ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: March 2014

Call: First workshop on Empathic Television Experiences (EmpaTeX 2014, part of ACM TVX 2014)

Call for Papers:

First workshop on Empathic Television Experiences
(EmpaTeX 2014, empatex2014.org),
part of ACM TVX 2014 (tvx2014.com)

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, June 25th, 2014

Deadlines

Submission deadline:  March 23 2014
Notification Deadline:  April 20th 2014
Camera-ready deadline:  April 27th 2014
Workshop:  June 25th 2014

Call for Papers

Personalized TV/media experiences are becoming mainstream. Recommender systems and other personalization technology are frequently included in television sets and second screen applications.

Current systems lack one major ability: to be empathic, to take appropriate actions based on intentions, emotions or mood of persons in front of the TV.

This workshop has two major goals:

  1.  Bring together researchers and practitioners that work in the domain of affective computing and social-aware multimedia. We solicit contributions from different viewpoints including interaction and sensing technologies, TV production and distribution, psychology, sociology, human-computer-interaction.
  2. Discuss potential contributing technologies as well as (evaluation of) application concepts and services, and identify challenges, opportunities, threats and strengths of these technologies in specific scenarios.
read more. “Call: First workshop on Empathic Television Experiences (EmpaTeX 2014, part of ACM TVX 2014)”
Posted in Calls | Leave a comment

Betting on VR, EA CEO says it may be the fourth ‘modality’ of gaming

[From Tech Times]

EA building

[Image: EA is considering working on virtual reality gaming. CEO Andrew Wilson says VR gaming may be the fourth “modality” of gaming. (Photo: Eliot Lash)]

EA bets big on virtual reality games but when can we expect them?

By Alex Saltarin, Tech Times | March 11, 2014

At the Las Vegas CES last January, we’ve seen a taste of what’s to come with the latest incarnation of the Oculus Rift. At the South by Southwest (SXSW) show in Austin, EA’s CEO hinted that the company is also exploring what it can do to virtual reality gaming.

Aside from Oculus Rift, Valve is also busy working on their own VR prototype gaming system. Moreover, Sony has also expressed its interest in building their own VR hardware. However, VR gaming will never take off without good software, and EA may be considering on tackling the upcoming VR market.… read more. “Betting on VR, EA CEO says it may be the fourth ‘modality’ of gaming”

Posted in Presence in the News | Leave a comment

Call: Fifth International Conference on the Image

Call for Papers & Work:

Fifth International Conference on the Image
Freie Universität Berlin
Berlin, Germany
29-30 October 2014

http://ontheimage.com/the-conference/call-for-papers

Conference Focus

We are inviting proposals for paper presentations, workshops/interactive sessions, posters/exhibits, or colloquia (See Proposal Types) addressing the Image through one of the following themes:

  • The Form of the Image
  • Image Work
  • The Image in Society
  • 2014 Featured Theme: The Representation of Possibility: Understanding Change and Continuity through the Image

Proposal ideas that extend beyond these thematic areas will also be considered. For more information about the ideas and themes underlying this community, see Our Focus.

We also offer participation options for those individuals who cannot attend the conference. Authors who wish to submit an article for potential publication in the Image Journal may submit a Proposal for Article Submission, while all members of the knowledge community with an accepted proposal may submit an online presentation to the knowledge community YouTube channel.… read more. “Call: Fifth International Conference on the Image”

Posted in Calls | Leave a comment

VR system lets you explore your brain in real-time

[From LiveScience]

VR 'glass brain' projection at SWSX 2014

[Image: Philip Rosedale, creator of the game Second Life, and Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California San Francisco, demonstrated their “glass brain” here at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive festival on March 10, 2014. Here, the interior of Rosedale’s wife’s brain in real-time on a projector screen. Credit: Tanya Lewis for Live Science]

Virtual Reality System Lets You Explore Your Brain in Real-Time

By Tanya Lewis, Staff Writer  |  Updated March 11, 2014

AUSTIN, Texas — What if it were possible to explore your brain in virtual reality, watching your thoughts flashing before your eyes? A team of neuroscientists and software developers have created a way to do precisely that.

A new system combines brain scanning, brain recording and virtual reality to allow a user to journey through a person’s brain in real-time. This “glass brain” was demonstrated here at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive festival today (March 10).… read more. “VR system lets you explore your brain in real-time”

Posted in Presence in the News | Leave a comment

Call: ISPR Presence panel for National Communication Association (NCA) 100th Conference

NCA 2014 Convention banner

Call for Papers

An ISPR Presence Panel for the 100th Conference of the National Communication Association
November 20-23, 2014
Chicago, Illinois, USA

http://www.natcom.org/convention/

Deadline for abstracts: March 22, 2014

The National Communication Association (NCA) is celebrating its centennial and the theme for its fall 2014 conference in Chicago is “The Presence of Our Past(s)”:  “In addition to the convention’s annual array of provocative scholarship, this special moment calls for us to reflect together on the study, teaching, and practices of communication over the past 100 years.”

We are organizing an ISPR panel on this theme, focused on the evolution – the past, present and possible futures — of (tele)presence phenomena and scholarship. We welcome submissions on all topics on this ‘big picture’ theme, using any format or method.

