ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: May 2011

Call: Grand Challenge at ACM Multimedia 2011 on “Realistic Interaction in Online Virtual Environments”

Grand Challenge at ACM Multimedia 2011 on “Realistic Interaction in Online Virtual Environments”

EMC2 have teamed up with Huawai to present a Grand Challenge at ACM Multimedia 2011 on “Realistic Interaction in Online Virtual Environments”, which we believe may be of interest to you and your colleagues. The challenge provides a captured dataset that provides scope for research into a variety of areas, including the challenges main focus “real-time realistic interaction between humans in online virtual environments”. The provided dataset consists of recordings of a number of Salsa dancers, of differing expertise, from a variety of modalities, including microphones, cameras, inertial sensors and depth sensors. In addition, ground-truth annotations of the choreographies have been made. More details are given hereafter, or visit http://www.3dlife-noe.eu/3DLife/emc2/grand-challenge/read more. “Call: Grand Challenge at ACM Multimedia 2011 on “Realistic Interaction in Online Virtual Environments””

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Antwerp museum gives web users a real tour

[From The Drum]

Thu 19 May 2011

Virtual reality – museum gives web users a real tour

Digital / UK

A new museum in Belgium is offering you the chance to take a real live tour of its exhibits – without ever leaving the comfort of your chair.

Visit the website of the MAS Museum in Antwerp and a tour guide carrying a camera will show you around the place in real-time as though you are really there with them.

If that already sounds cool, wait until you hear the best bit. You can control your tour guide’s movements using the directional arrows on your keyboard.… read more. “Antwerp museum gives web users a real tour”

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Call: “Collaborative usage and development of models and visualizations” – Workshop at ECSCW 2011

Workshop: “Collaborative usage and development of models and visualizations”
at ECSCW 2011 (European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work)

Date: 24 or 25 September, 2011 (still pending)
Venue: Aarhus University, Denmark

http://www.imtm-iaw.rub.de/events/ecscw/index.html.en
Download the workshop description here.

The usage of graphical representations of work and business process such as process models can be considered a common practice in modern organizations. As their development can become a complex task it is reasonable to draft them collaboratively. Also they become increasingly useful when used by larger groups throughout an organization. However despite modeling being a popular approach in practice, models are hardly used by non-experts and have little impact on the people actually working in these processes. This raises questions such as why there is so little use of models after their creation, how this usage can be increased and which kind of tools and modes of interaction are suitable for non-modeling experts.… read more. “Call: “Collaborative usage and development of models and visualizations” – Workshop at ECSCW 2011”

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Bin Laden compound now a virtual training ground for commandos

[From Wired magazine’s Danger Room blog]

Bin Laden Compound Now a Virtual Training Ground for Commandos

By Spencer Ackerman
May 18, 2011

TAMPA, Florida — To passers-by, T.J., a fit 20-something, is running around a red felt carpet about half the size of a basketball court inside a convention center. In his mind, he’s wearing a full set of body armor, his face obscured by a ski mask with a death’s head silkscreened on it. And he’s just dropped a terrorist inside Osama bin Laden’s Abbotabad compound.

“Pushing out!” he yells, eyes obscured to the outside world by virtual reality goggles. His partner in the simulation, David, nods to acknowledge. It’s time to move past the courtyard to hunt the leader of al-Qaida.

Two ginormous flatscreens just outside the carpet area show the progress of their avatars through the simulation. A technician shows the map of where they are on a computer screen.… read more. “Bin Laden compound now a virtual training ground for commandos”

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Call: Telepresence Options Magazine

Telepresence Options Magazine – Your Guide to Visual Collaboration

Telepresence Options is pleased to announce the launch of Telepresence Options Magazine. The new magazine which is available in hard copy and a digital edition covers the latest in telepresence and effective visual collaboration technologies.

Readers can reserve a free hard copy and access the digital edition immediately at:  www.TelepresenceOptions.com/magazine

The Spring 2011 issue includes:

  • What is Telepresence?
  • The ROI of Telepresence in a World of Economic and Geopolitical Uncertainty
  • Robotic Telepresence: A Primer & Tale of the Tape
  • Understanding the Telepresence Marketplace
  • Creating Telepresence Environments – A Design Guide
read more. “Call: Telepresence Options Magazine”
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Amsterdam Airport Schiphol offers a mixed reality ‘city park’

[From a promotional brochure (in pdf format) on the web site of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol]

Airport Park

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol offers a surprising new attraction: a green ‘city park’

www.schiphol.nl/airportpark

Airport Park is for everyone to enjoy. Relax, work, meet people and enjoy food and refreshments in the park. Once beyond passport control, passengers will now be able to spend their time at the airport in a surprising, park-themed area. Travellers can even step outside to enjoy the sunshine on the terrace. Airport Park offers an all-embracing city park experience, unique in the world.

