ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: April 2018

Call: The Serious Storytelling Handbook (book chapters)

Call for Book Chapters Proposals

THE SERIOUS STORYTELLING HANDBOOK

Storytelling outside the Entertainment Context to Engage, Enlighten, and Explain in Serious Games, Data Storytelling, User-Experience, AI, Health, eLearning, Science, Digital Media, and Business/Management. The handbook is transdisciplinary and should address technology, human, storytelling, and business issues in the fields of entertainment computation, human-computer-interaction, media technology and design, information systems research, multimedia, data science, digital games, eLearning, eHealth, and digital media scholars.

Editors: Artur Lugmayr, Helmut Hlavacs, and Calkin Suero Montero

The book will be the pilot book for the new Series on Emerging Media Technology and User-Experience Computation, published by Chapman&Hall/CRC Taylor & Francis Group.

UPCOMING DEADLINE:
June 30th 2018 – Expression of Interest and/or Final Chapters

CONTACT:
artur.lugmayr@artur-lugmayr.com

BOOK WEBSITE:
http://www.artur-lugmayr.com/crc-emu-series/serious-storytelling/

SUBMISSION SYSTEM:
http://www.ambientmediaassociation.org/Submissions/2017Story/

NEWSLETTER:
http://www.ambientmediaassociation.org/phplist/?p=subscribe

“Storytelling outside the context of entertainment, where the narration progresses as a sequence of patterns impressive in quality, relates to a serious context, and is a matter of thoughtful process.”… read more. “Call: The Serious Storytelling Handbook (book chapters)”

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TeleHuman 2: Life-size holograms set to revolutionize videoconferencing

[This news release from Queen’s University describes what could be an important advance in evoking social presence. Follow the links near the end for more information, images and a video. –Matthew]

News Release – Move over Tupac! Life-size holograms set to revolutionize videoconferencing

Professor Roel Vertegaal’s new light field displays effectively simulate teleportation

Monday, April 23, 2018

KINGSTON – A Queen’s University researcher will soon unveil TeleHuman 2 – the world’s first truly holographic videoconferencing system. TeleHuman2 allows people in different locations to appear before one another in life-size 3D – as if they were in the same room.

“People often think of holograms as the posthumous Tupac Shakur performance at Coachella 2012,” says Roel Vertegaal, Professor of Human-Computer Interaction at the Queen’s University School of Computing. “Tupac’s image, however, was not a hologram but a Pepper Ghost: A two-dimensional video projected on a flat piece of glass.… read more. “TeleHuman 2: Life-size holograms set to revolutionize videoconferencing”

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Call: Somaesthetics and Technology issue of Journal of Somaesthetics

Call for Papers

Journal of Somaesthetics: Somaesthetics and Technology
https://somaesthetics.aau.dk/index.php/JOS/announcement

Submission deadline: June 30, 2018

While the digital technology spreads to almost all societal and private domains and arenas, the value of the living, sensing, feeling, acting, vibrant and intelligent body, that is, the soma itself becomes increasingly the subject of the human-computer interaction (HCI) studies.  Somaesthetics — an interdisciplinary project that works directly with soma has been informing HCI in the last decade, with its theoretical and epistemological values, and from analytical, practical, and pragmatic points of view.

The Journal of Somaesthetics now invites articles that deal with the aesthetic relationship between technology and the soma. The special issue specifically targets the applications of somaesthetic theories on the design and evaluation of technology, and their comparison to other theoretical frameworks. The journal welcomes contributions that might be considered too theoretical in human-computer interaction dissemination channels.… read more. “Call: Somaesthetics and Technology issue of Journal of Somaesthetics”

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UbiatarPlay gives users ‘Telepresence Anywhere’ via live streams they can control

[Oh the places “you” will go… This story from Cointelegraph describes a new business that allows users to pay strangers to serve as their avatar anywhere in the world; it’s reminiscent of the “human Uber” idea featured in a February 2018 post in ISPR Presence News). –Matthew]

Blockchain Project to Give Users ‘Telepresence’ Anywhere Via Live Streams They Can Control

April 24, 2018
By Connor Blenkinsop

A Blockchain-driven company plans to “give people the power to be instantly everywhere” by creating a marketplace where users can hire someone’s physical presence in order to see and hear the world as they do.

UbiatarPlay says it is bringing to life technology that has only been seen in sci-fi movies until now. Its system would see individuals, known as Avatars, be paid to live-stream their smartphone camera at a location their “Usar” chooses.… read more. “UbiatarPlay gives users ‘Telepresence Anywhere’ via live streams they can control”

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Call: L.A. ACM SIGGRAPH event: An Evening at the Technicolor Experience Center

AN EVENING AT THE TECHNICOLOR EXPERIENCE CENTER
Tuesday May 08, 2018
Los Angeles, CA
http://la.siggraph.org/events/title/evening-technicolor-experience-center

Tour the new Technicolor Experience Center, where artists and scientists collaborate to realize the full potential of immersive media. The TEC enables partnerships that discover how stories can be told and delivered in new and more immersive ways. 3237 South La Cienega Blvd.

