ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: December 2015

Call: Multimodal Corpora – LREC 2016 Workshop

Call for Papers

LREC 2016 Workshop

Multimodal Corpora:
Computer vision and language processing

24 May 2016, Grand Hotel Bernardin Conference Center, Portorož, Slovenia

http://www.multimodal-corpora.org/

Submission deadline: 12 February, 2016

The creation of a multimodal corpus involves the recording, annotation and analysis of several communication modalities such as speech, hand gesture, facial expression, body posture, gaze, etc. An increasing number of research areas have transgressed or are in the process of transgressing from focused single modality research to full-fledged multimodality research, and multimodal corpora are becoming a core research asset and an opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange of ideas, concepts and data.

We are pleased to announce that in 2016, the 11th Workshop on Multimodal Corpora will once again be collocated with LREC [Language Resources and Evaluation Conference]

THEME

As always, we aim for a wide cross-section of the field, with contributions ranging from collection efforts, coding, validation, and analysis methods to tools and applications of multimodal corpora.… read more. “Call: Multimodal Corpora – LREC 2016 Workshop”

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Experience, create and control New Year fireworks in VR

[Happy New Year and best wishes for a safe, healthy, productive 2016 filled with wonderful (nonmediated and telepresence) experiences! The story below from VR Focus highlights one option for celebrating within VR (see the creator’s 3:16 minute descriptive demo video on YouTube), and this and other virtual fireworks options are featured in a story at UploadVR. –Matthew]

Firework Factory VR in action (animated gif)

New To VR: Make Celebrations Go With a Virtual Bang In Firework Factory VR

June 27, 2015
Kevin Eva

It’s not just the Oculus VR Share and WEARVR platforms that get all the new content and we begin the weekend with the New To VR spotlight shining on such an app. Firework Factory VR is a new virtual reality (VR) application that allows you to generate your own custom fireworks, altering their make up to produce different effects.

Developed by Aesthetic Interactive, the app allows you to save every creation you make with a unique id whilst the app also takes advantage of the available hand tracking technologies.… read more. “Experience, create and control New Year fireworks in VR”

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Call: Collaboration with Interactive Surfaces and Devices – Theory and Practice (book chapters)

Call for Book Chapters
https://sites.google.com/site/collaborationsurfaces/springer-book

TITLE OF BOOK

Collaboration with Interactive Surfaces and Devices – Theory and Practice

EDITORS

Craig Anslow, Department of Computer Science, Middlesex University, UK
Pedro Campos, University of Madeira, Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, Portugal
Joaquim Jorge, University of Lisbon, INESC-ID Lisbon, Portugal

PUBLISHER

Springer International Publishing AG

THEME

The vast screen real estate – which is provided in large-scale interaction environments – presents novel ways to visualize and interact with data-rich models, in the context of many different work domains. In parallel to this technological revolution, interactive surfaces, spaces and devices have also become widespread in different sizes and shapes, ranging from large-scale walls or touch surfaces to wearable computing mobile devices. The HCI and CSCW communities have witnessed, throughout the last decade, an exponentially increased usage of interactive large-scale walls, touch displays, tabletops, mobiles (e.g. tablets and smart phones), and wearable devices (e.g.… read more. “Call: Collaboration with Interactive Surfaces and Devices – Theory and Practice (book chapters)”

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The Japanese professor who’s spent three decades perfecting a human avatar

[This piece from Motherboard covers some fascinating presence work and history, and includes some key terminological distinctions; see the original story for many more pictures and a 4:52 minute video. –Matthew]

Prof. Susumu Tachi with TELESAR-V

The Japanese Professor Who’s Spent Three Decades Perfecting a Human Avatar

Written by Emiko Jozuka
December 23, 2015

When Susumu Tachi made his first prototype telexistence machine in 1981, he was amazed at what he saw. As he peered through the contraption, he glimpsed another version of himself from behind, looking through the very same prototype device. The effect induced a curious out-of-body sensation. Excited, he called his lab mates, who experienced similar feelings of self-displacement when trying the tech.

“It was different to looking at yourself in a mirror, or looking at your image in a video recording. I saw my image moving as I was moving myself. At that moment, I wondered where I was,” said the virtual reality and robotics professor at the University of Tokyo with a boyish grin.… read more. “The Japanese professor who’s spent three decades perfecting a human avatar”

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Job: Researcher – Future Everyday Interaction with Autonomous IoT at University of Southampton

Job: Researcher – Future Everyday Interaction with Autonomous IoT at University of Southampton

Closing Date: Friday 29 January 2016

We are looking for a talented, HCI or Ubicomp researcher to contribute to a new exciting project about Future Everyday Interaction with the Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), funded by the EPSRC. The post-doctoral researcher position is for 36 months, starting on the 1st of April 2016.

Applications are invited from highly skilled and ambitious researchers in Human-Computer Interaction and Ubiquitous Computing. You should have a PhD or equivalent professional qualifications and a track record of publication at international leading venues (e.g. ACM CHI, Ubicomp, CSCW, TOCHI).

