ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: July 2011

Call: “Beyond the Game,” a documentary about VR and online worlds

BEYOND THE GAME, from director Jos de Putter is finally here, after its long festival tour of the Margaret Mead Film Festival, the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam, the Vancouver Film Festival, and beyond.

BEYOND THE GAME is widely considered the best film about virtual reality and online worlds. Our disc also features an extremely rare interview with the founders of Blizzard Games, makers of Warcraft, Starcraft, and so many more absolutely crucial and influential movements in online culture.… read more. “Call: “Beyond the Game,” a documentary about VR and online worlds”

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HyperReality helmet uses Kinect to create an out-of-body experience

[From Fast Company‘s Co.Design site, where the article includes more images and two videos]

HyperReality Helmet Uses Kinect To Create An Out-Of-Body Experience

Maxence Parache’s experimental augmented-reality system lets you detach your point of view from your body.

July 28, 2011

We take our first-person visual perspective for granted every second of the day — we have to, because our eyeballs are attached to our heads. But what if you could detach your personal “camera angle” at any moment and float away from your own body while still inhabiting it, like an on-demand out-of-body experience? Designer Maxence Paranche has created the next best thing in his HyperReality system, which uses a Microsoft Kinect to scan your physical environment and display it inside a virtual-reality helmet, so you can rotate the visual angle any way you like.

Granted, the visual display inside that weird yellow helmet isn’t exactly Tron-quality: your local environment is rendered as an array of monochrome dots.… read more. “HyperReality helmet uses Kinect to create an out-of-body experience”

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Call: Encountering the Real Virtuality: Digital Games in Media, Culture and Society – Special issue of Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture

CALL FOR PAPERS

Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture (WPCC) Vol9 No2, 2012

Special issue – Encountering the Real Virtuality: Digital Games in Media, Culture and Society

Digital games have emerged as a significant sector of the media and cultural economy. It is very important for industry practitioners, regulators and media academics to understand the social and cultural impacts of gaming and the interactive and immersive experience involved for gamers. Digital games today are not simply used for entertainment. The global ‘serious games’ movement, for example, aims to maximize the potential of ‘play’ and is expanding the possibility of digital games by integrating them into education, defence, management, and health. Within academia, the study of digital games has involved important debates on social reality, virtuality, interactivity, and narratological/ludological essence. Through the use of different theoretical approaches, we need to continue exploring and redefining the meaning of digital games.… read more. “Call: Encountering the Real Virtuality: Digital Games in Media, Culture and Society – Special issue of Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture”

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Museum of Modern Art exhibit “Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects”

[From MoMA (pdf)]

MoMA EXHIBITION INVESTIGATES THE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PEOPLE AND OBJECTS THROUGH DESIGN

Installation Provides Visitors with Greater Access to Information by Incorporating the Use of Technology, Including QR Codes and Twitter Hashtags for Each Object

Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects
July 24–November 7, 2011
Special Exhibitions Gallery, third floor

NEW YORK, July 19, 2011—The Museum of Modern Art presents Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects from July 24 to November 7, 2011. With nearly 200 projects ranging from the microscopic to the cosmic and all designed in the past few years or currently under development, the exhibition explores design’s new terrain: enhancing communicative possibilities, embodying a new balance between technology and people, and bringing technological breakthroughs to an approachable, human scale. These projects include interfaces, websites, video games, tools, charts, and information systems on topics global and local, public and personal.… read more. “Museum of Modern Art exhibit “Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects””

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Call: Foundations of Digital Games 2012

Foundations of Digital Games 2012

May 29-June 1, 2012
Raleigh, North Carolina

http://fdg2012.org

Call for Papers, Demos, and Posters

Important Dates

Full Paper & Panel Submission: 19 December 2011
Paper, Panel & Doctoral Consortium Author Notification: 1 March 2012
Doctoral Consortium Submission: 9 January 2012
Posters and Demo Submission: 12 March 2012
Poster and Demo Notification: 30 March 2012
Camera Ready Full Papers: 9 April 2012
Camera Ready Posters and Demos: 20 April 2012

FDG 2012, the International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, is a focal point for academic efforts in all areas of research and education involving games, game technologies, gameplay, and game design. The goal of the conference is the advancement of the study of digital games, including new game technologies, capabilities, designs, applications, educational uses, and modes of play.… read more. “Call: Foundations of Digital Games 2012”

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Driving a robot from the International Space Station

[From redOrbit]

