ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: January 2015

Call: Ethical issues around computers: 20 Years of ETHICOMP: A Celebration

Conference title: 20 Years of ETHICOMP: A Celebration
De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
Monday to Wednesday, 07.-09. September 2015

www.dmu.ac.uk/ethicomp2015

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

In 1995 the first ETHICOMP conference was held in Leicester, England, organised by Terry Bynum and Simon Rogerson. Its purpose was to provide a forum to discuss ethical issues around computers. Twenty years later we are meeting again in Leicester to continue this conversation. The changes in information and communication technology (ICT) during these 20 years have been dramatic. While computers used to be bulky and easily identifiable machines, we now have small smart devices, the internet quickly developed and has changed significantly, and ICT now pervades all walks of life, from the way we work and communicate to study, undertake childcare and choose partners. As a consequence many of the concerns of 1995 have deepened and many new ones have arisen.… read more. “Call: Ethical issues around computers: 20 Years of ETHICOMP: A Celebration”

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Project Nourished uses VR to let us eat anything without regret

[From PSFK, where the story includes more images]

Project Nourished

Virtual Reality May Enable Us to Eat Anything Without Regret

Project Nourished aims to reduce obesity and food related illnesses with substitute foods and virtual tricks of the mind

By Kiran Umapathy on January 22, 2015

In a creative new use of technology, Los Angeles-based Kokiri Lab is in the development stages of what it calls a gastronomical virtual reality experience. The idea, called Project Nourished, would replicate foods high in calories with substitutes, while the eater experiences a virtual reality where they consume the originally desired food items.

Interestingly, the idea was inspired by the film Hook, starring the late Robin Williams. Project Nourished shares the story on its website:

In the fall of 2014, a group of our friends got together for dinner and started to joke around with the idea of recreating Peter Pan’s imaginary dinner table.… read more. “Project Nourished uses VR to let us eat anything without regret”

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Call: Workshop Proposals for Critical Alternatives 2015

Call for Workshop Proposals: Critical Alternatives 2015

Aarhus, Denmark
17 or 18 August, 2015

We hereby invite workshop proposals for Critical Alternatives 2015, (http://www.aarhus2015.org).

The fifth decennial Aarhus conference, Critical Alternatives, aims to set new agendas for theory and practice in computing for quality of human life. Workshops at the conference provide an opportunity to discuss and build communities around specific issues and topics within the field of information technology. This is inherently an interdisciplinary conference, and we invite workshop organisers to consider how different perspectives can help establish constructive and critical discussions of workshop themes. Workshops are intended to foster discussion and exchange. Because focused interaction among participants is important, participants should have informed positions based on prior experience, as expressed in their position papers. Workshops should not be miniature paper presentation sessions, but focus on community building and communal knowledge creation.… read more. “Call: Workshop Proposals for Critical Alternatives 2015”

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Up close with the HoloLens, Microsoft’s intriguing mixed reality product

[Coverage of Microsoft’s demonstration of its new Hololens technology is all over the web today; this detailed description is from The Verge, where the story includes more pictures, a 3:56 minute video report, and Microsoft’s 2:12 minute concept video]

Microsoft's Hololens - Minecraft demo

Up close with the HoloLens, Microsoft’s most intriguing product in years

Welcome to the age of holographs

By Dieter Bohn and Tom Warren
on January 21, 2015

We just finished a heavily scripted, carefully managed, and completely amazing demonstration of Microsoft’s HoloLens technology. Four demos, actually, each designed to show off a different use case for a headset that projects holograms into real space. We played Minecraft on a coffee table. We had somebody chart out how to fix a light switch right on top of the very thing we were fixing.

We walked on Mars.

You’ll notice there aren’t photos here, and that’s because before we were even allowed into the labs where the HoloLens team tests out its user experiences, we had to deposit our cameras and phones into a locker.… read more. “Up close with the HoloLens, Microsoft’s intriguing mixed reality product”

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Call: Second International Workshop on Multiagent Foundations of Social Computing

Second International Workshop on Multiagent Foundations of Social Computing
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/staff/chopraak/mfsc-2015/index.html

Co-located with AAMAS 2015 (http://www.aamas2015.com/)
4-8 May, 2015, Istanbul, Turkey

Social computing broadly refers to computing-supported approaches that facilitate interactions among people and organizations. Social computing has emerged as an exciting multidisciplinary area of research, driven by the wealth of easily available information and the success of online social networks and social media. Social computing applications are characterized by high interactivity among users, user-generated content, and in cases such as Wikipedia, more open governance structures.

