ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: October 2016

Call: Phenomenology and Virtuality Conference

Call for Abstracts

Phenomenology and Virtuality Conference
29-30 May 2017, KU Leuven, Belgium

Deadline: 31st January 2017

What is virtuality? How do we experience it? What is its relation to perception and imagination? What is its status with regard to the real and irreal, actual and possible, present and absent? Can we give a phenomenological account of virtuality? Finally, how are present-day virtual technologies changing not only our daily lives, but perhaps even the ways we think and behave? It is such questions that this two-day international conference on Phenomenology and Virtuality seeks to address. This call for abstracts is therefore interested in any work that seeks to give a phenomenological account of virtuality, and/or apply a phenomenological account to a contemporary issue or technology (e.g. virtual technologies such as social media and online gaming). Indeed, particular attention will be paid to abstracts that try to situate a concept of virtuality within the works of classical phenomenologists (viz.… read more. “Call: Phenomenology and Virtuality Conference”

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Boiler Room and the emerging worlds of VR in electronic music

[As the Boiler Room CEO/founder notes in this story from Magnetic Magazine, presence technologies are poised to bring music fans closer to performers and performances, “to what it’s like being at a sweaty rave or an amazing concert half-way across the world.” The story includes two videos; for more information see the press release available via BusinessWire. –Matthew]

Boiler Room music venue in London

[Image: Source: Pitchfork]

Boiler Room and the emerging worlds of VR in electronic music

Electronic music fans can now get closer than ever to the live streaming action

Akhil Kalepu
October 27, 2016

The international music broadcaster is bringing their live streaming sessions to the virtual realm, creating what is the world’s first venue designed specifically for shooting VR. Boiler Room’s announcement is an exciting innovation for electronic music fans; the music project has spent the last six years building a fanbase tuning into their shows from around the world.… read more. “Boiler Room and the emerging worlds of VR in electronic music”

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Call: HCI International 2017

HCI International 2017
Vancouver, Canada, 9 – 14 July 2017
Vancouver Convention Centre
http://2017.hci.international/index.php

Deadline: 4 November 2016 (extended)

Welcome to the 19th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction.

HCI International 2017, jointly with the affiliated Conferences, held under one management and one registration, will take place at Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, Canada, under the auspices of 15 distinguished international boards.

HCII2017 invite you to participate and contribute to the international forum for the dissemination and exchange of up-to-date scientific information on theoretical, generic and applied areas of HCI, through the following modes of communication: Plenary / Keynote Presentation, Parallel Sessions, Poster Sessions, Tutorials and Exhibition.

The Conference will start with three days of Tutorials (9-11 July). Parallel Sessions, Poster Sessions and the Exhibition will be held during the last three days (12-14 July) of the Conference.

THEMATIC AREAS:

AFFILIATED CONFERENCES:… read more. “Call: HCI International 2017”

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Using presence to humanize ‘The Enemy’

[One of the most important applications of presence is bringing people together via technology to increase the likelihood of understanding; the project described in this story from the New York Times (where it features an additional image), is a good example. This work reminds me of Sam Keen’s book and documentary “Faces of the Enemy” and his more recent “The Art of Enemy Making.” –Matthew]

Experiencing VR project The Enemy

[Image: Jiabao Li experiencing the virtual reality project “The Enemy” in Cambridge, Mass. Credit: Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times.]

Meeting ‘the Other’ Face to Face

By Randy Kennedy
October 26, 2016

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Sitting in a conference room at a hotel near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology here, I slip on large headphones and an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset and wriggle into the straps of a backpack, weighed down with a computer and a battery.… read more. “Using presence to humanize ‘The Enemy’”

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Jobs: Faculty positions in HCI/Games Computing at University of Lincoln

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Reader in Computer Science (HCI/Games Computing)
University of Lincoln
School of Computer Science

Location:  Brayford
Salary:  From £32,004 per annum
Grade 7-9
Closing Date:  Sunday 13 November 2016
Interview Date:  Thursday 01 December 2016
Reference:  MHT106
https://jobs.lincoln.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx?ref=MHT106

The School of Computer Science at the University of Lincoln invites applications for three positions at Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Reader grade in HCI/Games Computing. These appointments are parts of a strategic plan to strengthen research and delivery in interaction design, user studies and interactive technologies and to strengthen our well established team of Games academics. Successful candidates will have the opportunity to contribute to shaping an enthusiastic and stimulating research environment which values inclusion, diversity, and interdisciplinary.

The appointments will be situated in the Interactive Technologies Lab (intLab) research group which shares a democratic vision of design, development and evaluation of interactive technologies, grounded in the participatory engagement of diverse stakeholders (students, citizens, associations, public authorities and researchers) and aimed at satisfying social and societal needs.… read more. “Jobs: Faculty positions in HCI/Games Computing at University of Lincoln”

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Portals project uses presence to connect people across globe

[Technology that connects strangers using social presence has the potential to widen horizons and enrich lives; this story is from the Austin American Statesman, where it includes more images and two videos. See also a 2015 ISPR Presence News post about the use of this technology by the UN. –Matthew]

Virtual portal at St. Edward's University

[Image: A virtual portal housed inside a shipping container allows visitors at St. Edward’s University to communicating by videoconference with people all over the world. In this photo, Tony Chavez (left), who works at the university and was on the committee for the project with Shared Studios, speaks to Mona Safadi (center) and Amira Alami (right), students who attend college in Gaza.]

