ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: January 2017

Job: Assistant Prof for Emerging Media Design and Development, Ball State University

Assistant Professor for Emerging Media Design and Development, Department of Journalism
Ball State University
Muncie, Indiana, USA

http://cms.bsu.edu/about/administrativeoffices/humanresources/employopp/public/faculty/colcomminformedia/104330-assistant-professor-for-emerging-media-design-and-development-department-of-journalism

Application deadline: January 31, 2017

Ball State University is inviting applications for a tenure-track assistant professor position, with an emphasis in human-computer interaction, programming for digital media, user experience, and emerging media design and development available August, 2017, in the ACEJMC-accredited Department of Journalism.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES:  The successful candidate will be expected to teach courses in the Emerging Media Design & Development Center’s Master’s degree program.  Assigned course topics in human-computer interaction may include theories and frameworks in HCI, usability and user-experience evaluative methods, design thinking, information management, and/or emerging media design and development.  Tenure-track faculty must also actively present juried/peer-reviewed creative endeavors and/or publish scholarly research in areas related to emerging media design and development, human-computer interaction, design thinking or related areas; serve on department, collegiate and university committees as assigned; and perform other duties as assigned by the department chairperson.… read more. “Job: Assistant Prof for Emerging Media Design and Development, Ball State University”

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Enter a psychedelic virtual forest in Treehugger: Wawona

[The installation described in this story from Alphr (where it includes more pictures and a 0:23 minute video) looks like an intriguing, and even important, presence project. –Matthew]

Enter a psychedelic virtual forest in Treehugger: Wawona

Open at the Southbank Centre today, Treehugger: Wawona combines VR and physical set design to create a virtual giant sequoia

by Thomas McMullan

Unless you happen to be 80 metres tall, have a circumference of 30 metres and have lived for 2,500 years, giant sequoias will make you feel small. These vast trees exist on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, looming over the canopy like the shins of giants.

Relatively few people will get to see a giant sequoia in person, however. Trees are not known for their transportability, and these particular trees are also at risk of being wiped out.… read more. “Enter a psychedelic virtual forest in Treehugger: Wawona”

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Call: Communicating with Machines: Interventions with Digital Agents – ICA 2017 Pre-Conference

Call for Papers

Communicating with Machines: Interventions with Digital Agents
International Communication Association (ICA) Pre-Conference

May 25, 2017 in San Diego, CA (8:30 – 16:00)
San Diego Hilton Bayfront (on-site)
https://hmc2017.wordpress.com)

Submission deadline: January 31, 2017

Digital interlocutors are increasingly standing in for humans in communication contexts. This pre-conference focuses on communication with and between humans and digital interlocutors that has the potential to engage, alter, and disrupt “normal” events, practices, and phenomena. We invite scholars from across ICA’s divisions and a variety of epistemological and methodological backgrounds to discuss their work related to Human-Machine Communication (HMC) interventions, which encompasses Human-Computer Interaction, Human-Robot Interaction, and Human-Agent Interaction, in this full-day pre-conference. We seek to raise awareness of and further develop HMC research and the scholarly community surrounding it.

PRE-CONFERENCE FOCUS

As artificial intelligence, robotics, and ICTs continue to develop and merge, we are increasingly interacting with digital interlocutors such as voice-based agents, robots, and social bots.… read more. “Call: Communicating with Machines: Interventions with Digital Agents – ICA 2017 Pre-Conference”

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Disney’s multiplane camera, an innovation in illusion

[I’ve often thought it’s amazing that we feel empathy for animated characters and stories; here’s a post from the (excellent) Kottke.org blog about the invention 80 years ago of the multiplane camera and how it helped enable this element of social presence. The original post includes a 7:20 minute video. –Matthew]

[Image: Walt Disney, center, with Bob Gibeaut, left, head of the camera department, and Bob Broughton, in front of multiplane camera. Source: Los Angeles Times.]

Disney’s multiplane camera, an innovation in illusion

posted by Jason Kottke   Jan 05, 2017

In a short film shot in 1957, Walt Disney described the multiplane camera, one of the many inventions and innovations his company had developed in order to produce more realistic and affecting animations. Instead of shooting single cels of animation on a single movable background, the multiplane camera could shoot several independently moving backgrounds, creating a sense of depth and perspective.… read more. “Disney’s multiplane camera, an innovation in illusion”

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Job: PhD position in novel 3D formats – Interact Lab, Sussex University

PhD position at Interact Lab, Sussex University

Applications due February 21, 2017

A fully-funded PhD position (£14,296 tax free stipend plus a fee waiver to the UK/EU amount for 3.5 years) is available in the Interact Lab (School of Engineering and Informatics, University of Sussex).

Recent market studies foresee VR will become mainstream, reaching a $7 billion market from 2018 and $62 billion by 2025. However, users are still forced to carry a head-mounted display, becoming unaware of people around them (e.g. colleagues), and encumbering use of other technologies or instruments. As a result, VR in its current format will hardly blend into our daily lives in the same seamless manner as a smartphone or a wearable device does.