The conference deadline is March 26 so time is short. If you’re interested in participating, please submit an abstract and a biographical statement (and/or any questions of course) via email to jihyunkim218@gmail.comread more. “Call: ISPR Presence panel for National Communication Association (NCA) 100th Conference”

Posted in Calls | Leave a comment

Are interactive toys interfering with child development?

[From Mashable, where the story includes more images and two videos]

Child plays with interactive toy

Are Interactive Toys Interfering With Child Development?

By Travis Andrews
Feb 25, 2014

It’s common to find a child talking to his Lego figures or Barbie dolls, but it’d probably knock your socks off if those toys talked back.

Well, find some tighter footwear, because interactive toys are popping up faster than you can say “Polly Pocket.” The Winston Show, for example, is an interactive program for iOS in which the characters hold detailed conversations with the viewers. FooPets are the digital, veterinarian-created “world’s most realistic virtual pets” and Motobo turns an iPhone into a chatty buddy. But are they beneficial or detrimental?

For a new generation of children, these types of interactive ventures could be the future of toys. While that might trigger a Matrix-focused panic, there’s a more immediate concern: Since it’s been difficult to study lasting effects of such a new toy trend, no one knows exactly how this could affect children’s development — for better, for worse or for naught.… read more. “Are interactive toys interfering with child development?”

Posted in Presence in the News | 1 Comment

Call: UBI Summer School 2014 – Ubiquitous computing and urban informatics

UBISS 2014 – 5th International UBI Summer School 2014

Oulu, Finland, June 9-14, 2014

http://www.ubioulu.fi/en/UBI-summer-school-2014

Application deadline:  March 24, 2014

UBISS 2014 – the 5th International UBI Summer School 2014 – will be held in Oulu, Finland, on June 9-14, 2014. The summer school provides young researchers with an opportunity to gain hands on experience and insight on selected topics on the multidisciplinary fields of ubiquitous computing and urban informatics under the tutelage of distinguished experts. The summer school is targeted primarily to doctoral (graduate) students, but undergraduate students and postdocs are also welcome to attend. The summer school builds on the legacy of the previous highly successful UBI summer schools held in Oulu in 2010-2013.

The summer school comprises of four parallel 6-day workshops:

A: DESIGNING URBAN INTERACTIONS FOR PARTICIPATORY PUBLICS
Prof. Martin Brynskov, Aarhus University, Denmark

B: URBAN AUGMENTED REALITY
Prof.read more. “Call: UBI Summer School 2014 – Ubiquitous computing and urban informatics”

Posted in Calls | Leave a comment

Charlie the personalized, emotionally engaging robot

[From Prahaar]

Rajiv Khosla and Charlie

On India visit- Robots that can sing, emote, read humans!

Charlie, one of the world’s most advanced robot is designed by Rajiv Khosla, an Ex-IITian

Wednesday, March 5th, 2014 | Author prahaar Web Team

New Delhi: Talk about robots that can walk, talk, sing, read the news, tell the weather, go Internet shopping and even read human feelings!

Meet Charles or Charlie, one of the world’s most advanced robot, designed by Rajiv Khosla an alumni of Indian Institute of Technology and professor at Australia’s La Trobe University, which can do all of that.

At mere 20 cm tall, Charlie is a ‘Partner-Personal Robot’, who has been specifically designed to assist children and adults with problems like dementia, autism, cerebral palsy, brain injury and other such illness.… read more. “Charlie the personalized, emotionally engaging robot”

Posted in Presence in the News | Leave a comment

Call: Insights for non-academic audience re: VR as a media panic

[From the Digital Games Research Association (DIGRA)’s Gamesnetwork list]

Hello everyone,

I’m writing a short article for a non-academic audience on the potential for mainstream adoption of virtual reality headsets such as the Oculus Rift in the near future to trigger a moral/media panic and attract the kind of regulation and censorship that recently culminated in Brown v. EMA (2011) for videogames in the US. I think this recent Forbes article is a harbinger of sensational news coverage to come. I personally think it’s still up in the air as to whether or not the Oculus and other VR peripherals will be constructed as a new technological evolution of videogaming or as an entirely new medium; the free speech protection consequences of the latter in the US are dramatic.

If anyone on this list would like to speak to me via Skype or email about their thoughts on the future of virtual reality in the popular imagination and its relationship to gaming, please contact me at tommy.rousse@gmail.comread more. “Call: Insights for non-academic audience re: VR as a media panic”

Posted in Calls | Leave a comment

The limits of simulation

[From NPR’s cosmos & culture blog]

Jim Carrey in The Truman Show

The Limits Of Simulation

by Alva Noë
February 28, 2014

The idea that the world might be living in a simulation — discussed in Marcelo’s post this week — is brought to life with wit and power in Peter Weir’s 1998 film The Truman Show. Young Truman, who has been raised inside a simulation — a reality TV show! — is free to explore his environment; he can move around and pursue his interests and interrogate and probe. If he looks to his right, he sees the hustle and bustle of the world around him. Look to the left? More hustle and bustle. Of course, were he to look to the left when the simulators expected him to look to the right, he’d witness nothing but stage hands making preparations for his next look.… read more. “The limits of simulation”

Posted in Presence in the News | Leave a comment
  • Find Researchers

    Use the links below to find researchers listed alphabetically by the first letter of their last name.

    A | B | C | D | E | F| G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z