Golden shipping container at St. Edward’s University is a videoconferencing portal to the world

The installation allows visitors to communicate with people in far-flung cities through November.

Posted October 19th, 2016
Omar L.read more. “Portals project uses presence to connect people across globe”

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Call: 10th annual International Conference on E-Learning in the Workplace – ICELW 2017

The 10th annual International Conference on E-Learning in the Workplace
June 14-16, 2017 at Columbia University in New York
http://www.icelw.org/index.html

Proposals due: December 16, 2016, by 6:00 PM Eastern Time

ICELW 2017 Call for Proposals

The ICELW 2017 Call for Proposals is below. To submit a proposal, please follow the instructions on our ICELW 2017 Submissions Page.

Please note that accepted ICELW papers are eligible for potential journal publication in the International Journal of Advanced Corporate Learning (iJAC). iJAC publishes a special ICELW-themed issue each year.

WHO SHOULD PRESENT OR PARTICIPATE?

Anyone with a background in online learning in the workplace from any perspective, including researchers; consultants; and corporate trainers, managers, and directors.

CONFERENCE TOPICS AND FORMATS

ICELW looks for proposals in a variety of engaging formats, with a strong focus on demonstrations, case studies, panel discussions, and debates, as well as traditional presentations.… read more. “Call: 10th annual International Conference on E-Learning in the Workplace – ICELW 2017”

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Researchers resurrect Joey from Friends as a video chatbot

[It’s still early days of course, but the ability to create AI-driven reproductions of well-known TV characters, or living or deceased private individuals, raises all kinds of possibilities and ethical concerns. In addition to the link to a detailed related story about Eugenia Kuyda’s creation of a chatbot of her best friend after he died, the original version of this story from The Verge includes a different image and a 1:45 minute video. –Matthew]

Creating a virtual Friends character

[Image: Source: PSFK]

Researchers resurrected Joey from Friends as a video chatbot

No one told you life was gonna be this way

by Casey Newton
Oct 20, 2016

Could this be any more disturbing? A dozen years after they went off the air, the cast of Friends has been virtually reunited for a project that turned one of them into a video chatbot. As spotted by Prosthetic Knowledge, researchers at the University of Leeds used machine learning to create automated video avatars that speak in the voices of their characters.… read more. “Researchers resurrect Joey from Friends as a video chatbot”

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Call: Cognitive Architectures for Artificial Minds – Special issue of Journal of Cognitive Systems Research

SPECIAL ISSUE ON:
COGNITIVE ARCHITECTURES FOR ARTIFICIAL MINDS
Journal of Cognitive Systems Research

http://www.journals.elsevier.com/cognitive-systems-research/call-for-papers/special-issue-on-cognitive-architectures-for-artificial-mind

INTRODUCTION

The design and adaptation of Cognitive Architectures (CA) is a wide and active area of research in Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence and, more recently, in the areas of Computational Neuroscience, Cognitive Robotics, and Computational Cognitive Systems. Cognitive architectures have been historically introduced i) to capture, at the computational level, the invariant mechanisms of human cognition, including those underlying the functions of reasoning, control, learning, memory, adaptivity, perception and action, ii) to form the basis for the development of cognitive capabilities through ontogeny over extended periods of time, and iii) to reach human level intelligence, also called AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), by means of the realisation of artificial artefacts built upon them.

During the last decades many cognitive architectures have been realised, and agents based on such infrastructures, have been widely tested in several cognitive tasks involving reasoning, learning, perception, action execution, selective attention, recognition etc.… read more. “Call: Cognitive Architectures for Artificial Minds – Special issue of Journal of Cognitive Systems Research”

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How augmented reality is fighting cultural erasure in East Harlem

[Presence scholars have emphasized virtual reality over augmented reality, but projects like the one described in this story from The Creators Project point to the potential of AR to evoke a meaningful altered perception of a place. See the original story for many more images. –Matthew]

AR from the Caribbean Cultural Center African Disaspora Institute

How Augmented Reality Is Fighting Cultural Erasure in East Harlem

Beverly Bryan — Oct 23 2016

Culture and history are vital, though often invisible, parts of any community, but the Mi Querido Barrio (My Beloved Community) augmented reality tour, presented by New York City’s Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI), showcases the many different ways AR can make visible the unseen. The digital art project is part of the Home, Memory and Future exhibition celebrating the Caribbean Cultural Center’s grand reopening in its new East Harlem location.

Using the AR app Blippar, anyone with a smartphone and a guide to the tour’s location markers can point their phone at landmarks across the rapidly-gentrifying neighborhood and unlock augments—artworks, photographs, and interactive features—that bring the past to life.… read more. “How augmented reality is fighting cultural erasure in East Harlem”

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  • Find Researchers

    Use the links below to find researchers listed alphabetically by the first letter of their last name.

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