of lo-fi prototypes will be designed, presented and discussed within the theoretical context. We aim to contribute to further development and linkage of embodied theory and design practice by uncovering some of the more complex challenges embodiment presents to design. Read more on Call: Being There, Doing It: The Challenge of Embodied Cognition for Design Workshop…

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Sense-Roid invention provides the illusion of a natural hug

By Matthew Lombard | Published: June 30, 2011

[From AFP via Australia’s ABC News; a 2:33 minute video is available here]

[Image: The Sense-Roid is connected to a jacket worn by the human user that replicates the embrace with the help of air compressors (AFP: Yoshikazu Tsuno)]

Hug machine on show in Japan

Thu Jun 23, 2011

AFP – Japanese inventors have pushed the frontiers of technology with the ultimate companion for lonely singles – a wired torso-shaped device that you can hug and that hugs you back.

The Sense-Roid looks like a tailor’s mannequin with silicon skin and is packed with pressure sensors.

It is connected to a jacket worn by the human user that replicates the embrace with the help of air compressors.

The illusion of a mutual hug with the half-humanoid is enhanced by artificial muscles and vibrating devices in the tactile jacket, according to the inventors from the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo. Read more on Sense-Roid invention provides the illusion of a natural hug…

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Call: Special Effects: Technology and the Interior Experience (special issue of Interiors: Design, Architecture, Culture)

By Matthew Lombard | Published: June 29, 2011

INTERIORS: DESIGN, ARCHITECTURE, CULTURE – Berg Publishers

Call for Articles – Special Issue (Vol. 3 Issue 1 – 2012)

SPECIAL EFFECTS: TECHNOLOGY AND THE INTERIOR EXPERIENCE

The editors Anne Massey (Kingston University) and John Turpin (Washington State University) invite contributions to the journal’s 2012 special issue SPECIAL EFFECTS: Technology and the Interior Experience. This issue will examine the impact of technology on the development of the interior and the accompanying human experience. As the 21st century unfolds, technological additions, integrations and interventions have become more pervasive altering our interface with the built environment and greatly impacting our perception of the world around us: requiring us to face reality on the one hand, and yet allowing us to slip into immersive fantasies on the other. The divisions between outside and inside have become more porous, with virtual worlds and lived experience colliding and coalescing. Gadgets for the home; technology and sustainable living; shopping and atmosphere; projecting digital place and the development of gendered technologies are all areas that are open for analysis from an interior studies perspective. The editors welcome submissions of articles addressing the topic of the interior and technology broadly defined. Read more on Call: Special Effects: Technology and the Interior Experience (special issue of Interiors: Design, Architecture, Culture)…

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New Japanese pop idol shocks fans with news – she’s not real

By Matthew Lombard | Published: June 29, 2011

[From Singularity Hub]

New Japanese Pop Idol Shocks Fans With News–She’s Not Real

by Peter Murray
June 22nd, 2011

Only 15 seconds in the limelight and she’d already created an overnight buzz. She was the newest member of the very popular all-girl Japanese idol group AKB 48. Upon seeing the new face appear on a candy commercial, the band’s faithful took to the message boards: Who is Aimi Eguchi?

This past Sunday, Ezaki Glico, the candy company which aired the commercial, confirmed what many of AKB 48’s fans had come to suspect: Aimi Eguchi wasn’t real. The new group member, it turns out, was a computer-generated composite of the real band members. Her pretty face was actually made up of the “best features” of six other members: her eyes, nose, mouth, hair/body, face outline and eyebrows were not flesh-and-blood, but cut-and-paste.

Not everyone was so quick to catch on, however, and Aimi had already formed a fan base of her own. “The video shocked fans of Eguchi,” reports ChannelNews Asia, “who were convinced that her features were more the result of good genes than the skillful use of computer graphics.” Watch this [0:15 minute] video and see if you can tell which ones are human, and which one is Aimi. Read more on New Japanese pop idol shocks fans with news – she’s not real…

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Call: Cultures in virtual worlds – Special issue of New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia

By Matthew Lombard | Published: June 28, 2011

Cultures in virtual worlds
A special issue of the New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia

Guest-edited by Jeremy Hunsinger and Adrienne Massanari

Virtual worlds (VW) embody cultures, their artefacts, and their praxes; these new and old spaces of imagination and transformation allow humans to interact in spatial dimensions. Within these spaces, culture manifests with the creation, representation, and circulation of meaningful experiences. But virtual worlds are not novel in that regard, nor should we make the mistake to assume that they are novel in themselves. Virtual experiences have been around in some respect for hundreds of years, and virtual worlds based in information technology have existed for at least 40 years. The current generation of virtual worlds, with roots over four decades old in studies of virtual reality, computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), sociology, cultural studies, and related topics, provide for rich and occasionally immersive environments where people become enculturated within the world sometimes as richly as the rest of their everyday lives.

