International Society
for Presence Research

Author: Matthew Lombard

  • iRobot introduces Ava 500, the Roomba’s corporate cousin

    Published:

    [From Businessweek] Meet the Ava 500, the Roomba’s Corporate Cousin By Brad Stone June 10, 2013 Since the founding of iRobot more than 20 years ago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinout has produced robots that vacuum and mop floors, clean gutters, and patrol war zones. The Bedford (Mass.)-based company has sold more than 9 million home robots and, in the process, has done more than anyone to move the machines out of science fiction and into the real world of affordable devices. Today, iRobot (IRBT) adds another product to its league of extraordinarily practical machines, the Ava 500.…

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  • Call: 20th IEEE Haptics Symposium

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    CALL FOR PAPERS 20th IEEE Haptics Symposium http://hapticssymposium.org Call for Participation: The IEEE Haptics Symposium, founded in 1992, is a vibrant forum where psychophysicists, engineers and designers of applications and interactions come together to share advances, spark new collaborations and envision a future that benefits from rich physical interactions between computers and human operators, generated through haptic (force and tactile) devices. In 2014, the Haptics Symposium will take place February 23-26 at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Houston, Texas, USA. This Haptics Symposium will be a standalone IEEE-sponsored conference, featuring a full day of tutorials and workshops (February 23), followed…

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  • Screaming man lasts just two hours in labour simulator

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    [From TVNZ, where the story includes the 1:01 minute video mentioned. A 10:25 minute BBC News interview and discussion is available on YouTube, and links to stories about other recent labour simulations can be found at The Huffington Post.] Screaming man lasts just two hours in labour simulator Published: Friday June 28, 2013 Source: ONE News It’s often a sticking point in the battle of the sexes – is the pain of child birth the most agonising experience a person can go through, and could any man actually endure it? Well now one guy has decided to take one for…

    Read more: Screaming man lasts just two hours in labour simulator

  • Call: Workshop on Awareness and Reflection in Technology-Enhanced Learning (ARTEL 2013)

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    Call for papers and demos 3rd Workshop on Awareness and Reflection in Technology-Enhanced Learning (#artel13) to be held in conjunction with EC-TEL 2013, Paphos (Cyprus). September 17, 2013. Extended submission deadline: 14.07.2013 Short URL: http://teleurope.eu/artel13 Twitter hashtag: #artel13 Introduction Awareness and Reflection are important aspects of Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) and have to be adequately supported to enable learners to tap the potential of learning tools. The concepts awareness and reflection are viewed differently across the disciplines informing TEL (CSCW, CSCL, psychology, educational sciences, computer science, …). ARTEL13 aims to push forward the discussion and research on these concepts in TEL.…

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  • Study participants learn to shake their new tail as a virtual animal

    Published:

    [From New Scientist, where the story includes a 0:43 minute video] Learn to shake your new tail as a virtual animal 20 June 2013 by Douglas Heaven Virtual worlds are fun to explore, but what about virtual bodies? It turns out we can quickly learn to control an avatar in the form of an animal if our movements are mapped on to its digital representation.…

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  • Call: International Lisbon Conference on Philosophy and Film: Thinking reality and time through film

    Published:

    International Lisbon Conference on Philosophy and Film: Thinking reality and time through film http://sites.google.com/site/philosophyandfilmlisbon2014 7-10 May of 2014 Organized by CFUL – Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa (www.centrodefilosofia.com) Hosted by Faculty of Letters and GoetheInstitut Lisbon CALL FOR PAPERS 2013 The deadline for abstract submission is 31st October, 2013 During the last two decades film has been increasingly recognized as a medium of philosophical reflection, in an ontological and epistemological perspective. But what does it mean to understand film as philosophizing? Can we access specific, reliable knowledge of the world and our relation to it through the aesthetic…

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  • Skype creates “impossible portraits” as part of its new “Stay Together” campaign in the USA

    Published:

