ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: November 2015

How telerobotics can reshape our workspace

[This is a first person report and thoughtful consideration of the value and likely future of telepresence and telerobotics; it’s from TechCrunch, where the post includes additional images. –Matthew]

Telerobots

How Telerobotics Can Reshape Our Workspace

Posted Oct 8, 2015 by Peter Hirst, Executive Director of Executive Education at MIT Sloan School of Management

At a conference last October, I encountered a fascinating “creature” named AVA that I mentioned in a blog post shortly afterwards.

Though extraordinarily helpful in keeping a conversation going with another conference attendee, AVA was not a person. She (or perhaps I should say “it”) was a telepresence-enabled robot that made it possible for an Internet of Things World Forum participant to attend the conference in Chicago while remaining physically in Germany.

Seeing AVA made a strong impression on me. So much so that earlier this year I ordered a similar robot to see if we could enable our team at the MIT Sloan School of Management’s Office of Executive Education to work remotely without missing out on more social aspects of work-life in the office.… read more. “How telerobotics can reshape our workspace”

Posted in Presence in the News | Leave a comment

ISPR News: This is big

We’re working hard on what we think will be a valuable new resource for everyone interested in (tele)presence; watch this space for details soon! -Matthew

IJTelepresence previewread more. “ISPR News: This is big”

Posted in ISPR News | Leave a comment

Jobs: 5-7 faculty positions in Northeastern College of Computer and Information Science (including in HCI and Health)

Greetings,

We have 5-7 faculty positions open in the Northeastern College of Computer and Information Science in Boston – at all levels and across all sub-disciplines. We’re particularly interested in candidates whose research is at the intersection of HCI and health. The official ad is below. Information on our Personal Health Informatics (PHI) PhD program and faculty is here: http://phi.ccs.neu.edu/

Go here to apply: http://www.ccs.neu.edu/hiring-faculty/ccis-2016-faculty-recruitment/

You can contact me with any questions about HCI- or agents-related positions.

(yes, Stacy [Marsella] is here too!)

Tim Bickmore… read more. “Jobs: 5-7 faculty positions in Northeastern College of Computer and Information Science (including in HCI and Health)”

Posted in Jobs | Leave a comment

Work all day in virtual reality with Envelop VR

[Envelop VR has an intriguing new approach to working in VR, and the founder talks about it and related issues in the 14:37 podcast episode in this story from Road to VR; among other things, he talks (starting at 10:37) about the distinctions among VR, AR, MR, etc.: “I call them immersive technologies – anything that helps you achieve presence.” –Matthew]

Envelop VR graphic (multiple screens above keyboard)

Work All Day in Virtual Reality with Envelop VR

Voices of VR Podcast – Episode #236

By Kent Bye – Nov 3, 2015

Envelop VR is a productivity tool that provides a virtual shell to allow users to use all of their existing 2D applications within the context of virtual reality. I had a chance to talk to the founder Bob Berry at the SEA-VR Expo, which he also founded last year. Envelop VR announced last week that they raised a $4 million round of funding from Madrona Venture Group.read more. “Work all day in virtual reality with Envelop VR”

Posted in Presence in the News | Leave a comment

Call: Mobile Learning and Special Education issue of Interaction Design and Architecture(s)

Call for Articles for a special issue of Interaction Design and Architecture (s) (IxD&A):
Mobile Learning and Special Education
Guest Editors – Enrico Gandolfi, Peña Bedesem, Richard E. Ferdig, and Cheng-Chang Lu (Kent State University)

http://www.mifav.uniroma2.it/inevent/events/idea2010/index.php?s=102&link=call28

IMPORTANT DATES

  • Deadline: February 28, 2016
  • Notification to the authors: March 30, 2016
  • Camera ready paper: April 20, 2016
  • Publication of the special issue: end of May, 2016

OVERVIEW

The widespread distribution of mobile devices as well as the massive availability of mobile apps has created innovative opportunities for teaching and learning in both general and special education. Special education here means “specially designed instruction, at no cost to the parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability, including: (i) Instruction conducted in the classroom, in the home, in hospitals and institutions, and in other settings; and (ii) Instruction in physical education” (20 U.S.C.… read more. “Call: Mobile Learning and Special Education issue of Interaction Design and Architecture(s)”

Posted in Calls | Leave a comment

How Facebook plans to evolve VR

[Facebook is revealing more about its plan to refine “you are there” virtual experiences; the story is from Business Insider. –Matthew]

Facebook graphic: text to VR/AR

[Image: Crave]

How Facebook plans to more or less build a teleporter

Jillian D’Onfro
Nov. 3, 2015

Facebook’s chief technical officer, Mike Schroepfer, says that when the company thinks about where it wants to be by 2025, it aims to “effectively build a teleporter.”