We seek research that encounters and investigates cultures in virtual worlds in its plurality and in its richness. To that end, we invite papers covering the breadth of the topic of cultures in and of virtual worlds. Read more on Call: Cultures in virtual worlds – Special issue of New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia…

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Robert Rodriguez’ next Spy Kids film to feature ‘Aromascope’

By Matthew Lombard | Published: June 28, 2011

[From The Los Angeles Times’ 24 Frames blog; a press release is available here]

[Image: An aromatic scene from "Spy Kids: All the Time in the World," which will be released in August. Credit: The Weinstein Co.]

Robert Rodriguez defends his plan for movies that smell: ‘There have been a lot of advances with the technology’

June 24, 2011

The idea of enhancing the filmgoing experience using scratch-and-sniff cards seems even campier now than a similar idea (Smell-o-Vision) did in 1960. That’s when the B movie “Scent of Mystery” tried to get viewers’ olfactory receptors in on the action by pumping fragrant gases into theaters full of sniffing moviegoers.

But filmmaker Robert Rodriguez — who announced Friday morning he was releasing his upcoming 3-D family film “Spy Kids: All the Time in the World” using something called Aromascope — has worked out the reasons why the world is ready for another odoriferous go-round.

Basically, it works like this. Upon purchasing a ticket, all moviegoers will be handed a card with a numbered set of smells. At certain points in the action, audience members will be directed to scratch the corresponding number so they can smell the appropriate scent. (John Waters used a similar technique with  “Polyester” in 1981.)

Below, an except of our conversation with Rodriguez about why smells are swell. Read more on Robert Rodriguez’ next Spy Kids film to feature ‘Aromascope’…

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Call: Workshop on the Sensuous Object (Smell and Touch, Ambience, Aesthetic, Visual Thinking, Tacit Knowledge, Sound and Seduction)

By Matthew Lombard | Published: June 27, 2011

Call for Abstracts: Workshop on the Sensuous Object (Smell and Touch, Ambience, Aesthetic, Visual Thinking, Tacit Knowledge, Sound and Seduction)

Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Our own Lucy Lyons and Anette Stenslund are organising a two-day workshop titled ‘The Sensuous Object’ here at Medical Museion, September 29-30.

‘The Sensuous Object’ is an interdisciplinary, participatory workshop concerned with ways we actually engage with objects and aimed at researchers in all disciplines interested in the materiality of actual artefacts and ways of understanding objects through the senses.

How we experience and understand objects as sensuous objects that have been realized, produced, consumed through and by our senses, and how they impact on us and how we impact on them, are just a few of the expected discussion topics. By inviting participants to choose actual objects and use them as central to their presentations, the aim is to challenge established concepts and reveal new possibilities in our experiencing of and understanding through objects, using sensuous approaches. It will provide opportunity for presenters to test ideas, try out new formats of presentation and discussion, and examine their own research through the sensuous object. Read more on Call: Workshop on the Sensuous Object (Smell and Touch, Ambience, Aesthetic, Visual Thinking, Tacit Knowledge, Sound and Seduction)…

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Norway’s NRK takes TV viewers on complete 134 hour coastal voyage

By Matthew Lombard | Published: June 27, 2011

[From Views and News from Norway; a 0:33 minute video is available here and a post-trip review is here]

[Image: Cameras started rolling when the Hurtigruten ship MS Nord-Norge sailed from Bergen on June 16. The cameras weren't due to be turned off until the ship docks in Kirkenes on June 22, with the entire voyage airing live on NRK2. PHOTO: NRK]

NRK launches marathon TV voyage

June 17, 2011
Views and News from Norway/Nina Berglund

After months of planning and technical preparation, state broadcaster NRK went live Thursday night with its marathon coverage of a Hurtigruten voyage from Bergen north to the line’s turnaround point in Kirkenes. Viewers will be able to follow every minute of the trip on NRK’s channel 2, until it ends on Wednesday morning.

All told, the broadcast will amount to more than 8,000 minutes, or 134 hours of continuous coverage as NRK cameras mounted all around the Hurtigruten ship MS Nord-Norge chart the five-day voyage. NRK officials hope the program will be registered in the Guinness book of world records as the world’s longest documentary program.

