ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: January 2021

Call: British Human-Computer Interaction Conference 2021

Call for Papers

33rd British Human Computer Interaction Conference
19-21 July
(Online) – London, UK – University of West London
https://hci2021.bcs.org/

Submission deadlines:
Full and Position Papers: April 30, 2021
Doctoral Consortium Papers and Workshop Proposals: April 1, 2021

One behalf of the BCS Interaction Specialist group and the Organising committee we are very pleased to announce the general call for papers for this year’s British HCI Conference.

The 2021 conference theme is “Post-pandemic HCI – Living Digitally” highlighting current and future efforts for digital innovations in socio-technical systems and related challenges and opportunities. The theme invites to think beyond the current pandemic and be hopeful. ‘Living digitally’ calls for interpreting and imagining how human-computer interactions and collaborations in all areas of human life may be shaped by the pandemics. The conference accepts submissions related to, but not necessarily limited to, the following topics:

  • Sustainable HCI (e.g.
read more. “Call: British Human-Computer Interaction Conference 2021”
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Perceiving is believing: How naïve realism influences our perception of everything

[This new story from Psychology Today links the fundamental idea of perceptual illusions with both the polarization of views about political and other issues and a potentially valuable intervention to reduce it. See the original story for two short videos about optical illusions. Another illusion that I find compelling (and which we just discussed in my Psychological Processing of Media class) is presented and discussed in a 2016 story in The Verge, and for an example of the effects of our perceptions about the world, see “6 Photographers Invited to Photograph 1 Man Reveal the Power of Perspective” from My Modern Net. –Matthew]

[Image: Credit: Yurly Lukin/Shutterstock]

Perceiving Is Believing

How naive realism influences our perception of everything.

Jessica Koehler Ph.D., Beyond School Walls
January 23, 2021

“The only true voyage of discovery…would be not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is.”… read more. “Perceiving is believing: How naïve realism influences our perception of everything”

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Call: ISMAR 2021 – 20th IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality

Call for Journal and Conference Papers

ISMAR 2021: IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality
October 4-8, 2021
Bari, Italy
http://www.ismar20.org

  • ISMAR 2021 Call for Journal Papers
  • ISMAR 2021 Call for Conference Papers (coming soon)
  • As in the past, Call for Posters, Panels, Tutorials, Workshops, etc. will be issued separately.

Journal Paper abstracts due: March 7, 2021
Journal Paper submissions due: March 15, 2021
Conference Paper abstracts due: May 24, 2021
Conference Paper submissions due: May 28, 2021

OVERVIEW

ISMAR 2021, the premier conference for Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) will be held on October 4-8 in Bari, Italy.

ISMAR is responding to the recent explosion of commercial and research activities related to AR and MR and VR by continuing the expansion of its scope over the past several years. ISMAR 2021 will cover the full range of technologies from interfaces in the real world to fully immersive experiences.… read more. “Call: ISMAR 2021 – 20th IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality”

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VR has real problems. Here’s how game developers seek to delete them.

[It’s common to point out how designers working in (presence-evoking) emerging media like virtual reality are forced to experiment because there’s no received history outlining which design attributes are most effective for users across individuals, contexts, genres, etc. This Washington Post story explores the process for VR game developers, including what happens when designers break the existing rules. See the original version for three more images and links to related stories. –Matthew]

[Image: Credit: Mallory Brangan/The Washington Post]

Virtual reality has real problems. Here’s how game developers seek to delete them.

By Derek Swinhart
January 21, 2021

From a distance, virtual reality games might seem primitive and unsophisticated compared to more traditional titles. Players’ hands float in midair as they vault across virtual space, crudely teleporting from point to point.

Perhaps a change in perspective is called for. What players may not know is that teleportation is not a lazy solution to moving about in virtual reality, but a direct response to motion sickness.… read more. “VR has real problems. Here’s how game developers seek to delete them.”

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Call: PRESENCE 2020 (Free) Bonus Session: Exploring Visual Collaboration Platforms

Call for Participants

PRESENCE 2020 Bonus Session: Exploring Visual Collaboration Platforms
February 2021 (date TBD)
Free and online

Deadline for expressions of interest: February 4, 2021

Whether or not you attended the PRESENCE 2020 conference last October, the organizing committee invites you to participate in a free bonus session in which we’ll gather online to explore a handful visual collaboration platforms (including Zoom, Mozilla Hubs and others to be selected) and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each for evoking spatial and social presence. Aside from the (social) experience itself the goal will be to write a conference or journal paper with our evaluations and recommendations for the design and use of these and similar platforms to optimize presence (building on a related session at PRESENCE 2018 in Prague in which several people joined us via WebEx and we had a similar discussion).… read more. “Call: PRESENCE 2020 (Free) Bonus Session: Exploring Visual Collaboration Platforms”

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The importance of context: How metaphors affect perceptions of chatbots

[Although they didn’t measure presence directly, this report by a member of a research team at Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) provides a good example of the powerful effects the context of a mediated experience can have on media users’ perceptions and responses. –Matthew]

[Image: Microsoft’s Chinese chatbot Xiaoice]

How to Build a Likable Chatbot

Consumers have consistent personality preferences for their online friends, new research shows.

