ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: June 2018

Job: Microsoft Design Researcher (Games and Entertainment)

Design Researcher 2 at Microsoft
Redmond, Washington, United States
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/job/447298/Design-Researcher-2

Job number: 447298
Date posted: June 6, 2018
Travel: 0-25 %
Job category: Engineering
Role type: Individual Contributor
Employment type: Full-Time

To put it simply, we are all about fun! And at Team Xbox, we care deeply about facilitating fun for everyone.

Are you curious about games and technology? We are seeking a researcher with a passion & skill for generating consumer insights to help drive the development of world-class entertainment games and experiences. You will be joining a unique team at Microsoft known for pioneering and institutionalizing the adaptation of psychological research methods to games and the entertainment industry.… read more. “Job: Microsoft Design Researcher (Games and Entertainment)”

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“The robot became part of me”: NeuroEmbodied Design for artificial limbs

[The profound implications of the innovation described in this story from the MIT Media Lab is clear in this sentence from the second-to-last paragraph: “We see a future in which our designed world will be carefully integrated within our nature: a world in which what is biological and what is not, what is human and what is not, what is nature and what is not, will be forever blurred.” See the original story for an additional image, three videos, an FAQ and more. Futurism’s coverage, titled “Artificial Limbs We Forget Are Artificial,” links to a story in Popular Mechanics with more information including an 8:25 minute segment from Science Friday. –Matthew]

Agonist-antagonist Myoneural Interface (AMI)

May 30, 2018

Humans can accurately sense the position, speed, and torque of their limbs, even with their eyes shut. This sense, known as proprioception, allows humans to precisely control their body movements.… read more. ““The robot became part of me”: NeuroEmbodied Design for artificial limbs”

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Call: 1st IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality (AIVR 2018)

Call for Papers

The 1st IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality
December 10-12, 2018
Taichung, Taiwan
http://www.ieee-aivr.org

(CFP available for download here)

Workshop proposal submission deadline: July 20, 2018
Paper submission deadline: July 27, 2018

Research in Virtual Reality (VR) is concerned with computing technologies that allow humans to see, hear, talk, think, learn, and solve problems in virtual and augmented environments. Research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) addresses technologies that allow computing machines to mimic these same human abilities. Although these two fields evolved separately, they share an interest in human senses, skills, and knowledge production. Thus, bringing them together will enable us to create more natural and realistic virtual worlds and develop better, more effective applications. Ultimately, this will lead to a future in which humans and humans, humans and machines, and machines and machines are interacting naturally in virtual worlds, with use cases and benefits we are only just beginning to imagine.… read more. “Call: 1st IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality (AIVR 2018)”

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With Venues, Oculus and Facebook push social VR into new territory

[Oculus Venues is a new platform for social VR and this story from Wired describes some of the key design choices its creators faced; it includes both explicit and indirect references to presence. The original version includes different images; for more information about what the Venues experience is like see stories in CNET and Mashable. –Matthew]

[Image: Source: VRScout]

With Venues, Oculus and Facebook Push Social VR Into New Territory

Peter Rubin
May 30, 2018

Tonight, more than 9,000 people will fill Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside Denver to listen to Vance Joy, an Australian singer-songwriter with a name like a game-show host and an abiding love for ukulele. He’ll be playing songs from his most recent album, gracing the same stage that hosted U2 during their now-iconic 1983 performance.

But those 9,000 people won’t be alone. They’ll be joined by others watching it live—perhaps as many as in Red Rocks itself, perhaps more.… read more. “With Venues, Oculus and Facebook push social VR into new territory”

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Call: INTERACT 2019 – 17th IFIP TC.13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction

Call for Papers

The 17th IFIP TC.13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2019
September 2-6, 2019
Paphos, Cyprus
http://interact2019.org/

First submission deadline: January 14, 2019

INTERACT 2019 is the latest of a series of conferences on Human-Computer Interaction organized under the aegis of the Technical Committee 13 of the UNESCO International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). The IFIP TC 13 aims at developing the science and technology of the interaction between humans and computing devices. The first INTERACT conference was organized in London, UK in 1984 and the most recent conferences took place in India (2017), Germany (2015), South Africa (2013) and Portugal (2011).

INTERACT 2019 runs in-cooperation with the ACM Special Interest Group on Human-Computer Interaction (SIGCHI). The 2019 conference will be hosted by the Cyprus University of Technology and supported by Tallinn University.

INTERACT 2019 welcome contributions covering all aspects of Human-Computer Interaction.… read more. “Call: INTERACT 2019 – 17th IFIP TC.13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction”

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Telexistence Robot H lets you see, hear, and feel through it

[This new telepresence robot has capabilities that make it more like a “real life” avatar for users. The short story is from SoraNews24, where it includes a different image and a 1:45 minute video. For more information see a story in Forbes that considers the robot’s potential use for remote shopping, and a press release via Digital Journal. –Matthew]

Japanese telecom company unveils robot that lets you see, hear, and feel through it [Video]

The only problem is that it looks like a killing machine compared to domestic robot Pepper.

