International Society
for Presence Research

Author: Matthew Lombard

  • Almost Human: Playing the uncanny valley

    Published:

    [Interesting consideration of ‘Computers Are Social Actors’ telepresence issues; this is from Pillow Talk TV, where the post includes several more pictures; more information and full episodes of the series are available on its official web site] Almost Human: Playing the uncanny valley December 5, 2013 By jcodner Fox’s new futuristic cop drama Almost Human, from power-house J.J. Abrams and creator J.H. Wyman, steps into the gaping hole on network television left by his previous Fringe and not quite filled by shows like Arrow and Revolution. Starring Karl Urban, Minka Kelly, Lili Taylor, Mackenzie Crook, Michael Irby, and Michael Ealy…

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  • Call: Meaningful Play 2014

    Published:

    Meaningful Play 2014 October 16 – 18, 2014 East Lansing, MI, USA http://meaningfulplay.msu.edu Call for Submissions (Deadline July 1, 2014) Whether designed to entertain or to achieve more “serious” purposes, games have the potential to impact players’ beliefs, knowledge, attitudes, emotions, cognitive abilities, physical and mental health, and behavior. Central to all of these goals is the idea of Meaningful Play: a player’s sense that actions matter and the context of play matters. Meaningful Play 2014 is a conference about theory, research, and game design innovations, principles and practices. Meaningful Play brings scholars and industry professionals together to understand and…

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  • Presence Picture #7: Girl kisses Nelson Mandela statue

    Published:

    A touching example of social presence after the loss of Nelson Mandela in a photo by Christopher Furlong from Getty Images. The caption: JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – DECEMBER 09: A young South African girl named Malika is lifted by her mother to kiss a statue of former South African President Nelson Mandela before a service conducted by Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Nelson Mandela Foundation on December 9, 2013 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Mandela, also known as Madiba, passed away on the evening of December 5, 2013 at his home in Houghton at the age of 95. Mandela became South…

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  • Call: Designing Speech and Language Interactions (CHI 2014 Workshop)

    Published:

    Call for Papers CHI 2014 Workshop on Designing Speech and Language Interactions Toronto, Canada http://www.cs.toronto.edu/dsli2014 Submission of position papers: 17 January 2014 Notification of acceptance: 10 February 2014 Workshop: 26 April 2014 Speech and natural language remain our most natural forms of interaction; yet the HCI community have been very timid about focusing their attention on designing and developing spoken language interaction techniques. While significant efforts are spent and progress made in speech recognition, synthesis, and natural language processing, there is now sufficient evidence that many real-life applications using speech technologies do not require 100% accuracy to be useful. This…

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  • Reactive Grip provides more lifelike experience for VR and games

    Published:

    [From Mashable, where the story includes a 1:32 minute video] Reactive Grip Wants Your Video Game Experience to Get Physical Colin Daileda December 7, 2013 A company called Tactical Haptics wants to give video games a sense of touch in a way that could put rumble packs to shame. Founder and CEO William Provancher told Mashable that his company has built a virtual reality device called Reactive Grip, a combination of software and hardware that lets video game players use a specialized controller to experience physical sensations unlike anything previously seen in gaming. Reactive Grip does a couple of things to create…

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  • Call: 28th British HCI Conference – HCI2014

    Published:

    Call for Participation: 28th British HCI Conference – HCI2014 9th – 12th September 2014 The 28th British HCI Conference will be held in the Victorian Seaside town of Southport, in the North West of the UK less than an hour away from the International Airports of Manchester and Liverpool. The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Sand, Sea and Sky – Holiday HCI’ and the aim is to provide a venue for both regular and diverse HCI as well as to promote work that highlights HCI for the family, for recreation and for relaxation. The conference will combine regular paper…

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  • iPad game Drei forces you to collaborate with a stranger

    Published:

