[For more on the new book, see Amazon. –Matthew] Virtual Futures Salon: Robot Sex – with John Danaher Monday 19 March 2018 06:30 PM – 09:00 PM LIBRARY London, 112 St. Martin’s Lane, London, WC2N 4BD Register to Attend Virtual Futures presents lecturer John Danaher, in conversation with Dr. Kate Devlin, on his new co-edited book, ‘Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications’ (The MIT Press, 2018). Sexbots are coming. Given the pace of technological advances, it is inevitable that realistic robots specifically designed for people’s sexual gratification will be developed in the not-too-distant future. Despite popular culture’s fascination with the…

Realities360 AR – VR – Simulations for Learning June 26-28, 2018 San Jose, California http://bit.ly/2Fj3OXB Sponsored by The eLearning Guild Register By March 23 For $200 Off! “Easily the best conference that I’ve been to in terms of an actual mix of practical discussions and big-picture discussion.” –Randy Van Wagnen, Washtenaw Community College Realities360 forges a path unlike any other conference, providing you with a hands-on opportunity to explore the potential of augmented reality, virtual reality, and simulations for learning. Join the community that’s shaping the possibilities these technologies present for our work in training and development. LET’S CREATE THE…

Call for Papers LONG(ER)-TERM DESIGN THINKING NSF-Sponsored Workshop 29-31 May 2018 Seattle, WA Rolling submission deadline for 1-2 page position papers; we will begin to review papers on March 10 Design thinking and approaches to problems that are long(er) term – on the order of 20, 50, or 100 years — have a distinct cast. With this workshop, we seek to enable a conversation at the intersection of long(er) timeframes and the role of design thinking and practice. Increasingly, researchers and designers of technology are investigating both individual and societal problems that require a long(er)-term design thinking approach to grapple…

Call for Papers, Special Sessions, Tutorials and Industry Contributions IEEE Games, Entertainment, & Media (GEM) 2018 National University of Ireland Galway, August 15th –  17th http://sites.ieee.org/ieeegem/calls-for-papers/ Submission deadlines: 31st March 2018 Continuing the grand tradition & broadening the scope of the IEEE International Games Innovation Conference (IGIC, 2009-2013) and IEEE Games Entertainment & Media (GEM, 2014- 2016) we introduce IEEE GEM 2018 located in the Alice Perry Engineering Building, National University of Ireland Galway, August 15th –  17th. INTRODUCTION The Games, Entertainment and Media (GEM) Conference began in London 2009, and moved to venues in the US and Canada until 2016.…

Call for Papers Special Issue of Journal of Interaction Studies: Groups in Human-Agent Interaction Submissions due: 1 May 18 As robots and artificial agents become more prominent in human lives, they also increasingly become parts of groups and teams. Group interaction of humans and agents include applications as diverse as: a digital assistant for the home, a social robot operating in a mall, a group of robots and artificial agents supporting first responders. Research on group interactions between multiple humans, artificial agents and robots is important and poses novel challenges as compared to studying dyadic interaction. However, most research on…

[Note the focus on medium-as-social-actor presence. –ML] Call for Papers The 10th Beyond Humanism Conference 18-21st July 2018 in Wroclaw, Poland Faculty of Social Sciences and Journalism, University of Lower Silesia Cultures of the Posthuman www.beyondhumanism.org www.beyondhumanism2018.org Download the brochure of the 10th Beyond Humanism Conference Registration Deadline for abstracts: 1st of April 2018 Trans- and posthumanist reflections—as well as their meta-versions—seem to significantly undermine established definitions of culture and question a traditional division into culture and nature. These divisions are difficult to defend in the context of contemporary biotechnology, gene therapy, and easy genome modification available thanks to technologies…

Call for Participation / Submission The 31st ACM User Interface Software and Technology Symposium October 14-17, Berlin, Germany https://uist.acm.org/ Paper submission deadline: April 5, 2018 The ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) is the premier forum for innovations in human-computer interfaces. Sponsored by ACM special interest groups on computer-human interaction (SIGCHI) and computer graphics (SIGGRAPH), UIST brings together people from diverse areas including graphical & web user interfaces, tangible & ubiquitous computing, virtual & augmented reality, multimedia, new input & output devices, and CSCW. The intimate size and intensive program make UIST an ideal opportunity to exchange…

Call for Papers SPECIAL ISSUE of iCom – Journal of Interactive Media (De Gruyter) Automated Driving: A Human-Centered Design Perspective Guest Editors: Andreas Riener, Alexander Mirnig Submission deadline: June 15, 2018 SCOPE OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE Automotive user interfaces and automated vehicle technology pose several challenges to support all diverse facets of user needs. These range from inexperienced, thrill-seeking, young novice drivers to elderly drivers with a mostly opposite set of preferences together with their natural limitations. Implementation-wise, the automotive industry is currently focusing on pushing in-vehicle technology towards fully automated driving, with tech companies joining these efforts to raise…

2018 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CYBERWORLDS (CW 2018) Singapore, 3-5 October, 2018 Organized by Fraunhofer Singapore In cooperation with ACM, ACM SIGGRAPH, Eurographics Association, and International Federation for Information Processing Conference web page: www.cyberworlds-conference.org Papers submission deadline: Monday 7 May, 2018 CW 2018 SCOPE: Created intentionally or spontaneously, cyberworlds are information spaces and communities that use computer technologies to augment the way we interact, participate in business and receive information throughout the world. CW 2018 is the 17th conference organized annually since 2002. CW 2018 will consider the following tracks and topics: GENERAL TRACK: Applications of virtual and augmented reality; Networked…

Call for Papers Social Simulation 2018 (SSC 2018) 14th Annual Conference of the European Social Simulation Association (ESSA) August 20-24, 2018 Stockholm, Sweden http://ssc2018.dsv.su.se/ Submission deadline: 30 March, 2018 Social Simulation 2018 is the 14th Annual Conference of the European Social Simulation Association (ESSA). The conference is one of ESSA’s key activities to promote social simulation and computational social science. Looking in the mirror is the theme of this conference. As the relatively young field/society enters puberty some critical self-reflection is sought by looking in the mirror ourselves, with relevant others. With high potential of having identity crisis as well…

Call for Papers International Conference on Intelligent Human Systems Integration (IHSI 2019) Hilton San Diego Bayfront, San Diego, California USA, February 7-10, 2019 http://ihsint.org Abstract Submission Deadline (500 words): 10 September 2018 IHSI 2019 OBJECTIVE AND AREAS OF INTEREST You are cordially invited to participate in the 2019 International Conference on Intelligent Human Systems Integration: Integrating People and Intelligent Systems (IHSI 2019) which will be held at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront, California USA, February 7-10, 2019. IHSI 2019  Conference aims to provide a global forum for presenting and discussing novel approaches, design tools, methodologies, techniques, and solutions for integrating…