ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: June 2014

Call: Culture and Space – 14th International Cultural Studies Symposium

Call for Papers

14th International Cultural Studies Symposium
Theme: Culture and Space

Faculty of Letters, Ege University
Izmir (Turkey)
6.-8.5.2015

Deadline:  30.12.2014

Edward Soja in his book Postmodern Geographies, says that “We must be insistently aware of how space can be made to hide consequences from us, how relations of power and discipline are inscribed into the apparently innocent spatiality of social life, how human geographies become filled with politics and ideology.”. It is assumed that the spatiality of social life is under the threat and disguise of authoritarian ideologies and practices which may hide the realities of power relations on every level of space in a given culture and society or between the countries of the world. “Space” in the context of our symposium encompasses all sorts of space/places/domains/geographies that human cultural practices directly or indirectly share. The symposium seeks to explore all dialectics and realities of space and culture.… read more. “Call: Culture and Space – 14th International Cultural Studies Symposium”

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CoeLux simulates sun and sky in windowless rooms

[From Interesting Engineering, where the story includes many more images]

Ceolux Lighting

CoeLux brings sunlight to rooms without windows

June 14th, 2014 by Allison Blackburn

Everyone knows that if experienced responsibly, sunlight is good for you, but in some cases people don’t get enough. For instance, this could be those who work in rooms that are windowless or people who live in the north during winter. A lack of sunlight has been attributed to a condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder.

One way of overcoming the winter blues as it is more commonly known is through light therapy. However the lamps on the market are limited. Now a designer from Italy has come up with a system that is unique, called CoeLux. This system produces artificial light through a false skylight that is packed with intelligence.… read more. “CoeLux simulates sun and sky in windowless rooms”

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Call: Models of Culture for Intelligent Virtual Agents (MoCIVA)

Call for Papers: Models of Culture for Intelligent Virtual Agents (MoCIVA)

Call for short and long papers for first MoCIVA workshop co-located with Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA) in Boston, MA – August 27th – 29th. Submissions due June 24th.

General page:  http://gaips.inesc-id.pt/mociva/
Link to submission details:  http://gaips.inesc-id.pt:8081/mociva/index.php/submission

Position papers: 2 pages
Short papers: 4-6 pages
Long papers: 10-12 pages

MoCIVA topics

MoCIVA aims to provide a forum for continued discussion and dissemination of results on several topics related to culture and virtual agents including:

  • Culture-specific virtual agents and robots
  • Agents for teaching cultures, or cross-cultural interaction
  • Models of culture that could be or have been used in virtual agents
  • Architectures that could be or have been used in culturally-aware virtual agents
  • Cross-cultural and inter-cultural data collection methods that can inform agent models
  • Culture-specific or cross-cultural human-agent interactions
  • Evaluation methods and metrics for human-agent models of culture
  • Simulating cultural differences
  • Applications of building models of culture that may affect task performance, e.g.,
read more. “Call: Models of Culture for Intelligent Virtual Agents (MoCIVA)”
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Lowe’s 3-D room makes remodeling a (virtual) reality

[From CNBC, where the story includes more pictures and two videos; the press release is available from Lowe’s]

Lowe's Holoroom

Lowe’s 3-D room makes remodeling a (virtual) reality

Krystina Gustafson
Wednesday, 11 Jun 2014

It’s a question retailers everywhere are grappling with—how do they get shoppers to turn off their computers and step back into the store?

Lowe’s thinks it may have found the answer: Give them something they can’t get online.

The second-largest home improvement store announced on Wednesday that it will transform the in-store experience by building a 30-by-30 virtual reality room that enables customers to view a 3-D representation of their renovation projects before they start with demolition.… read more. “Lowe’s 3-D room makes remodeling a (virtual) reality”

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Call: 2nd International Workshop on ICT for the Preservation and Transmission of Intangible Cultural Heritage

The 2nd International Workshop on ICT for the Preservation and Transmission of Intangible Cultural Heritage
“How to exchange Cultural Heritage 3D objects and knowledge in Digital Libraries?”

3rd ­ 8th Nov. 2014, Conference Venue: Lemessos, Cyprus

http://www.culturalheritage2014.eu/index.php/workshops/

Full paper (max. 10 pages), Project paper (max. 8 pages) or Short paper (max. 6 pages) submission:  June 30th, 2014

Submission system: http://www.culturalheritage2014.eu/index.php/paper-submission/

The Workshop takes place as part of the International Conference on Cultural Heritage (CH), which brings together researchers, policy makers, professionals and practitioners to explore some of the more pressing issues concerning cultural heritage today. In particular, the main goal of the conference is to focus on interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary research on tangible and intangible Cultural Heritage, the use of cutting edge technologies for the protection, restoration, preservation, massive digitalization, documentation and presentation of the CH content.… read more. “Call: 2nd International Workshop on ICT for the Preservation and Transmission of Intangible Cultural Heritage”

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Presence in popular culture: The Tonight Show, Conan and Murder in the First

[Here are three examples of presence, not by name of course, in popular culture: First, a demonstration of Sony’s Project Morpheus on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon from Road to VR, where you can watch the 4:34 minute video.]