[Image1: The Justin mobile robotic system, developed at the German Aerospace Center, DLR, with its compliant controlled lightweight arms and its two four-fingered hands, is an ideal experimental platform [for the use of teleoperation in space exploration]. The mobile platform allows the long-range autonomous operation of the system. The independent wheels respond to the requirements of Justin’s upper body during manipulation tasks. Sensors and cameras allow the 3D reconstruction of the robot’s environment, enabling Justin to perform his work autonomously. Credits: DLR]

Driving A Robot From The Space Station

Posted on: Thursday, 30 June 2011

Meet Justin, an android who will soon be controlled remotely by the astronauts in ESA’s Columbus laboratory on the International Space Station. With this and other intriguing experiments like the Eurobot rover, ESA is paving the way for exploring the Moon and planets with tele-operated robots.… read more. “Driving a robot from the International Space Station”

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Call: Doctoral Colloquium on Games and Play at DIGRA 2011

Doctoral Colloquium on Games and Play DIGRA 2011

At the Digital Games Research Association (DIGRA) 2011 conference 15-17 September, we seek to connect game and play research to the creative industries and society by fostering an integrated practice of research, design, engineering and entrepreneurship. The Doctoral Consortium at the DIGRA 2011 Conference will bring together +- 15 PhD students researching Games and Play for an afternoon of presentations and interactions with the organizers. We specifically encourage students who’s research focus is on: Game Design, Playful Interaction, the Role of play in contemporary culture and Playful Identities… read more. “Call: Doctoral Colloquium on Games and Play at DIGRA 2011”

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Facebook and the ugly present, wonderful future of video communications

[From Bob Enderle’s Unfiltered Opinion IT Business Edge blog]

[Image: A scene from the film Demolition Man]

Facebook and the Ugly Present, Wonderful Future of Video Communications

Posted by Rob Enderle Jul 7, 2011

One-on-one videoconferencing has likely had the longest time coming to market of any tech product since it became viable as a technology. First showcased in the 1960s, I participated in the first large trials at Apple that started in the late 1980s. While desktop cameras proliferated on notebooks and as USB peripherals, for much of the last two decades, people have rarely performed video calls.

WebEx and Microsoft’s Live Meeting have had video capability for several years now and Skype has had it far longer, yet folks just don’t choose to use these features. Large-room videoconferencing has been under deployment for nearly two decades and it is currently backed by Cisco, but HP recently exited the business selling it to Polycom, which has acquired a massive number of similar companies over the last couple of decades to become the equivalent of the great videoconferencing graveyard.… read more. “Facebook and the ugly present, wonderful future of video communications”

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Call: Singularity Summit 2011

THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY
SINGULARITY SUMMIT 2011
AUGUST 20-21
RMIT UNIVERSITY MELBOURNE

What will tomorrow look like?

Few could predict just how fast and dramatic the social, economic and political impacts of computer technology could be in our lifetimes.

If present trends are to continue, computers will have more advanced and powerful ‘brains’ than humans within 25 years.

This August, leading scientists, inventors and philosophers will gather at RMIT to discuss the upcoming ‘intelligence explosion’ that many now refer to as ‘The Singularity’- a technological breakthrough that promises to eclipse previous computing developments with the creation of super-human machines.

The ‘Singularity Summit’ – a part of National Science Week – is an unprecedented opportunity to engage with today’s leading experts on emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, nanotechnology and brain-computer interfaces – right here in Melbourne.

As a pre-summit launch, the Australian premiere of documentary ‘Transcendent Man’ –  featuring leading futurist, singularity advocate and recent Time Magazine cover star ‘Ray Kurzweil’ – will be held at Nova Cinemas, Carlton on August 19.… read more. “Call: Singularity Summit 2011”

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The Advanced Visualisation and Interaction Environment (AVIE) and children’s developing brains

[From The Australian]

[Image: The interactive experience at UNSW’s iCinema Centre. Source: The Australian]

Lost in cyberspace

Ruth Ostrow
From: The Australian
July 23, 2011

You only have to be the parent of a child over the age of seven to know what I’m talking about: the vacant eyes so preoccupied by what’s on screen that they can’t focus on your face for more than a few seconds before being drawn back into the cyberworld.

As you talk, your little darling types or toggles. “Are you listening to me?” you ask, only to be told in a precocious tone: “Yeahhhh. I’m multitasking, Mum.”

It gets worse. By 16, girls no longer seem to have use of their tongues. “Text it to me, Mum,” quips my daughter, barely able to contain her contempt that she has to speak and breathe at the same time.… read more. “The Advanced Visualisation and Interaction Environment (AVIE) and children’s developing brains”

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