Much of the recent excitement in social computing is driven by data analytics and business models. The aim of this workshop is to promote a deeper conceptual understanding of social computing — e.g., relating to its conceptual bases, information and abstractions, design principles, and platforms. We invite original thought-provoking papers that take an explicitly multiagent approach in addressing these gaps.… read more. “Call: Second International Workshop on Multiagent Foundations of Social Computing”

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Teen girls report less sexual victimization after VR assertiveness training

[From Southern Methodist University]

Teen girls holding hands

Teen girls report less sexual victimization after virtual reality assertiveness training

Study participants in the “My Voice, My Choice” program practiced saying “no” to unwanted sexual advances in an immersive virtual environment

Posted on January 20, 2015
By Margaret Allen

Teen girls were less likely to report being sexually victimized after learning to assertively resist unwanted sexual overtures and practicing resistance in a realistic virtual environment, finds a new study.

The effects persisted over a three-month period following the training, said clinical psychologist Lorelei Simpson Rowe, lead author on the pilot study from Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

The research also found that those girls who had previously experienced dating violence reported lower levels of psychological aggression and psychological distress after completing the program, relative to girls in a comparison group.

“The virtual simulations allowed girls to practice being assertive in a realistic environment.… read more. “Teen girls report less sexual victimization after VR assertiveness training”

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Jobs: 5 faculty positions at Cologne Game Lab, Cologne University of Applied Sciences

Faculty Job Openings at the Cologne Game Lab, Germany (Application deadline for all professorships is January 29, 2015)

General Info here: http://www.colognegamelab.de/five-new-professorships-to-be-appointed-in-2015/

read more. “Jobs: 5 faculty positions at Cologne Game Lab, Cologne University of Applied Sciences”
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Oculus Rift gets more virtual reality porn with Red Light Center

[From VentureBeat, where the story includes an additional image; for more coverage see the San Francisco Business Times]

Utherverse Red Light Center

Oculus Rift gets more virtual reality porn with Red Light Center

January 15, 2015
Dean Takahashi

Adult entertainment and technology have gone hand in hand throughout history. That’s why Utherverse Digital is announcing today that its 3D animated virtual world, RedLightCenter.com, will soon run on the Oculus Rift virtual reality platform.

RedLightCenter.com is an X-rated world where players can engage in virtual sex and all sorts of other adult fun. It has been around for more than a decade, but with version 2.0, the world will be viewable with virtual reality goggles such as the Oculus Rift. That means the animated world will be a lot more immersive and feel like you’re really there, said Utherverse chief executive Brian Shuster, in an interview with VentureBeat.… read more. “Oculus Rift gets more virtual reality porn with Red Light Center”

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Call: Interaction Design for Pervasive and Smart Workplaces – HWID2015 working conference

Call for Papers

HWID2015 working conference on “Interaction Design for Pervasive and Smart Workplaces”

uwl.ac.uk/hwid2015

Venue: University of West London, Brentford Site, Boston Manor Road, TW8 9GA, United Kingdom

Wednesday and Thursday, 25th – 26th of June 2015, in London, United Kingdom

Deadline for submissions: 1st of February 2015.

THEME, SCOPE AND FOCUS:

The HUMAN WORK INTERACTION DESIGN 2015 (HWID 2015) working conference focuses on the integration of work analysis and interaction design methods for pervasive and smart workplaces.

Pervasive and smart technologies have pushed work-place configuration beyond linear logic and physical boundaries. As a result, workers’ experience of and access to technology is increasingly pervasive, and their agency constantly reconfigured. While this in certain areas of work is not new (e.g., technology mediation and decision support in air traffic control), more recent developments in other domains such as healthcare (e.g.,… read more. “Call: Interaction Design for Pervasive and Smart Workplaces – HWID2015 working conference”

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Inside the NBA’s plan to give every fan a VR courtside seat

[From Fast Company, where the story includes another picture]

Courtside at an NBA game

Inside The NBA’s Plan To Give Every Fan A (Virtual Reality) Courtside Seat

In February, the league will begin serving up 360-degree video on Samsung’s Milk VR. But it’s already thinking much bigger.

By Jason Feifer
January 5, 2015

The NBA has a problem of its own making: It has spent years and many millions of dollars fostering international basketball fandom, and now has large and enthusiastic bases in places like China and India. But most far-flung viewers only know the NBA as a television show. They will never be inside an arena, cheering with other fans, having the kind of experience that turns casual fans into lifelong ones.

That’s why the basketball league is now toying with a big idea: What if fans everywhere could attend games using virtual reality—just put on some goggles, and score the best seat in the house?… read more. “Inside the NBA’s plan to give every fan a VR courtside seat”

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