NRK isn’t just mounting the production to set a world record, though. The marathon broadcast, announced last spring, is rooted in the surprising success of another NRK project that mounted cameras on board the train line between Bergen and Oslo in 2009. That show, lasting a relatively paltry seven hours, attracted more than a million Norwegians (roughly a fifth of the country’s entire population) and made NRK realize that the concept could be popular indeed.

Some of those watching the train line program sat through the entire seven hours, saying later they were mesmerized by the slow pace of the show, the scenery rolling by and, not least, the feeling of actually being on board the train. Now NRK hopes millions of others will also enjoy the feeling of being on board a Hurtigruten ship, even if it likely is humanly impossible to watch the entire broadcast from start to finish. Read more on Norway’s NRK takes TV viewers on complete 134 hour coastal voyage…

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Call: MMVR19 (Medicine Meets Virtual Reality) and NextMed conference

By Matthew Lombard | Published: June 24, 2011

Medicine Meets Virtual Reality
MMVR19
NextMed

February 9 – 11, 2012
Newport Beach Marriott Hotel & Spa
Newport Beach, California

Call for Presentations Now Open!
Submission Deadline is July 15, 2011

http://www.nextmed.com/

After a very successful 2011 conference, we are pleased to announce the MMVR19 / NextMed Call for Presentations. The Organizing Committee invites submissions from researchers discovering new tools and methods at the juncture of informatics and medicine.

MMVR welcomes a broad range of topics, including:

  • Biomedical simulation, modeling, and rendering 
  • Data visualization and fusion 
  • Imaging devices and methods 
  • Robotics 
  • Haptics
  • Sensors and sensor grids 
  • Human-computer interfaces 
  • Medical intelligence networks
  • Mobile health applications
  • Projection systems 
  • Virtual and augmented reality 
  • Learning and technology 
  • Plasma medicine
  • Simulator design and validation 
  • Surgical registration and navigation 
  • Psychotherapy tools 
  • Physical rehabilitation tools 
  • Remote and battlefield care 
  • Serious games 
  • Wearable and implantable electronics 
  • Patient and public health monitoring and education 

Since 1992, when it debuted as the “Medicine Meets Virtual Reality” conference, MMVR has served as a forum for researchers harnessing IT advances for the benefit of patient diagnosis and care, medical education, and procedural training. Over the years, its curriculum expanded well beyond virtual reality. The conference now presents a wide spectrum of biomedical innovation.

The NextMed portion of the conference ventures outside the IT-focused core, exploring possibilities within biology, materials science, and the micro/nano realms. For NextMed, the MMVR19 Organizing Committee extends a warm invitation to researchers who are creating tools with unique potential to revolutionize the future of medicine. Read more on Call: MMVR19 (Medicine Meets Virtual Reality) and NextMed conference…

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Simulating invisibility with an iPad 2 app

By Matthew Lombard | Published: June 24, 2011

[A press release from Levity Novelty LLC via PRWeb; several short videos are available on YouTube including this one]

Invisibility Achieved Through iPad 2 App

Levity Novelty LLC has today released an iPad app that provides simulated invisibility of the iPad 2 screen on a table or other environment, even as the device is moved, using its unique motion sensing technology. The Invisibility™ app is available in Apple’s online App Store for US $0.99.

Sebastopol, CA (PRWEB) June 22, 2011

Levity Novelty LLC has today released an iPad app that provides simulated invisibility of the iPad 2 screen on a table or other environment, even as the device is moved. The Invisibility™ app is available in Apple’s online App Store for US$0.99.

The Invisibility user simply takes a photo of the table, then lays the iPad flat on the table or lifts one corner. As the user rotates the iPad around its center, or a corner, a perfectly stationary image of the table underneath remains clearly visible.

By all appearances, the screen has disappeared and the user is looking through the iPad as it moves. Users can even see the inside edge of the iPad through the screen, as well as shadows seemingly cast on the table by the empty iPad frame.

Dream of Invisibility Achieved

From the Arabian Nights to the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter’s cloak, storytellers have dreamed of invisibility. Magicians use mirrors and sleight of hand to astonish audiences and make objects disappear. While the Invisibility iPad app can’t yet be adapted to the size and flexibility of a garment or cloak, its core method – combining cameras, motion tracking software, and a large display – can some day be combined to make a greater range of objects disappear. Read more on Simulating invisibility with an iPad 2 app…

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