The main goal of this PhD will be to develop novel 3D formats that allow users to directly see and interact with 3D content, while still being able to interact with the space (i.e.… read more. “Job: PhD position in novel 3D formats – Interact Lab, Sussex University”

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Facebook pop-up stores offer taste of VR

[According to a recent Parks Associates marketing study, “more than 60% of U.S. broadband households claim to know little or nothing about virtual reality,” but “50% of consumers who try a VR headset enjoy it and make plans to purchase one, while 15% who try one enjoy the experience and then buy a headset.” So the Facebook pop-up ‘stores’ described in the story below from USA Today make sense. The original story includes a 0:27 minute video and more pictures, and coverage in The Denver Post has a list of the cities that are hosting the demos. –Matthew]

[Image: Facebook’s VR pop-up shop in Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, NJ on November 25, 2016. (Photo: Eli Blumenthal, USA TODAY)]

Facebook pop-up stores offer taste of VR

Jessica Guynn, Trevor Hughes and Brett Molina, USA TODAY
Dec. 29, 2016

No, your eyes are not deceiving you.… read more. “Facebook pop-up stores offer taste of VR”

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Call: 2017 International Conference on Virtual Rehabilitation (ICVR 2017)

Call for Papers / Posters / Workshops

12th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON VIRTUAL REHABILITATION
Montreal, Canada, June 19-22, 2017
http://www.virtual-rehab.org

Submission deadline extended to January 20

ICVR is an international conference series that provides an in-depth presentation of novel technologies and clinical developments in the field of virtual reality and associated topics applied to rehabilitation. We invite submissions for papers, posters, demonstrations and workshops related to:

  • Motor and/or cognitive rehab
  • Sensory Rehab
  • Gaming and low cost systems
  • Haptic interfaces
  • Tele-rehabilitation
  • Knowledge translation
  • Brain computer interfaces
  • Vestibular and balance rehab
  • Rehabilitation robotics
  • Virtual / Mixed / Augmented reality
  • Psychological and environmental rehab
  • Communication / Language
  • Regulatory, educational, sociological, demographic, legal aspects of VR
read more. “Call: 2017 International Conference on Virtual Rehabilitation (ICVR 2017)”
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Flying solo together: The pros and cons of presence during air travel

[This post from The Economist’s Gulliver blog considers the potential isolating effects of telepresence in the context of air travel; for more information about Skylights see the company’s website and coverage in Apex that includes a 4:07 minute video. –Matthew]

Flying solo together

Virtual-reality headsets on planes mean we can isolate ourselves from irritating cabin-mates

Flying is becoming less communal

Gulliver
Jan 4th 2017
by A.W.

In the early days of commercial flight, people would dress up to take to the air and marvel at the fact that they, members of a heretofore land-bound species, were flying through the sky. Nowadays we clamour for the opposite mindset: one in which we do our best to pretend we are not flying at all.

Such denial has moved a step closer. A French startup called SkyLights has produced a 3-D virtual-reality (VR) headset, with noise-cancelling headphones, that envelops travellers in a cinematic world completely removed from their airborne surroundings.… read more. “Flying solo together: The pros and cons of presence during air travel”

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Call: WSCG 2017 International Conference on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision

Call for Papers

WSCG 2017 – 25 Anniversary Conference:
WSCG International Conference on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision
May 29 – June 2, 2017
http://www.wscg.czhttp://www.wscg.eu

Venue:
Primavera Congress Center, http://www.primaverahotel.cz/
Pilsen [Plzen] (City of Beer) close to Prague [Praha], Czech Republic
Pilsen 2015 – European Capital of Culture

Workshop and session proposals due: January 20
Papers due: February 20, 2017

MAIN TOPICS (BUT NOT LIMITED TO – SEE WEB FOR DETAILS)

Computer graphics, scientific and medical visualization, computer vision, image processing, pattern recognition, GPU graphics, graphical human computer interfaces, geometric modeling, rendering and animation, virtual reality, haptic systems, medical imaging, graphical interaction, computational photography, data compression for graphics, image based rendering, mathematical methods for graphics and vision, physically based modeling, shape analysis & modeling & retrieval, surface and volume parameterization, parallel graphics, CAD, CAGD and GIS systems, related applications and other related topics.… read more. “Call: WSCG 2017 International Conference on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision”

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Episodic virtual reality content could transform consumer entertainment

[A next key step in the evolution of VR may be the development of episodic storytelling; this is from CNBC, where the original story includes two related videos. See the PhoenIX VR website for more information and a 2:31 minute teaser video. –Matthew]

[Image: The PhoenIX, an animated science-fiction virtual reality series developed by Warrior9.]

Episodic virtual reality content could transform consumer entertainment

Nyshka Chandran
Thursday, 29 Dec 2016

What was television like before episodic narratives? The development of serialized content transformed traditional entertainment media and virtual reality (VR) startups are now hoping it will do the same for their market.

Warrior9 is a Singapore‐based video and VR production house developing what it calls the first animated science-fiction VR series. Called ‘The PhoenIX,’ the show is set in space and employs a range of technologies such as motion-capture, the process of incorporating human movement into a three-dimensional model, to document mankind’s race for survival against an unknown enemy.… read more. “Episodic virtual reality content could transform consumer entertainment”

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