Ranjay Krishna
January 11, 2021

A few years ago, Business Insider predicted that 80% of enterprise applications would use chatbots by 2020. Today, the internet is flooded with millions of conversational artificial intelligence agents. Yet only a handful of them are actually used by people — most are discarded.

Even though the technical underpinnings of these agents continue to improve, we still lack fundamental understanding of the mechanisms that influence our experience of them: What factors influence our decision to continue using an AI agent?… read more. “The importance of context: How metaphors affect perceptions of chatbots”

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Call: Building Bridges and Not Walls: Expanding Human-Machine Communication Connections Within HRI – HRI 2021 workshop

Call for Papers

Building Bridges and Not Walls: Expanding Human-Machine Communication Connections Within HRI
A Virtual Workshop at the 2021 International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2021)
March 12, 2021 (Afternoon Session)
https://www.combotlabs.org/hmchri2021.html

Submission deadline: February 1, 2021

OVERVIEW

Sitting at the nexus between HRI and communication studies/science, human-machine communication (HMC) scholarship seeks to blend these perspectives by “building bridges and not walls” (a reference to one of the first communication textbooks that sought to bring similar frameworks together in the 1970s.  HMC researchers, often located in media and communication sciences departments, are examining processes of message production and reception, instructional communication, automated journalism, group dynamics, and the social and cultural construction of meanings. This half-day workshop will explore HMC and communication studies/science theories as used in HRI studies. This workshop will pay particular attention to overlapping constructs between the fields, paradigms, study designs, and approaches between these fields.… read more. “Call: Building Bridges and Not Walls: Expanding Human-Machine Communication Connections Within HRI – HRI 2021 workshop”

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The Sundance Film Festival makes a giant leap into VR

[Engadget describes how the largest American independent film festival is moving not just online but to a virtual reality platform, and notes that even after the pandemic ends it’ll likely retain the virtual component. See the original story for seven more images and a teaser video, and for more details start at the Festival page of the Sundance website. –Matthew]

The Sundance Film Festival makes a giant leap into VR

The legendary film fest is going virtual in more ways than one.

By D. Hardawar
January 25th, 2021

Like most major events over the last year, the esteemed Sundance Film Festival is going virtual. But it’s going beyond just letting you watch films at home. Sundance is building an extensive virtual reality platform for all attendees, which can be accessed with or without a VR headset. You can think of it as an evolution of the festival’s experience highlighting groundbreaking VR and new media projects with its New Frontier exhibition.… read more. “The Sundance Film Festival makes a giant leap into VR”

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Call: “Covid-19: Theatre goes Digital – Provocations” issue of Intl. Journal of Performance Art and Digital Media

Call for Papers

International Journal of Performance Art and Digital Media
IJPADM 2022 Special Issue 18.1:
Covid-19: Theatre goes Digital – Provocations.
Journal website: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rpdm20/current

Submission deadline: 31st May 2021

One day, it happened; we were advised to stay at home. To not go out; not go to school; not travel to work; not attend theatres; not visit restaurants and bars; not see friends. Our lives became enclosed in small intimate spaces; and our social exchanges became mediated. Life on the Screen (Turkle 1997) as we have never experienced it before.

The impact of Covid-19 on live theatre and performance cannot be underestimated. Covid-19 changed everything – theatres and performance venues around the world closed, some for prolonged periods of time. Venues that had presented live performance for centuries went, suddenly, out of operation; the theatre and performance world took stock of the new ‘normal’.… read more. “Call: “Covid-19: Theatre goes Digital – Provocations” issue of Intl. Journal of Performance Art and Digital Media”

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Apple’s first headset to be niche precursor to eventual AR glasses

[Bloomberg provides this widely cited story about Apple’s progress in developing a VR and AR headset; see the original verison for three more images and a link to a related story. –Matthew]

Apple’s First Headset to Be Niche Precursor to Eventual AR Glasses

The company’s first major new product category since the Apple Watch faces development hurdles.

By Mark Gurman
January 21, 2021

Apple Inc.’s first crack at a headset is designed to be a pricey, niche precursor to a more ambitious augmented reality product that will take longer to develop, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The initial device has confronted several development hurdles and the company has conservative sales expectations, illustrating how challenging it will be to bring this nascent consumer technology to the masses.

As a mostly virtual reality device, it will display an all-encompassing 3-D digital environment for gaming, watching video and communicating.… read more. “Apple’s first headset to be niche precursor to eventual AR glasses”

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