GAMEON-NA 2010
6TH ANNUAL NORTH AMERICAN GAME-ON CONFERENCE
Digipen Institute of Technology
REDMOND, WA, USA
AUGUST 25-27, 2010
Organized by ETI
Sponsored by
EUROSIS
DIGIPEN Institute of Technology
Submission deadline: May 5th . Late submission deadline: June 1st.… read more. “Call: North American Game-On Conference (GAMEON-NA) 2010”
[From Goal.com (“Score to Live”)]
Virtual Reality: A Search For The Heart Of America’s Game
Eric Betts finds video games convert fans to the beautiful game
By Eric Betts
Apr 21, 2010
One of the joys of being a soccer fan in the United States is the opportunity to convert the unbelievers, to watch as someone who was once indifferent or antagonistic falls in love with the game.
To love soccer is to know it. People can’t develop a life-long passion for the game without a basic understanding of what’s happening on the pitch. Knowing the rules isn’t enough; I mean having a basic grasp of the tactics that drive the play, being able to recognize what each team is trying to do and how the other team is attempting to stop them. This knowledge sustains our interest during the lulls in the game, keeps our attention focused on the play even though teams don’t score every twenty-four seconds or five minutes or however often you like points put on the board in your sport of choice.… read more. “How video games convert U.S. fans to the beautiful game”
NINTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
AUTONOMOUS AGENTS AND MULTIAGENT SYSTEMS (AAMAS-2010)
http://www.cse.yorku.ca/AAMAS2010/
May 10 – 14, 2010
Toronto, Canada
You can find the a preliminary schedule of the conference at
http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~wiebe/AAMAS/timetable.shtml
Hotel booking information is available from:
http://www.cse.yorku.ca/AAMAS2010/#content=accommodation
AAMAS is the leading scientific conference for research on autonomous agents and multiagent systems.… read more. “Call: Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS) 2010”
[From Xconomy Seattle (“Business + Technology in the Exponential Economy”)]
Software, Interfaces, culture
How a Business Can Span the Globe and Stay Close-Knit: Microsoft’s “Telepresence” Project
Gregory T. Huang 4/12/10
Stop me if this sounds familiar. You work in a tight-knit team that has one or two colleagues who are located in a different office—across the street, across the state, or across the country. You’d like to communicate with them more regularly, but phone calls, e-mails, and video conferences have to do. Inevitably, you feel like you (and they) miss out on some day-to-day interactions that help all of you stay fully connected to the company’s goals and culture.
Microsoft feels your pain—and its researchers are trying to do something about it. That’s why a group from Microsoft Research, based in Redmond, WA, is presenting a paper tomorrow at CHI 2010, the big international conference on human-computer interaction in Atlanta.… read more. “How a business can span the globe and stay close-knit: Microsoft’s “Telepresence” project”
Final Call for Papers
1st International Workshop on Human-Centric Interfaces for Ambient Intelligence (HCIAmI’10)
To be held during the 6th International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE’10) 19 July 2010, Monash University (Sunway campus), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
This workshop will provide a forum to explore the concepts and applications of the multi-disciplinary area of human-centric interfaces, modeling, and computing for Ambient Intelligence application design. It will enable the exchange of experiences from around the world concerning the use of technologies which offer unobtrusive, intuitive, or adaptive interfaces. These technologies have a major potential to make systems easier to be used by more people, freeing ordinary citizens of the paradoxical chains that devices impose on them. The goal is to replace the classical paradigm of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) in which users have to adapt themselves to computers by learning how to use them, by a new one (where the same acronym refers to Human-Centric Interfaces) in which computers adapt to users and learn how to interact with them in the most natural way.… read more. “Call: 1st International Workshop on Human-Centric Interfaces for Ambient Intelligence (HCIAmI’10)”
[From CNN’s SciTech blog]
April 20, 2010
Real fear in a virtual world
Posted by: John D. Sutter — CNN.com writer/producer
So, I walked up to a virtual pit.
It was maybe 30 feet deep. With a wood plank crossing it.
Somewhere deep down in my rational brain, I knew the hole wasn’t real – that it was a virtual reality scenario in a cramped office at Stanford University, where the floor seemed completely pit-free until I put on a clunky piece of hardware called a “headmount.”
But that headmount changed everything.… read more. “Reporter’s experience of Stanford lab’s virtual pit”
Call for chapters – 3D Virtual World Learning Handbook
Editors: Charles Wankel, St. John’s University, New York, and Randy Hinrichs, 2b3d, Seattle.
This book will include chapters on practical, user-centered, effective teaching and learning applications designed in 3D, using 3D learning theory, process and activities. We welcome chapter proposals on exemplars from business, higher education and non-profit. The emphasis is on showing what works using state-of-the art instructional design in virtual worlds, fostering critical thinking skills and learning communities that persist over time. … read more. “Call: Chapters for 3D Virtual World Learning Handbook”
[From PC Authority; a 1:29 minute Google Earth video is here; an 8:14 minute Bing demo video is here].
Street View photos used for amazing Google Earth 3D cities
by Daniel Long onApr 14, 2010
Google has combined its wealth of street view data with satellite imagery to create the a 3D city effect, while a Microsoft engineer has given an amazing demo of live video within Bing Maps. See the videos.
3D textured cityscapes are nothing new to Google Earth users: international cities such as New York have displayed this type of imagery for a while now. But now Google has made an important, but critical change to Google Earth – adding high resolution Street View imagery to existing 3D city textures and vastly improving the resolution of the facades.
Now, instead of navigating flat city maps, or greyed out skyscraper blocks, you can literally zoom into a city and hover above ground level and get a sense of the city from a pedestrian or driver’s view.… read more. “High resolution street views added to Google Earth 3D cities”
ACE 2010: 7th Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology Conference incorporating DIMEA 2010 (5th Digital Interactive Media Entertainment and Arts Conference) and in conjunction with NetGames 2010 (9th Annual Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games)
Taipei, Taiwan on 17-19 November, 2010
ACE has become the leading academic forum for dissemination of novel research results in the area of entertainment computing. Interactive entertainment is one of the most vibrant areas of interest in modern society and ACE is its premier forum. The goal of ACE 2010 is to bring together researchers and practitioners from industry and academia to present and discuss their work in a stimulating and challenging environment. … read more. “Call: ACE 2010: 7th Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology Conference”
[From The Winnipeg Free Press; more information is here and here]
[Picture from projectdesign]
Life imitates art: ‘holodeck’ therapy to help rehabilitate wounded vets
By: Bob Weber, THE CANADIAN PRESS
18/04/2010
EDMONTON – Wounded soldiers and injured civilians will soon be using technology reminiscent of the holodeck on old Star Trek movies to help regain their physical and mental confidence.
“In this case, reality is reflecting art,” said Commodore Hans Jung, surgeon-general for the Canadian Forces.
Jung was speaking at a funding announcement to bring a $1.5-million virtual reality simulator to Edmonton’s Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital.
People learning to use an artificial limb or recovering from a stroke will be able to walk, drive or even swim through a variety of virtual environments without leaving the safety of the hospital – almost like on the holodeck of the fictional Starship Enterprise.… read more. “Life imitates art: ‘holodeck’ therapy to help rehabilitate wounded vets”