“Facebook wants to build a device that allows you to be anywhere you want, with anyone, regardless of geographic boundaries,” Schroepfer added at a press event on Tuesday morning before his appearance at the Dublin Web Summit.

The company is already heading toward that with the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, which will come out early next year.

But Schroepfer envisions a future in which Oculus will be able to trick your senses into thinking its virtual world is real, mimic the world around you in real-time, and give regular people the ability to create anything they imagine in 3D.… read more. “How Facebook plans to evolve VR”

Posted in Presence in the News | Leave a comment

Call: 8th International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (INTETAIN 2016)

CALL FOR PAPERS
INTETAIN 2016
8th International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment
June 28-30, 2016 – Utrecht, The Netherlands
http://www.intetain.org/2016

Deadline for submissions: February 19, 2016

SCOPE

Intelligent technologies have shaped and will continue to shape the way we experience entertainment. Novel devices and novel interaction paradigms present opportunities for richer interactions. At the same time, the adoption of such technology by humans presents interesting challenges. The development of interactive entertainment applications therefore requires thorough knowledge from multiple research domains (computer graphics, human factors, signal processing, artificial intelligence, etc.). When successfully combined, novel interaction paradigms can impact the entertainment industry.

The 8th International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (INTETAIN 2016) will address issues concerning relationships between human-computer interaction and entertainment. The objective of the conference is to attract state-of-art contributions that address the broad challenges faced in the development and use of interactive technologies to create entertainment content.… read more. “Call: 8th International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (INTETAIN 2016)”

Posted in Calls | Leave a comment

As new Star Trek series is announced, an ambitious virtual U.S.S. Enterprise project

[Coinciding with the announcement that a new Star Trek television series is going into production, this Daily Mail story describes an ambitious project to create a complete, navigable virtual version of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The story includes more images and a video about an effort to build a real Enterprise (!). The 12:10 minute demo video for the Enterprise 3D Construction Project is available on YouTube and see the project’s website for much more information. –Matthew]

Enterprise 3D Project hallway screenshot

Take a tour of Star Trek’s USS Enterprise: Video lets you walk through the ship’s maze of corridors and explore its iconic bridge

  • The tour is a demo of the ongoing Enterprise 3D Construction Project created by 3D artist Jason Briney
  • It shows viewers sights such as the holodeck, space port and bridge and lets them land in the Enterprise
  • The aim is to eventually let wearers of Oculus Rift wander around the fictional ship and interact with its crew

By Sarah Griffiths for MailOnline
23 September 2015

Have you ever wanted to walk in the footsteps of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and take command of the USS Enterprise-D?… read more. “As new Star Trek series is announced, an ambitious virtual U.S.S. Enterprise project”

Posted in Presence in the News | Leave a comment

Call: IEEE Computational Intelligence and Games Conference 2016

IEEE Computational Intelligence and Games Conference 2016
20-23 September, 2016, Santorini Island, Greece
http://cig16.image.ntua.gr/

DESCRIPTION

Computer games not only offer a killer application for computational intelligence (CI), machine learning and search but also provide a compelling domain where problem solving and decision making meet artifact creation; both of which can be experienced via a highly immersive, complex and rich interaction. Additionally, methods from computational intelligence promise to have a big impact on game technology and development, assisting designers and developers and enabling new types of computer games. The Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG) conference series brings together leading researchers and practitioners from academia and industry to discuss recent advances and explore future directions in this field.

The annual IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (IEEE CIG) is one of the premier international conferences in the field of computational intelligence and games.… read more. “Call: IEEE Computational Intelligence and Games Conference 2016”

Posted in Calls | Leave a comment

Don’t let VR ads become virtual prisons for consumers

[The advertising and marketing industries will have to make some important decisions about how to use, or abuse, VR and presence. This is from Advertising Age; the image is from an earlier related article in Forbes. –Matthew]

VR advertising (woman seeing store in Oculus)

[Image: Forbes]

How to Avoid the Potential Horrors of Virtual Reality Marketing

Don’t Let Virtual Reality Ads Become Virtual Prisons for Consumers

By Nicholas Manluccia
October 30, 2015

If the free-flowing venture capital and multi-billion dollar industry valuation are any indication, the advent of virtual reality is upon us. VR is poised to change the way consumers interface with media, entertainment, even politics. Naturally, this offers fertile territory for some much-needed innovation in advertising.

As the adoption of virtual reality accelerates, so too will the presence of VR marketing. Mainstream virtual reality marketing isn’t some distant-future hypothetical — it’s already emerging.… read more. “Don’t let VR ads become virtual prisons for consumers”

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