    [Anonymous social presence? This is from Wired, where the story includes a photo gallery and a 1:15 minute video] [Image: A clever pop-up control panel in Drei’s physics-based IPad puzzler lets you communicate with your partner via instantly translated words and phrases. Image: Drei.] Brilliant iPad Game Forces You to Collaborate With a Stranger By Kyle VanHemert 12.04.13 To say that Drei restored my faith in humanity would be overdoing it, but I will say that it’s the only iPad game to ever make me consider my relationship with humanity, and that must be some sort of accomplishment. For the…

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  • Call: Assessing Human Capabilities in Video Games and Simulations – Special issue of IJGCMS

    Published:

    International Journal of Gaming and Computer Mediated Simulations (IJGCMS) SPECIAL ISSUE ON: Assessing Human Capabilities in Video Games and Simulations SUBMISSION DUE DATE: June 2nd, 2014 Guest Editor: Richard N. Landers INTRODUCTION: In video games and computer mediated simulations (GCMS), instructional designers and human resources professionals can develop virtual situations and environments that enable people to exhibit a wide range of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs; “O” includes a diverse set of constructs such as personality, preferences, interests).  Often, direct measurement of these KSAOs outside of a computer-mediated environment is difficult, confounded, or costly. For example, in the…

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  • Google Street View now takes users to National Parks and more

    Published:

    [From eWeek; a 1:09 minute video report is available from Mashable] [Image: Sequoia National Park via Google Street View] Google Street View Now Showcasing U.S. and Canadian National Parks By Todd R. Weiss  |  Posted 2013-11-20 Can’t get to Mount Rushmore to see it up close? Now Google’s Street View images can bring it to you, as well as many other lovely national parks in the U.S. and Canada. Google’s Street View crews have wandered all across national parks and historical sites in the United States and Canada to now bring many famous vistas and features to the screens of…

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  • Call: “Architectural Space and Interaction” – Workshop on space in interaction at CHI 2014

    Published:

    CALL FOR PARTICIPATION “Architectural Space and Interaction” – Workshop on space in interaction Two-day workshop at CHI 2014, April 26th or 27th in Toronto, Canada SUBMISSION DEADLINE: January 10th 2014, via E-Mail to n.dalton@open.ac.uk SUBMISSION FORMAT: 2-4 page position papers, formatted according to ACM SIGCHI Publications Format (not anonymised) NOTIFICATION: February 1st, 2014 INFORMATION & NEWS: http://interactioninspaceworkshop.blogspot.com From the earliest two-dimensional graphic user interface, through to games & virtual reality, and now emerging into mobile computing, urban computing, ambient computing, tangible computing and ubiquitous computing, our awareness of space and its role in the interaction process is becoming more distinct.…

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  • Researchers combine Kinect and bathtub to create ‘immersive’ gaming surface

    Published:

    [From The Escapist, where the story includes a 2:17 minute video; a 0:57 BBC News report is available here, an 8:51 minute video is here, and the AquaTop Display web site is here] Researchers Combine a Kinect and a Bathtub to Create a Gaming Surface Using the Microsoft Kinect, a projector, and a bath, several Japanese researchers have created an interactive display surface. Josh Engen | 29 November 2013 Several researchers from the Koike Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo have created an interactive surface by combining a Kinect with a small basin of water.…

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  • Call: 10th annual Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Conference

    Published:

    Call For Proposals 10th annual Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Conference June 11-13, 2014 Madison, Wisconsin, USA http://glsconference.org/2014/call-for-proposals/ The Games+Learning+Society Center and the University of Wisconsin-Madison is excited to announce that the 10th annual Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Conference will be held June 11-13, 2014, with pre-conference activities on June 10 including the GLS Playful Learning Summit and the GLS Doctoral Consortium. The GLS Conference is the premier event in the field of videogames and learning. Now celebrating its tenth anniversary, this grassroots “indie” event continues to be one of the few destinations where the people who create high-quality digital learning media can gather for…

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