ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: January 2018

Call: “Social Robots and Recognition” special issue of Philosophy and Technology

Call for Papers for Philosophy and Technology‘s special issue (online first) on

Social Robots and Recognition
Socio-Ontological, (Machine-)Ethical, and Socio-Political Trajectories

Guest Editors:

  • Marco Nørskov (Aarhus University & Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratories)
  • Sladjana Nørskov (Aarhus University)

Deadline for paper submission: June 1, 2018

INTRODUCTION:

Social robotic solutions are currently being developed and tested on a large scale. From workspace collaborators to caretakers of our children and elderly to intimate companions-social robots are imagined to enter into virtually all spheres of social interaction. They are heralded as solutions as well as cautioned against with respect to a variety of socio-political problems such as demographic challenges and inequality. Although appearance and functionality of these machines vary, what they have in common is that they draw on our fundamental relational capacities. A central topic in this context is recognition, here understood as the acknowledgement of the other as individual/collective and robot/human.… read more. “Call: “Social Robots and Recognition” special issue of Philosophy and Technology”

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Culture figures Douglas Coupland and Steven Spielberg predict future of VR and presence

[Predictions about the future of virtual reality and presence from two culture contributors are in the news and featured in stories below from The Art Newspaper and Gamespot. –Matthew]

[Image: A screenshot from the upcoming film Ready Player One]

Douglas Coupland says Virtual Reality could replace ‘overrated’ books in post-millennial age

Generation X author and artist was among 100 cultural leaders to convene at the Verbier Art Summit on digital art

Anny Shaw
22nd January 2018

“Virtual Reality [VR] is this asteroid that’s going to hit the planet in 2023,” said the Canadian novelist and artist Douglas Coupland, citing Google’s prediction that, by then, everyone will own at least one VR headset. Coupland, who made the forecast while speaking at the Verbier Art Summit in Switzerland over the weekend, added: “The post-millennial generation, around one and a half generations from now, is going to have people who have no connection to the real world”.… read more. “Culture figures Douglas Coupland and Steven Spielberg predict future of VR and presence”

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Call: 5th International Conference on Movement and Computing (MOCO’18)

Call for Submissions
5th International Conference on Movement and Computing – MOCO 2018
28-30 June 2018, Genoa, Italy
Casa Paganini – InfoMus, DIBRIS – University of Genoa
http://moco18.movementcomputing.org

Extended deadlines:
Abstract and metadata submission: 12 February 2018
Submission deadline: 19 February 2018

We would like to invite submissions to the 5th International Conference on Movement and Computing (MOCO’18), Genoa, Italy, June 28-30, 2018. Contributions can be submitted to three different tracks: Papers and Posters, Practice Works, and Doctoral Consortium.

MOCO is an interdisciplinary conference that explores how computer science and technology can contribute to a deeper understanding of human movement practice, to support and facilitate movement expression and communication, and to design and develop new paradigms for interacting with computers through movement (e.g., movement interfaces). This requires to tackle computational challenges, including modeling, representation, segmentation, recognition, classification, and generation of movement information.… read more. “Call: 5th International Conference on Movement and Computing (MOCO’18)”

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New Holostream tech allows high-quality wireless 3-D video communications

[The technology described in the story below from Indianapolis Business Journal could substantially advance the quality and prevalence of effective presence illusions. More information including a 2:10 minute video (also on YouTube) is available from the Purdue University news release, and coverage in Digital Trends includes this summary:

“’The Holostream system includes four major modules,’ Song Zhang, an associate professor at Purdue, told Digital Trends. ‘[There’s] a high-accuracy and high-resolution 3D video acquisition module that achieves camera pixel resolution at 30Hz; a novel 3D video compression module that substantially reduces 3D video data size; a 3D video streaming module that delivers compressed 3D video contents and decompresses the videos in real time; and 3D video visualization modules that allows the mobile device users to naturally access and interact with high-quality 3D video contents in real time at a remote location across standard networks.’”… read more. “New Holostream tech allows high-quality wireless 3-D video communications”

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Jobs: User Experience and Interaction Designer positions at Naver Labs Europe

User Experience and Interaction Designer positions
Naver Labs Europe

http://www.europe.naverlabs.com/

The mission of NAVER LABS Europe is to advance the state-of-the-art in Ambient Intelligence technology including autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, 3D mapping, augmented reality and robotics while paving the way for these innovations into NAVER products and services. To achieve that NLE is expanding its current team of ethnographers to strengthen its user centred focus. To this aim we are looking for UX researchers and interaction designers to support project teams in a variety of domains, including (but not limited to) Augmented Reality and Assisted Mobility to envision how people will get an enhanced experience through it and bring that vision to life. As such you will need to both conduct primary research and turn the findings into concepts, translating them down when appropriate to the mock-up and prototype phase.

