ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: December 2014

Call: CHI PLAY 2015

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

CHI PLAY 2015
The 2nd ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play
http://chiplay.org
Twitter: #chiplay

London, England
October 5 – 7, 2015

Submission Deadlines:
April 2, 2015: Full papers and workshops
June 26, 2015: Student competition, courses and tutorials, panels, doctoral consortium, industry case studies and works-in-progress

CHI PLAY is an international and interdisciplinary conference (by ACM SIGCHI) for researchers and professionals across all areas of play, games and human-computer interaction (HCI). We call this area “player-computer interaction”.

The goal of the conference is to highlight and foster discussion of current high quality research in games and HCI as foundations for the future of digital play. To this end, the conference will feature streams that blend academic research and games with research papers, interactive demos, and industry case studies.

CHI PLAY grew out of the increasing work around games and play emerging from the ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) as well as smaller conferences such as Fun and Games and Gamification.… read more. “Call: CHI PLAY 2015”

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Telepresence robot store is staffed only by robots

[From IEEE Spectrum, where the story includes another image and a 2:38 minute video]

Beam Store manned by telepresence robots

[Image: The salespeople are robots in this downtown Palo Alto store. Credit: Tekla Perry.]

Suitable Technologies Opens Store Staffed Only by Robots

By Tekla Perry
Posted 10 Dec 2014

Most of us have gone into a store or restaurant in which the nametags worn by employees identified their hometowns. It’s a friendly touch.

But this week, for the first time, I went into a store in which the members of the sales staff weren’t only identified by their hometowns, they were actually working from their hometowns, via telepresence robots. Their names and locations appeared on their screens, and on the day I visited there were employees based in at least three different states.

Other than that, my visit to the Beam store at 425 University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto seemed like a completely ordinary retail experience.… read more. “Telepresence robot store is staffed only by robots”

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Job: 2015 Summer internships at Institute for Creative Technologies (Los Angeles)

The Institute for Creative Technologies is proud to announce that we are now accepting applications for our 2015 Summer Intern Program.

Every summer the ICT offers select interdisciplinary internships for creative and technical students wishing to pursue careers in simulation, interactive media and virtual reality fields. The ICT’s mission is to create compelling immersive systems for effective learning for military, entertainment and educational purposes. For over 10 years, the ICT has had the privilege of hosting an internship program composed of local, national and international fellows that make the journey to southern California to take part in a meaningful co-op of knowledge and culture.

We welcome all to visit our website at: http://ict.usc.edu/ to see the ground breaking research and projects that the ICT has helped pioneer. Also, to view the list of projects that will be offered for this year’s intern program, please visit: http://ict.usc.edu/academics/internships/read more. “Job: 2015 Summer internships at Institute for Creative Technologies (Los Angeles)”

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Yule Log and many variations return for 2014

[From Deadline; for lots of related material online see:

  • a detailed list of places to find the Yule Log and variations at the Channel Guide Magazine blog
  • information about the new Outlander themed Yule Log (which features two dogs) at AV Club
  • a compilation and mini-reviews of a large variety of Yule Log videos at Mental Floss
    and
  • an interesting first person account of spending 45 minutes watching the Yule Log in “14 Profound Truths You Learn While Watching the Yule Log, As Told In GIFs” at Bustle]

Yule log screenshot

Virtual Menorah Debuts Next Week, Joining Yule Log

by The Deadline Team
December 12, 2014

Yule Log, which has been around for years and is back again on digital cable via Video on Demand in SD, HD, 3D and online, is being joined this year by the debut of virtual Menorah for those who celebrate Hanukkah, accompanied by traditional music.… read more. “Yule Log and many variations return for 2014”

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Call: CHI 2015 Workshop on Ethical Encounters in HCI: Research in Sensitive Settings

Call for Participation:

CHI 2015 Workshop on Ethical Encounters in HCI: Research in Sensitive Settings
Seoul, Republic of South Korea
18th April 2015

This one-day workshop will be held as part of the CHI 2015 annual ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, held in Seoul, Korea between 18 and 23 April 2015.