    [From PopSop] Skype creates “impossible portraits” as part of its new “Stay Together” campaign in the USA Anna Rudenko – July 3, 2013 Skype’s latest campaign, “Stay Together” by Pereira & O’Dell, features emotional stories about U.S. users who share their experiences of staying connected with their loved ones over Skype, across the world. The “Stay Together” videos include three “impossible portrait stories.” In the spots, people who are not with their loved ones at the moment are able to reconnect with them using Skype and pose together for a family portrait in a Skype projected picture. In this virtual…

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  • Call: “Synthetic Modeling of Life and Cognition: Open Questions” Workshop (SMLC 2013)

    Published:

    Workshop “Synthetic Modeling of Life and Cognition: Open Questions” (SMLC 2013) 12-14th September 2013, University of Bergamo, Italy Organizers: Luisa Damiano (University of Bergamo) & Vincent C. Müller (Anatolia College/ACT & University of Oxford) Website: http://www.pt-ai.org/smlc/2013 Online Registration: http://www.pt-ai.org/smlc/2013/registration-participants Extended deadline (see below): 07.07.2013 In recent decades researchers in various scientific domains have been working intensely on procedures directed to exploring life and cognition in a “synthetic” way, i.e. through modeling in artificial systems. Research on biological and cognitive processes is thus been increasingly based on implementations in “software” (simulations), “hardware” (robots) and “wetware” (chemical systems) used as scientific models…

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  • Wicked Paradise, the world’s first erotic VR game

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    [From Road to VR, where the story includes additional images and a 0:53 minute video] Exclusive: Sneak Peek and Interview — Wicked Paradise, The World’s First Erotic VR Game (video: NSFW) June 12, 2013 | Posted by Ben Lang Recently I spoke with Jeroen Van den Bosch, CEO and Founder of Wicked Paradise, the world’s first erotic virtual reality game. Bosch updates us on the game’s latest progress and shares some early prototypes of the game’s vision. Notice: portions of this article contain sexually explicit content and is not intended for viewing by anyone under 18 years of age. Jeroen…

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  • Battle reenactors experience ‘magic moments’ of immersion

    Published:

    [From the Philadelphia Inquirer, where the story includes a photo gallery] Gettysburg reenactment is a campaign in itself With 15,000 participants and 80,000 spectators expected, “I think of it as a historical Woodstock,” an organizer said. Edward Colimore, Inquirer Staff Writer Posted: Sunday, June 30, 2013 The armies are already beginning to arrive, days ahead of the big battle. Tucked away in the rolling Adams County countryside are rows of billowy white tents. Men in blue and in gray march with shouldered muskets. Officers on horseback ride by with sabers jingling at their sides. One hundred and fifty years after…

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  • Call: ISPR 2014 in Vienna – Submission deadline 2 months away

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    [We hope you’ll be able to join us for the next ISPR conference, ISPR 2014 next spring in Vienna. The submission deadline is August 30 (now two months away). Please help us spread the word by distributing this post to your social networks. For the latest information see the conference web site and Facebook group! –Matthew ] Call for Papers ISPR 2014: The 15th International Conference on Presence International Society for Presence Research Vienna, AUSTRIA March 17th – 19th 2014 Web site: http://presence2014.univie.ac.at Facebook group:

    Read more: Call: ISPR 2014 in Vienna – Submission deadline 2 months away

  • Call: Mechanics, Mechanisms & Devices: To Inform, Reflect & Change Behaviour (Workshop)

    Published:

    CALL FOR PAPERS Mechanics, Mechanisms & Devices: to Inform, Reflect & Change Behaviour Oct 15, 2013 http://seriousgames.sg/ICEC2013_WorkshopMechanics.php Workshop in conjunction with the IFIP 12th International Conference on Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2013, São Paulo, Brazil This workshop focuses on the design, development and evaluation of devices at the heart of gameplay and interaction – the mechanics, procedures, actions, mechanisms, systems, story and narrative, etc. – that provide messages, arguments, triggers, nudges and experience to inform and educate, encourage reflection and raise awareness, and to influence behaviour and for behaviour change. The workshop, co-located with IFIP ICEC 2013 12th International Conference…

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