The role will involve the following responsibilities:

  • Defining a UX vision for the service line in collaboration with AI, ethnographic, user and business development experts, involving local and remote stakeholders at the Korean sister lab as appropriate.
read more. “Jobs: User Experience and Interaction Designer positions at Naver Labs Europe”
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User succumbs to a seizure in virtual reality while other players can only watch

[The incident reported in this story from The Verge raises important and interesting questions about what happens when critical events in the nonmediated (‘real’) world emerge in the mediated, virtual world – revealing human nature and suggesting the need to create awareness and potential means for responding beyond the presence environment. The original story includes a 17:56 minute video, and for more details see coverage in Kotaku.–Matthew]

User succumbs to a seizure in virtual reality while other players can only watch

By Megan Farokhmanesh
Jan 19, 2018

While playing around in VRChat, an online virtual community, YouTuber Rogue Shadow VR noticed a player who appeared to be in trouble. His character — a red and black robot — was writhing on the floor and gasping in what appeared to be an epileptic seizure.

In the original video, spotted by Motherboard, Rogue Shadow VR explains that because the player had full body tracking, those in the online room were suddenly bystanders to his real-life dilemma.… read more. “User succumbs to a seizure in virtual reality while other players can only watch”

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Call: 8th Workshop on Applications of Software Agents – WASA 2018

Call for Papers

8th Workshop on Applications of Software Agents – WASA 2018
(https://perun.pmf.uns.ac.rs/events/wasa2018/index.html)

in conjunction with
8th International Conference on Web Intelligence, Mining and Semantics – WIMS 2018
(https://wims2018.pmf.uns.ac.rs/)

Novi Sad, Serbia, June 25-27, 2018

Submission of papers to WASA: February 7, 2018

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION

Software agent technologies reached a certain level of maturity that allows development of applications spanning from lab prototypes to mature real-life systems, in domains that could have not been imagined before. Furthermore, software agent technologies proved their usefulness in synergy with methods of intelligent computing and artificial intelligence.

The aim of the WASA workshop is to contribute to the advancement of technologies and applications of software agents’ with a special interest in intelligent computing including, but not limited to: reasoning, semantics, pattern recognition, learning and cognition, etc.

The workshop welcomes papers addressing research and experience reports on various applications of software agents.… read more. “Call: 8th Workshop on Applications of Software Agents – WASA 2018”

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Paris Syndrome: Photographer Francois Prost explores a replica city in China

[A 2013 ISPR Presence News post described Tianducheng, a replica of Paris in China; now François Prost has created a photo series that pairs images from the ‘real’ and the replica. This interesting (and lightly edited) story is from It’s Nice That. See more of the images in the original story and on the photographer’s website, and find more coverage from CityLab. –Matthew]

Paris Syndrome: photographer Francois Prost explores a replica city in China

Words by Bryony Stone
January 4, 2018

“I will always remember the first time I went to Venice,” photographer François Prost remembers. “I was 23. I arrived there by train on my own, and as soon as I got out of the train station, I had this strange feeling of not knowing if what I saw was real or not. The same thing happened when I went to Rome, to India and to New York.… read more. “Paris Syndrome: Photographer Francois Prost explores a replica city in China”

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Call: “Re-Examining Cognitive Tools” issue of Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET)

Call for Papers

Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET) Special Issue:
Re-Examining Cognitive Tools: New Developments, New Perspectives, and New Opportunities for Educational Technology Research
http://csusap.csu.edu.au/~malee/cfp/AJET_CognitiveTools_CFP.pdf

Submission deadline: 1 August 2018

GUEST EDITORS

Christopher Drew, Senior Lecturer in Education, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Law, Teesside University, UK

Mark J. W. Lee, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Education, Charles Sturt University, Australia and Visiting Faculty, Entertainment Technology Center, Carnegie Mellon University, USA

FOCUS OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE

Submissions are invited for a forthcoming special issue of AJET to be published in early 2019, entitled Re-examining cognitive tools: New developments, new perspectives, and new opportunities for educational technology research.

The idea of digital technologies as cognitive or ‘mind tools’ was advocated in the 1990s by a number of educational scholars (e.g., Jonassen, 1991, 1994, 1996; Jonassen & Reeves, 1996; Lajoie & Derry, 1993) who argued that computing devices and software could be usefully viewed in terms of their affordances for facilitating cognitive activities in support of learning.… read more. “Call: “Re-Examining Cognitive Tools” issue of Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET)”

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Will virtual reality home schooling become the new normal?

[This story from MustTech News explores an interesting possible impact of the evolution of presence-evoking technologies. –Matthew]

Will Virtual Reality Home Schooling Become the New Normal?

The thought may strike fear into the hearts of teachers, but it’s a trend with real potential for leveling the educational playing field.

By Mustafa ULU
January 17, 2018

I’ve known many teachers, and they’re among the hardest working, least recognized heroes I know. So it’s not without reservation that I pen this article. But doing some research for our futuristic Flex House project recently, I stumbled into a trend that could quickly grow into a social and cultural game changer.

The Rise of VR Education

Like most technology, the potential to build or destroy lies in what we do with it. And virtual reality is especially seductive. It’s immersive, and getting more immersive, raising boggling questions about the very nature of reality.… read more. “Will virtual reality home schooling become the new normal?”

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