Author: Matthew Lombard


  • Meet the robot telemarketer who denies she’s a robot

    [From TIME] Meet the Robot Telemarketer Who Denies She’s A Robot Our encounter with an all-too-convincing robot By Zeke Miller and Denver Nicks With reporting by Michael Scherer, Christopher Wilson, and Jessica Roy [@jessicakroy] Follow @timenewsfeed Dec. 10, 2013 The phone call came from a charming woman with a bright, engaging voice to the cell phone of a TIME Washington Bureau Chief Michael Scherer. She wanted to offer a deal on health insurance, but something was fishy. When Scherer asked point blank if she was a real person, or a computer-operated robot voice, she replied enthusiastically that she was real,…

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  • Call: CHI PLAY 2014

    CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: CHI PLAY 2014 Submission Deadlines: May 8, 2014 (full papers, demos, workshops, doctoral consortium) June 26, 2014 (student competition, work-in-progress) CHI PLAY 2014 The ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play http://chiplay.org/ Twitter: #chiplay Toronto, Ontario, Canada October 5-8, 2014 CHI PLAY is a new international and interdisciplinary conference (by ACM SIGCHI) for researchers and professionals across all areas of play, games and human-computer interaction (HCI), we call it: “player-computer interaction”. The goal of the conference is to highlight and foster discussion of current high quality research in games and HCI as foundations for the…

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  • CAVE + robotic camera = Immersive research and learning center

    [From the Philadelphia Inquirer; more information is available from Villanova] [Image: A still frame from a video by computer scientist Frank Klassner shows an omni-directional image of the interior of Villanova University’s chapel made with a Ladybug camera] Villanova adding robotic camera to its virtual reality technology By Jeff Gelles, Inquirer Columnist December 12, 2013 What if you could explore and conduct research on the floor of the Grand Canyon, or examine archaeological sites underneath the Vatican, without ever leaving the Philadelphia region? By next fall, those kinds of experiences and many more will be available to students and the…

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  • Call: Education and Training for Globally Distributed Virtual Teams – Special issue of Connexions

    Dear Colleagues- As you finish your semesters and move toward the holidays, I wanted to remind you that proposals for the special issue of Connexions entitled Education and Training for Globally Distributed Virtual Teams are due January 15.  These proposals are short, and I have copied the text of the call (with the production schedule) below for your convenience.  The issue will be published in Dec. 2014.  Please consider submitting.  Contact me or Kirk if you would like to discuss an idea. Best wishes, Pam Call for Proposals EDUCATION AND TRAINING FOR GLOBALLY DISTRIBUTED VIRTUAL TEAMS Preparing the workforce of…

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  • Robometrix VisitorBot Mini, new inexpensive consumer-market telepresence robot

    [From Keystone Edge] Palmyra’s Robometrix starting production and sales of its consumer-market robots Thursday, December 12, 2013 Writer: Elise Vider Imagine remotely checking in on elderly loved ones with a mini-robot that you move around using your smartphone.  Or playing with your dog while you’re at work. Robometrix, a startup in Palmyra, is introducing its VisitorBot Mini, a compact telepresence device that can be operated on a tabletop or floor and sells for only $300. The larger VisitorBot Max stands four-feet-tall and, for example, can move around a factory floor to monitor overseas manufacturing from your Pennsylvania workplace. It sells…

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  • Call: AISB AI&Games 2014 symposium

    Join us at the AISB AI&Games 2014 symposium. Deadline for long abstract submission 3rd of January 2014. see http://staffwww.dcs.shef.ac.uk/people/D.Romano/AISB14/ —— The AI & Games Symposium acts as a meeting and network point for researchers from academia, education and industry, in particular those involved with the design, development and evaluation of AI and games. Their expertise could be in a range of areas including: AI, machine learning, planning, narrative, education and training, multimedia, game design and development, game interaction design, characters design, interaction design and evaluation for children, adults and any other relevant area.…

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  • Almost Human: Playing the uncanny valley

    [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

    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

    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)

    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

    [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

    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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