Jimmy Fallon and Sony Morpheus

News Bits: Sony’s Project Morpheus Goes Prime Time with Jimmy Fallon and the Tonight Show

June 8, 2014 by Paul James

The mainstream media are slowly warning up to the advent of virtual reality, or at the very least that demonstrating new and exciting ways to play games pulls viewers of the demographics they’re interested in. Now Sony’s Project Morpheus, a new VR Headset developed for the Playstation 4 and revealed officially at GDC this year, has made an appearance to riotous laughter and applause.… read more. “Presence in popular culture: The Tonight Show, Conan and Murder in the First”

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Call: ARTECH 2015 – 7th International Conference on Digital Arts – Creating Digital e-Motions

ARTECH 2015
7th International Conference on Digital Arts – Creating Digital e-Motions.
Óbidos, Portugal, March 18-20, 2015

Call for Papers

ARTECH 2015 is the Seventh International Conference on Digital Arts, this time hosted by Universidade Aberta in the ancient village of Óbidos, Portugal. The goal of the conference is to promote the interest in the current digital culture and its intersection with art and technology as an important research field, but also as a common space for discussion and exchange of new experiences. Seeking to foster greater understanding about digital arts and culture across a wide spectrum of cultural, disciplinary, and professional practices, this edition of the conference also includes a strand concerned with mobile technologies such as smartphones and tablets that have become widespread creation instruments. To this end, we cordially invite scholars, teachers, researchers, artists, computer professionals, and others who are working within the broadly defined areas of digital arts, culture and education to join us.… read more. “Call: ARTECH 2015 – 7th International Conference on Digital Arts – Creating Digital e-Motions”

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Is “digital cloning” actors the future of movie making?

[From CBS News; a 4:13 minute video report is available here]

Light Stage for 'digital cloning'

Is “digital cloning” the future of movie making?

CBS News – June 2, 2014

“Maleficent,” the story of a winged fairy turning into a wicked sorceress, brought in $70 million this weekend.

The film’s special effects are state of the art. When the tiny fairies fly, you see “pixie-perfect” human faces on them.

What was once filmed on a sound stage, is now shot on a “light stage,” reports CBS News’ Carter Evans.

The surreal laboratory is the brainchild of Paul Debevec who heads up the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies. He’s re-inventing the way movies are made by digitally cloning actors.

“We want to create that perfect digital puppet that has every skin pore, fine crease and the ability for any little twitch or bulge or buckle of skin that the real person would’ve had,” he said.… read more. “Is “digital cloning” actors the future of movie making?”

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Call: Academic MindTrek Conference 2014

ACADEMIC MINDTREK CONFERENCE 2014

Call for Papers, Extended Abstracts, Posters, Demonstration, Workshops, Tutorials
4th to 7th November 2014
Tampere, Finland

http://www.academicmindtrek.org, http://www.mindtrek.org

Long and short papers, posters, demonstrations, and extended abstracts due on
— DEADLINE 30th June 2014

Workshops due on
— DEADLINE 30th June 2014 (extended)

Tutorials due on
— DEADLINE 30th Sept 2014

THEMES:

  • Social Media
  • Ambient/Ubiquitous Media & Open Source
  • Business & Media
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Hybrid Media (new track!)
  • Digital Games
  • ICT & E-Government
  • Information Systems & Management in Creativity Industry (new track!)

In cooperation with ACM, ACM SIGMM, and ACM SIGCHI

Contributions will be published in the ACM digital library and selected set of high-level work will be published as book chapters or in journals

CALL FOR PAPERS, ABSTRACTS, POSTERS, DEMOS, WORKSHOPS & TUTORIALS

We are pleased to invite you to the Academic MindTrek conference, 4th to 7th November 2014, which brings together a cross-disciplinary crowd of people to investigate current and emerging topics of media in many facets.… read more. “Call: Academic MindTrek Conference 2014”

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Control VR gloves warp your fingers into virtual worlds

[From The Verge, where the story includes two images and a 9:17 minute video]

Control VR first person view

Control VR gloves warp your fingers into virtual worlds

$350 device tracks your arms and hands with military-designed sensors

By Rich McCormick on June 5, 2014

New technologies such as Google Glass and Oculus’ Rift headset are making it easier than ever for us to get our heads into augmented and virtual realities. But while we get our heads into these alternate worlds and use our eyes to check our emails, surf the internet, even destroy enemy starfighters with a spiral of missiles, our hands are left behind in the real world.

California-based Control VR wants to change that. The company today launched a Kickstarter for its Control VR wearable device, a glove-like system that fits over the user’s arms and shoulders and can accurately sense the precise movements of fingers before translating that motion into virtual or augmented realities.… read more. “Control VR gloves warp your fingers into virtual worlds”

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