ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: September 2013

Call: Online survey on Uncanny Valley

Please take part in this survey investigating viewer perception of facial expression and the Uncanny Valley for human-like virtual characters intended for immersive video game environments:

http://app.evalandgo.com/s/?id=JTk5biU5OG4=&a=JTk2aiU5Nm0lOUM=

The survey should take between 10-15 minutes to complete.

This series of studies on the Uncanny Valley meets the criteria for the University Research Ethics Framework and has been approved by the Research Ethics Committee at Bolton University.… read more. “Call: Online survey on Uncanny Valley”

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Point of view: How so many rooted for ‘Breaking Bad’s’ Walter White

[From NPR’s Monkey See blog, where the story includes more images and an extended video]

Breaking Bad floor-level shot

[Image: The creators of Breaking Bad judiciously use the point-of-shot sequence in critical scenes of the pilot, including when Walter White is forced to clean the tires of student’s car. Doug Hyun/Courtesy of AMC.]

Point Of View: How So Many Rooted For ‘Breaking Bad’s’ Walter White

by Michaeleen Doucleff
September 27, 2013

If you were still cheering for Walter White at the start of the sixth season (or, as AMC contracts call it, the second half of the fifth season), a mustard stain on a doctor’s jacket might be one reason why.

Just last month, the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, marveled at the fact that, 56 episodes into Breaking Bad, fans were still rooting for the meth-cooking drug lord. “I would have guessed at this point that he would have lacked sympathizability,” he told The New York Times.… read more. “Point of view: How so many rooted for ‘Breaking Bad’s’ Walter White”

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Call: Expanded Narrative Symposium

Expanded Narrative Symposium
Roland Levinsky Building
Plymouth University
Fri 1st – Sat 2nd November 2013

http://expandednarrative.org/symposium/

Early Bird tickets available until end of September!

The Expanded Narrative Symposium explores the multidisciplinary fields of interactive narrative that reconfigure the form and expand the experience of storytelling.

The reader, relocated, becomes a player, co-author or participant. How can we design, develop and experience locative sound, participatory theatre, pervasive and mobile games, flash fiction and works yet to be defined? Through the consideration of these questions, the symposium aims to promote knowledge exchange and collaboration between practitioners from the arts, academia and the creative industries.… read more. “Call: Expanded Narrative Symposium”

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Testing robotic companions on a simulated mission to Mars

[From IEEE Spectrum’s Automaton blog, where the story includes many additional pictures and a video]

Romibo, companion robot

Testing Robotic Companions on a Simulated Mission to Mars

By Simon Engler
Posted 26 Sep 2013 | 20:02 GMT

Simon Engler (pictured above with robotic dinosaur Pleo) recently spent four months in a Hawaii habitat that simulated a Mars mission. In this guest post, he tells us about the experience and his research on robotic companions for long-duration space missions.read more. “Testing robotic companions on a simulated mission to Mars”

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Call: Participation in survey project on gamers’ online gaming experience

Dear Colleagues,

Hello everyone,

I am conducting an online survey on gamers’ online gaming experiences, such as trash talking and related behaviours. I have received some responses from various sources. May I kindly ask for your help in filling out and sharing the survey link to your friends and people who play online. The survey takes on average 15 minutes.

Here is the link: http://osucomms.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8BsMt3C1Y9jL3Bb

Cheers,

Wai Yen Tang

The Ohio State University
School of Communication
PhD Student
tang.252@osu.edu
vgresearcher.wordpress.comread more. “Call: Participation in survey project on gamers’ online gaming experience”

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Google, AP and Tribeca Film Institute fund ambitious immersive journalism project

[From Fast Company’s Co.Create, where the story includes more images and a video]

Original image from Use Of Force Protocol events

[Image: Death At The Border: Security camera footage was used to plop bystanders at the scene of Anastacio Hernández-Rojas’ death in a wraparound, fully-immersive digital world.]

Put On A Helmet, And You’re In The Story: Why Virtual Reality Journalism Is The Future

Google, the Associated Press, and the Tribeca Film Institute are funding one of the most ambitious virtual reality projects yet: A 3-D, fully immersive re-creation of the death of a migrant at the U.S.-Mexico border.