Airport Park owes its park feeling to a technique called mixed reality. Projections of butterflies, animal sounds and cyclists all convey the feeling of being in a lively city park, which is further enhanced by images of famous parks all over the world on the park’s inside walls.… read more. “Amsterdam Airport Schiphol offers a mixed reality ‘city park’”

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Call: Virtual worlds in tertiary education: An Australasian perspective

Australasian Journal of Educational Technology

Special issue 2012, Volume 28: Call for articles
Virtual worlds in tertiary education: An Australasian perspective

Submissions are invited for a forthcoming special issue of AJET to be published in early 2012, entitled Virtual worlds in tertiary education: An Australasian perspective, edited by Mark J.W. Lee (Charles Sturt University and University of New England), Dr Barney Dalgarno (Charles Sturt University) and Dr Helen Farley (University of Southern Queensland) for the DEHub Virtual Worlds Working Group. As announced in AJET Editorial 27(1) and to be publicised through various listservs and society news bulletins, Virtual worlds in tertiary education will be AJET’s third special issue.

Virtual worlds have generated much attention and interest among tertiary education practitioners and researchers over the last few years. Universities and colleges across the globe are investing heavily in the technology, with some making use of commercial platforms like Second Life to provide spaces within which to build resources and conduct activities, and others licensing or developing their own platforms for hosting on their internal servers and networks.… read more. “Call: Virtual worlds in tertiary education: An Australasian perspective”

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Google Street View steps inside

[From MIT’s Technology Review]

Street View Steps Inside

Google will let users check out a restaurant’s décor without leaving their computer

Monday, May 9, 2011
By Tom Simonite

Since 2007, Google’s Street View service has provided interactive panoramic photos that make it possible to virtually stroll down streets all over the globe. Within the next two days, Street View users will be able to click on the doorways of some restaurants and other businesses to take the experience indoors.

At the Social Loco conference in San Francisco last week, Google vice president Marissa Mayer, who leads the company’s location-based technologies, showed how the new indoor imagery will be integrated with Street View. A person can click on the doorway of a store or other location to “step inside.”… read more. “Google Street View steps inside”

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Call: GAMEON-NA’2011 – 6th Annual International North-American Conference on AI and Simulation in Games

GAME-ON North America 2011
6th Annual International North-American Conference on AI and Simulation in Games
September 28-30, 2011
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York, USA

Organized by The European Technology Institute
Co-Sponsored by EUROSIS

Conference web site:
http://www.eurosis.org/cms/?q=taxonomy/term/294

FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

Aim

Games have become an important part of our everyday life, not only as a means of entertainment, but also by providing a unique venue for recreation, training, health intervention and artistic creation.

The aim of the 6th annual North American Game-On Conference (GameOn’NA 2011) is to bring together academics, researchers and commercial game developers from North America and around the world to exchange ideas and present new advances in the field of digital gaming research. This conference also aims to enhance research contacts in the field of gaming research between researchers from North American and from other parts of the world.… read more. “Call: GAMEON-NA’2011 – 6th Annual International North-American Conference on AI and Simulation in Games”

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Yoostar lets gamers step into shoes of Royals on the balcony of Buckingham Palace

[A press release from Yoostar via Business Wire]

You May Now Kiss the Bride (or Groom): Fairy Tales Can Come True….It Can Happen to Yoo as Yoostar Releases Free Download of the Royal Kiss Scene for Kinect for Xbox 360

By Business Wire
May 12, 2011

It was the moment the world cheered – with over two billion people watching across the globe, the image of Prince William and Kate Middleton enjoying their first public kiss is sure to become one of the most iconic images of 2011.

Now Kinect for Xbox 360 owners can make their own Royal Wedding dreams come true – by placing themselves, their friends and family, at the heart of one of the most watched television events in history.

Available free for Yoostar 2, the Royal Wedding scene enables gamers and fans of the royal family to step into the shoes of Prince William and/or Kate Middleton on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.… read more. “Yoostar lets gamers step into shoes of Royals on the balcony of Buckingham Palace”

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