Important Dates:

  • Submission by: 5th January 2015
  • Notification of acceptance: 6th February 2015
  • Workshop day: 18th or 19th April 2015

Workshop website: http://ethicalencountershci.wordpress.com/

Research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is moving into increasingly sensitive and challenging settings. New technologies are now being designed and evaluated with vulnerable or marginalized participants in contexts that can be emotionally challenging for researchers. Research conducted in these sensitive and emerging areas can produce complex ethical dilemmas where there are no clear “right” or “wrong” answers. These ethical issues are often emergent, diverse, and embedded in the context in which the research takes place.… read more. “Call: CHI 2015 Workshop on Ethical Encounters in HCI: Research in Sensitive Settings”

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I experienced Michael Brown’s death in VR and it was incredibly unsettling

[From Bustle, where the story includes more pictures and a 2:34 minute video]

Michael Brown shooting in VR

I Experienced Michael Brown’s Death in Virtual Reality, and It Was Incredibly Unsettling

Alicia Lu
December 18, 2014

Though the precise events of August 9 in Ferguson will never be known, we’ve all formed an idea through numerous testimonies and eyewitness accounts. Each account can differ quite drastically, however, depending on who’s relaying it. Trying to offer an interactive account of what happened that day, graphic journalist Dan Archer created for Fusion a virtual reality experience of the Michael Brown shooting from every perspective.

Yes, really. Through the combination of interactive virtual reality and graphic comics, you can actually experience multiple versions of the shooting based on each eyewitness account. After “experiencing” the Ferguson shooting firsthand, I feel even more unsettled.… read more. “I experienced Michael Brown’s death in VR and it was incredibly unsettling”

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Call: “Behavior Coordination between Animals, Humans and Robots” Workshop at HRI 2015

Call for Abstracts/Short Papers

Workshop on “Behavior Coordination between Animals, Humans and Robots”
http://www.icub.org/other/HRI2015-workshop.html

part of the
10th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
March 2nd, 2015
Portland, Oregon, USA

Deadline: 15.01.2015

ORGANIZERS:

Hagen Lehmann, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, iCub Facility, Genoa, Italy

Luisa Damiano, Research Centre on Complex Systems / Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy

Lorenzo Natale, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, iCub Facility, Genoa, Italy

OBJECTIVES:

This workshop intends to bring together researchers investigating one or more aspects of behavior coordination in three different research domains: human-human interaction, human-animal interaction, human-robot interaction.

Our goal is to develop an interdisciplinary dialogue directed towards cross-fertilization between these fields, and to stimulate front line research engaged in (a) deepening the scientific understanding of the natural mechanisms underlying behavioral coordination through their robotic modeling; (b) facilitating and enhancing human-robot cooperation on the basis of the implementation of these mechanisms in human-robot interaction.… read more. “Call: “Behavior Coordination between Animals, Humans and Robots” Workshop at HRI 2015”

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Zero-G simulator lets you float through an Oculus Rift space station

[From The Creators Project, where the post includes several animated gifs and a 4:24 minute video]

Weightless screenshot
Zero-G Simulator Lets You Float Through an Oculus Rift Space Station

By Beckett Mufson — Dec 16 2014

Even as space tourism becomes a reality, escaping Earth’s atmosphere is still well outside the average person’s price range. Virtual reality designer Martin Schubert has what might be a viable substitute in Weightless, a space station simulator that lets you nudge floating objects around with your hands. The current demo version is a submission to the Leap Motion 3D Jam game design competition, taking full advantage of Leap Motion’s innovative motion-tracking capabilities to create an experience absent from traditional video games. Writes Schubert, “The idea of gently nudging and inspecting objects in micro gravity would be very difficult with a traditional control scheme but with the Leap it feels really natural.”… read more. “Zero-G simulator lets you float through an Oculus Rift space station”

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Call: ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2015)

Announcement and Call for Papers

UBICOMP 2015
The 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing
September 7-11, 2015, Osaka, Japan

http://www.ubicomp.org

The 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2015) invites submission of full papers and notes describing original research. UbiComp is a premier interdisciplinary venue in which leading international researchers, designers, developers, and practitioners in the field present and discuss novel results in all aspects of ubiquitous and pervasive computing. This includes the design, development, and deployment of ubiquitous and pervasive computing technologies and the understanding of human experiences and social impacts that these technologies facilitate. UbiComp 2015 will be held from September 7 to 11 in Osaka, Japan, and as in past years will be co-located with ISWC 2015 (with a single registration fee).

In the papers and notes track, we welcome high quality submissions that describe original and unpublished research contributions advancing the frontier of pervasive and ubiquitous computing.… read more. “Call: ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2015)”

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Illusion makes people speak with voice of their avatar

[From Disvcover’s Inkfish blog]

avatar

Illusion Makes People Speak with the Voice of Their Avatar

By Elizabeth Preston | November 26, 2014

Think you’re in control of your own body? A simple virtual-reality session could not only make you feel like an avatar’s body is your own, but make you speak more like the digital character.… read more. “Illusion makes people speak with voice of their avatar”

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