DESCRIPTION:

Come explore the world of immersive experiences curated and collaborated within the Technicolor Experience Center. The TEC is where artists and scientists from across the industry come together to realize the full potential of immersive media. By uniting talent from Technicolor and its award-winning creative brands (The Mill, Mikros Image, MPC and Mr. X) with partners from fields as diverse as gaming, animation, traditional media and technology, the TEC enables the ideation, exploration and creation that pushes the boundaries of what immersive experiences can be.… read more. “Call: L.A. ACM SIGGRAPH event: An Evening at the Technicolor Experience Center”

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VR trainer creates multimodal simulations of firefighting emergencies

[Another very practical application of presence is described in this story from WTTV CBS4. For more information see the FLAIM Trainer website. –Matthew]

Virtual reality training on display at downtown firefighters convention

April 25, 2018
By Zach Myers

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – Firefighters attending this year’s Fire Department Instructor’s Conference in downtown Indianapolis are getting their first look at a new, virtual reality training system.

The technology, designed by “Flame Systems,” is engineered to give a realistic simulation of various fire emergencies in a virtual environment.

“We’ve just launched here at the show today, and this is the first time the North American market has seen this sort of technology,” said Flame Systems spokesperson James Mullins. “What we’re trying to do is bring all the realism of a fire fight into the virtual environment to give people that experience.”

Simulated emergencies on display included a kitchen fire, a propane tank leak and an aircraft fire.… read more. “VR trainer creates multimodal simulations of firefighting emergencies”

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Call: AutomotiveUI’18: The 10th International ACM Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications

Call for Papers

AutomotiveUI’18: The 10th International ACM Conference on
Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications
Toronto, Canada, September 23-25, 2018
http://www.auto-ui.org/18
Author information: http://www.auto-ui.org/18/authors/

Sign up for our newsletter: https://www.auto-ui.org/18/newsletter-signup

The conference will be preceded by the doctoral colloquium on September 22nd.

IMPORTANT DATES:

Papers:
Submission deadline (EXTENDED): May 07, 2018
(Submissions are accepted until 11:59 p.m AoE (Anywhere on Earth))
Decision notification: June 29, 2018

Workshop proposals:
Submission deadline: June 4, 2018
Decision notification: June 22, 2018

Works in Progress, Interactive Demos, Videos and Doctoral Colloquium:
Submission deadline: July 11, 2018
Decision notification: August 3, 2018

AutomotiveUI, the International ACM Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications, is the premier forum for UI research in the automotive domain. AutomotiveUI brings together researchers and practitioners interested in both the technical and the human aspects of in-vehicle user interfaces and applications.… read more. “Call: AutomotiveUI’18: The 10th International ACM Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications”

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It’s Westworld. What’s wrong with cruelty to robots?

[I’ve always been intrigued by fictional portrayals of presence and what they can tell us about ourselves and the possible roles and effects of technologies (see the Telepresence in Media Environments website); this opinion column from The New York Times uses “Westworld” and its portrayal of medium-as-social-actor presence to raise important philosophical questions. See also the current series “Humans,” and for a classic portrayal see the climactic courtroom scene (via YouTube) of the 1989 “Measure of a Man” episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” –Matthew]

[Image: “Westworld” opened its second season Sunday night. Credit: John P. Johnson/HBO.]

It’s Westworld. What’s Wrong With Cruelty to Robots?

By Paul Bloom and Sam Harris

Paul Bloom is a professor of psychology at Yale and the author of “Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion.”… read more. “It’s Westworld. What’s wrong with cruelty to robots?”

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Job: Internship in Augmented Reality for Environmental Applications at Luxembourg Inst of Sci and Tech (LIST)

MASTER STUDENT INTERNSHIP IN AUGMENTED REALITY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL APPLICATIONS (M/F)

Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)
Duration: 6 months during Spring/Summer 2018
Place: Belvaux, Luxembourg

https://www.list.lu/en/jobs/interns/internship-offer/erin-2018-intern-004/

CONTEXT

The “Environmental Research and Innovation” (ERIN) department of LIST has an opening for an Intern position. The intern will be integrated in the e-Science unit, which focuses on data analytics & visualization and their applications.

DESCRIPTION

Climate change is foreseen to cause an increasing number of extreme events. In addition, the population is nowadays very sensitive to various types of pollution due to human activities. Managing environmental disasters such as flooding, biological or chemical damage is a complex task which requires a sound level of situational awareness. This internship project will focus on using augmented reality technologies to assist those managing an environmental disaster, with a particular emphasis on information visualisation in a multi-user setting.… read more. “Job: Internship in Augmented Reality for Environmental Applications at Luxembourg Inst of Sci and Tech (LIST)”

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U.S. Army deletes bureaucracy to develop advanced training simulations

[This story from Breaking Defense outlines the U.S. Army’s current efforts to create effective presence illusions to train soldiers. Note especially the “Four Parts” section. –Matthew]

[Image: Army aviators train in a CH-47 Chinook simulator.]

War Games: Army Deletes Bureaucracy To Get Sims Fast

There is real uncertainty whether such things as robotic tanks and high-speed scout helicopters are possible on the Army’s timeline. But if there’s one area where a high-speed approach can work, it’s training simulations, where the Army can piggyback on the rapid development in commercial gaming.

By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
April 20, 2018

FORT BELVOIR: To train its troops for future wars, the US Army wants to build the ultimate video game. To get that game ASAP, the Army is blowing up the usual bureaucracy and borrowing high-speed development techniques from private sector software companies.… read more. “U.S. Army deletes bureaucracy to develop advanced training simulations”

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