By: Neal Ungerleider

Nonny de la Peña isn’t your typical PhD candidate. The former Newsweek reporter turned University of Southern California doctoral candidate specializes in re-creating real-life news events as fully immersive virtual reality experiences. Inside de la Peña’s lab, a handful of colleagues use the Unity gaming engine and other tools to engineer 3-D reenactments of violent crimes and dramatic incidents that integrate original audio and video sources.… read more. “Google, AP and Tribeca Film Institute fund ambitious immersive journalism project”

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Call: IEEE 3rd International Conference on Serious Games and Applications for Health

CALL FOR PAPERS

IEEE 3rd International Conference on Serious Games and Applications for Health
May 14-16, 2014
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Sponsored by: IEEE ˆ Computer Society

http://www.ipca.pt/segah2014

IMPORTANT DATES:

Regular Paper Submission Deadline: November 1, 2013
Poster Submission (extended abstract) Deadline: November 1, 2013
Authors Notification (regular papers and extended abstract): December 1, 2013
Final Regular Paper Submission and Registration: January 15, 2014
Tutorial Submission Deadline: November 1, 2013
Demo Submission Deadline: November 1, 2013
Workshops Submission Deadline: November 1, 2013
Symposiums Submission Deadline: July 31, 2013

GENERAL CO-CHAIRS:

Esteban Clua, Fluminense Federal University, Brazil
João Vilaça, Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Portugal

PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS:

Duarte Duque, Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Portugal

PROGRAM COMMITTEE:

Please check the program committee members at http://www.ipca.pt/segah2014 – Committees

CONFERENCE TOPICS:

  • Virtual environments
  • Patient education
  • Game-based learning
  • Exercising and active living
  • Natural user interface
  • Human-computer interface
  • Assistive technologies
  • Accessibility
  • Diagnosis
  • Algorithms
  • Game design and development
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Signal processing
  • E-learning and Education
  • Public Health Informatics
  • Telemedicine and real-time monitoring
  • Clinical training
  • Healthcare professionals training
  • Rehabilitation
  • Public health education
  • Medical imaging processing, Analysis and Visualization
  • Augmented reality for Minimally-invasive surgery
  • Techniques and tools for Minimally-invasive surgery
  • Robotic surgical Procedures
  • Robotic instruments for surgery

 … read more. “Call: IEEE 3rd International Conference on Serious Games and Applications for Health”

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Visualise Studio explains how to use VR for marketing — and not suck

[From the Huffington Post, where the story includes more images and a video]

London Eye Visualise interactive tour

Visualise Studio Explains How To Use Virtual Reality For Marketing — And Not Suck

Michael Rundle
Posted: 24/09/2013

Of the myriad possible uses for the next-gen of virtual reality, marketing might not seem like the most thrilling.

But if you take a trip down to the Visualise Studio in London for Social Media Week, you might come away with a different impression.

Visualise, the team behind some of the web’s most impressive ultra-high 360-degree resolution images – from the London Olympics to the Queen’s Jubilee – have unveiled some impressive new concepts for Oculus Rift-enabled imagery and advertising. And judging by our brief hands-on, their ideas should set brands’ and marketers’ minds racing for high-concept, and high tech, apps and experiences in the near future.… read more. “Visualise Studio explains how to use VR for marketing — and not suck”

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Call: 1st Global Conference Letters & Letter Writing – Signed, Sealed, Delivered

[For those wondering how this might be about (tele)presence, see Esther Milne’s ISPR 2011 paper, Historical Provocations: Postal Presence, Intimate Absence and Public Privacy.  –Matthew ]

1st Global Conference
Letters & Letter Writing – Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Tuesday 18th March – Thursday 20th March 2014
Prague, Czech Republic

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/education/letters-and-letter-writing/call-for-presentations/

Call for Presentations

The letter has been one of the most important forms of communication over thousands of years across many cultures and continents. Whether personal, professional or an open statement of intent it can covey the most intimate messages or declare the most inflammatory of declarations. It can be delivered by hand, by postman, by pigeon, by bottle, by smartphone, by internet connection or even by space ship. It can be cherished, collected, published, censored, blogged, stolen, steamed open, torn up, buried, displayed. It can be written on paper, papyrus, skin, in the sand, in wax, on sweet wrappers and on computer screens.… read more. “Call: 1st Global Conference Letters & Letter Writing – Signed, Sealed, Delivered”

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Parkinson’s patients shed their limitations in simulated online universe

[From U-T San Diego (the San Diego Union-Tribune); for more information, including the significance of the image, see “Second Life’s Second Life for Social Innovation” in the Stanford Social Innovation Review]

Second Life garden

PARKINSON’S PATIENT, 86, BUILDS A NEW LIFE IN VIRTUAL WORLD

Parkinson’s patients shed their limitations in simulated online universe

By Pam Kragen  Sept. 24, 2013

CARLSBAD – When Fran Swenson visits Creations Park each day, she takes tai chi classes, swims, ice skates and goes ballroom dancing.

Although Parkinson’s disease and macular degeneration have reduced the 86-year-old La Costa resident’s ability to walk, see and leave her one-bedroom apartment, she has no such limitations in the lushly landscaped Creations Park — a “sim” or virtual-reality world — in the online universe known as Second Life.

Shortened from Creations for Parkinson’s, the sim is an online community where people with Parkinson’s can interact through digital avatars to share stories, exercise, shop and enjoy an active life that is no longer possible with their physical bodies.… read more. “Parkinson’s patients shed their limitations in simulated online universe”

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