The role will involve the design, prototyping and field evaluation of new interactive A-IoT technology. You will lead on, or take part in, building software and hardware prototypes, designing, running and analyzing participatory design workshops and field trials, as well as writing up the results for academic publication.… read more. “Job: Researcher – Future Everyday Interaction with Autonomous IoT at University of Southampton”

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VR pornstar as therapist: Virtual intimacy and the promise/peril of presence

[The power, promise and peril of presence are all illustrated in this story from Inverse, which features two more images. –Matthew]

Ela Darling using VR

The VR Pornstar of the Future Will Play Therapist, for Better and Worse

Virtual reality intimacy is going to be a growth industry, but is emotionally empowering sex workers in transactional relationships really a good idea?

Yasmin Tayag
November 9, 2015

According to Ela Darling, porn’s potential as a tool for emotion growth and counseling is often overshadowed by a popularly imagined seediness or the immediacy of the thing. Darling, an adult performer who co-founded the virtual reality porn site VRTube.xxx, thinks the intimacy at the core of pornography, the germ of fantasy, is about to come into better focus. With the advent of VR porn and its emphasis on live, tailor experiences, Darling is predicting — and betting — that adult entertainment is about become both more human and more humane.… read more. “VR pornstar as therapist: Virtual intimacy and the promise/peril of presence”

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Call: Challenges, best practices to study HRI in natural interaction settings – HRI 2016 Workshop

Call for Position Statements

HRI 2016: full-day workshop on

The challenge (not) to go wild!
Challenges and best practices to study HRI in natural interaction settings

07 March 2016, Christchurch, New Zealand

https://www.uni-due.de/sozialpsychologie/hriws2016_robotsinthewild.php

Submission deadline: 15 January 2016

Robots are more and more leaving our labs and entering natural interaction settings, such as homes, care facilities, factories, kindergartens, museums, and many more. In the HRI research community, we are aware of all the challenges involved in studying autonomously behaving agents “in the wild”. In order “not to go wild” we want to discuss best practices as well as pitfalls in studying robots in natural interaction settings. Specifically, we want to focus on challenges in the development of systems for everyday usage in peoples’ homes and on challenges in evaluating these systems in the wild, especially with regard to long-term interaction. We want to discuss and explore common and new methodological approaches to study HRI outside the lab, and collect recommendations for fellow researchers.… read more. “Call: Challenges, best practices to study HRI in natural interaction settings – HRI 2016 Workshop”

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The Climb: Head-spinning, experiential gameplay provides insights about presence

[This story about a climbing simulation provides more insights regarding how to best evoke (spatial) presence, including the roles of narrative, photorealism and natural mapping; it’s from The Guardian, where it includes another image. –Matthew]

The Climb sim

[Image: The Climb uses the Oculus Rift’s motion-controller technology to let the player control the hands of the protagonist. Photograph: Crytek]

The Climb – the most head-spinning virtual reality experience yet

Crytek’s new project for the Oculus Rift shows us exactly where VR gaming is going – towards heady and experiential gameplay

Keith Stuart
Thursday 24 December 2015

Above you, the craggy face of the cliff seems to stretch up endlessly toward the sky, offering perilously few footholds. In the far distance there’s a small village by a beach, bathed in orange sunshine – an exotic idyll. But below you there is … nothing. Nothing but a long deadly drop into the crashing sea far below.… read more. “The Climb: Head-spinning, experiential gameplay provides insights about presence”

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Presence Picture #11: Stephen Colbert warms hands with virtual fire

Stephen Colbert warming hands with virtual fire

During the opening monologue on his Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Friday December 18, the host ‘warmed’ his hands using the ‘heat’ from an on-set hearth and fire.

Here’s wishing all members of the ISPR/Presence community a joyous holiday season…

–Matthew Lombard

[By the way, join our ISPR Members Facebook group for more unusual and interesting presence items; details are here.

If you have information or comments about this or future Presence Pictures, please share them with our community by using the appropriate ‘comments’ link (note: WordPress spam filters are said to be overly aggressive, so if you don’t receive confirmation of receipt after you post, please notify us at ispr@ispr.info).]… read more. “Presence Picture #11: Stephen Colbert warms hands with virtual fire”

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Presence tech helps save couple’s ‘inoperable’ infant

[An inexpensive and increasingly common presence technology helps save a life; the story is from the Miami Herald, where it features a 4:02 video and several more images. –Matthew]

Doctors with Google Cardboard

[Image: Dr. John F. Rhodes, left, looks towards Dr. Redmond P. Burke, center, as he holds the Google Cardboard virtual reality device and explains its use in the cutting-edge medical procedure with Dr. Juan Cuarlos Muniz, right. On Tuesday, December 22, 2015 doctors at Nicklaus Children Hospital and the Lexcen family held a press conference on life-saving heart surgery performed on Teegan Lexcen at Nicklaus using a new procedure, virtual reality imaging, pioneered at the Miami hospital. CARL JUSTE Miami Herald Staff]

A virtual miracle in Miami for Minnesota couple’s ‘inoperable’ infant

December 21, 2015
By Howard Cohen

Teegan Lexcen, deemed inoperable after her birth in Minnesota, sleeps in a small crib festooned with Christmas blankets in an ICU room at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.… read more. “Presence tech helps save couple’s ‘inoperable’ infant”

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