Koh Ruide
June 4, 2018

When Japanese telecommunications company Softbank made Pepper, an emotional robot with intelligent speech capabilities, they took great care in making it look friendly enough to us humans.

But when rival company KDDI revealed their own version of a robot called Model H, a shiver ran up everyone’s spines.… read more. “Telexistence Robot H lets you see, hear, and feel through it”

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Job: Postdoc Researcher in Human-Media Interaction at Radboud University

Postdoctoral Researcher in Human-Media Interaction (0.5 FTE)

Faculty of Social Sciences
Radboud University
The Netherlands
Vacancy number: 24.26.18

Application deadline: 1 July 2018

RESPONSIBILITIES

The Communication and Media research programme of the Behavioural Science Institute at Radboud University is seeking a Postdoctoral Researcher to strengthen the group’s research on the intersection of Communication Science and Artificial Intelligence. The emphasis will be on the interaction between individuals and intelligent media technologies. Recent technological developments provide unprecedented opportunities for the development and evaluation of intelligent media technologies that positively influence human behaviour and well-being. Examples of such systems include intelligent agents, serious games, virtual reality applications and/or social robots. We are seeking candidates who are able to contribute to research on the interaction between humans and such intelligent media technologies from two perspectives: (1) from an Artificial Intelligence perspective, developing AI algorithms that can be used to create innovative technologies that make people happy, healthy and well-informed, and (2) from a Communication Science perspective, studying the effects of such intelligent media technologies on human behaviour.… read more. “Job: Postdoc Researcher in Human-Media Interaction at Radboud University”

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The power of split-sphere 360 VR in advancing gender equality

[This story examines a recent study of the potential of a film that provides both male and female perspectives in an unusual split-sphere 360° video format to create empathy and attitude change. The story is from Medium, where the original includes three different images. It’s worth looking at the study itself (via Dropbox), in which presence and other aspects of the technology and experience are considered. A related recent story worth a look is “Walking in another’s virtual shoes: Do 360-degree video news stories generate empathy in viewers?“ in Columbia Journalism Review. –Matthew]

[Image: Source: UTURN creator Nathalie Mathe]

The power of virtual reality in advancing gender equality

Tanja Aitamurto
May 3, 2018

As the #metoo movement continues unveiling stories of gender discrimination, it is increasingly important to develop solutions to address the problem. To create a more equal society, we need to better understand each other’s perspectives and realities.… read more. “The power of split-sphere 360 VR in advancing gender equality”

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Call: 6th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI 2018)

CALL FOR PAPERS

6th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI 2018)
Southampton, UK
15-18 December 2018
http://hai-conference.net/hai2018

Abstract Submission deadline for Full Papers (Short: 4 pages; Long: 8 pages): 02 July 2018

HAI 2018 is the 6th annual International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction. It aims to be the premier interdisciplinary venue for discussing and disseminating state-of-the-art research and results that reach across conventional interaction boundaries from people to a wide range of intelligent systems, including physical robots, software agents and digitally-mediated human-human communication. HAI focusses on technical as well as social aspects.

The theme for HAI 2018 is Trustworthy Interaction. During the last decade, much research has been devoted to increasing the interaction quality between humans and artificial intelligent agents. At the same time, more and more intelligent systems are generating decisions, either autonomously or with people “in-the-loop”. Many questions arise when considering the trustworthiness of intelligent systems, operating on their own or in collaboration with people.… read more. “Call: 6th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI 2018)”

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MIT course explores technical, philosophical, and artful dimensions of VR

[This story from MIT News describes what sounds like a valuable course at MIT, one that explicitly covers presence. My colleague Laura Zaylea and I have been doing something similar in a cross-course collaboration (Emerging Media Production and Psychological Processing of Media), initially focusing on 360 videos and augmented reality. If you teach or know of other courses like this, please let me know (at lombard@temple.edu). –Matthew]

[Image: In MIT’s hands-on humanities class CMS.339 (Virtual Reality and Immersive Media Production), students are grappling with multiple dimensions of making virtual reality, from technical challenges, to philosophical questions, to the art of storytelling. Credit: MIT.]

Hacking virtual reality

Contributing to a culture of pioneers, MIT students explore the technical, philosophical, and artful dimensions of VR.

May 31, 2018

One of the newest makerspaces on MIT’s campus exists in virtual reality — where students are pioneering a medium so new that the terminology is still being defined.… read more. “MIT course explores technical, philosophical, and artful dimensions of VR”

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