« Previous page | Main | Next page »

Rider Spoke

Saturday October 11, 2008

Budapest, Hungary 10 - 14 October 2008

Where: Gödör Klub, Budapest V. ker., Erzsébet tér

Times: 6pm - 10pm on Oct 10, 13, 14 and 4.30pm - 10pm on Oct 11 & 12

Take a cycle ride in the streets around Budapest. A games console mounted on your handlebars will guide you as you roll through the city. Slip down an alley and find yourself in a quiet corner. Make a recording, then move on glimpsing traces of other players, eavesdropping under a bridge or from the top of a multi storey car park.

Rider Spoke continues Blast Theory?s fascination with how games and new communication technologies are creating new social spaces.

Please note that Rider Spoke must be booked in advance, for full details contact Budapest Autumn Festival customer service H?1052 Budapest, Szervita tér 5. Tel. +36(0)61 486 3311 or email ticket@festivalcity.hu

"Rider Spoke consists of a highly original and exciting form of augmented travel...a delicate, almost intangible work. Like other Blast Theory performances, it combines elements of trust and risk, irony and politics, confession and exposure, orientation and disorientation, everyday life and digital worlds." - Realtime, Australia

"The show's greatest gift is that it manages to embrace the remorseless urban rush of the City while insisting on the individual's ability to pierce it with quiet reflection." - Metro, London

Rider Spoke in Budapest is co-organised by Artopolis Association and Budapest Autumn Festival. This presentation has been made possible by the generous support of the British Council.

Rider Spoke is available for touring in 2009 and 2010 for additional information: julianne@blasttheory.co.uk +44(0)1273 413 455 Rider Spoke will be presented in Brighton Oct/Nov 2008. More details to follow. Rider Spoke is sponsored by Trek Rider Spoke is a collaboration with the Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Nottingham and Sony Net Services in Berlin under the auspices of the Integrated Project on Pervasive Gaming (IPerG). Blast Theory is supported by Arts Council England.

Posted in General |

Using Video Games as Bait to Hook Readers

Thursday October 09, 2008
By MOTOKO RICH

When PJ Haarsma wrote his first book, a science fiction novel for preteenagers, he didn't think just about how to describe Orbis, the planetary system where the story takes place. He also thought about how it should look and feel in a video game.

The online game that Mr. Haarsma designed not only extends the fictional world of the novel, it also allows readers to play in it. At the same time, Mr. Haarsma very calculatedly gave gamers who might not otherwise pick up a book a clear incentive to read: one way that players advance is by answering questions with information from the novel.

"You can't just make a book anymore," said Mr. Haarsma, a former advertising consultant. "Pairing a video game with a novel for young readers," he added, "brings the book into their world, as opposed to going the other way around?"


Read more here:

Posted in General |

Brainwave controlled video game concept unveiled

Wednesday October 08, 2008

October 8, 2008 -- With many people probably thinking that computer games are a sedentary enough pastime as it is - with the possible exception of the Wii - the prospect of games that don?t even require the lifting of a finger to operate a controller might not be great news for parents hoping to get their couch-bound prodigies moving. That hasn?t stopped ?wearable? consumer bio-sensors manufacturer, NeuroSky, Inc., demonstrating a brainwave-controlled video game At the Tokyo Game Show 2008 in Makuhari, Japan, on October 9 and 10. The technical demonstration based on a new game concept being jointly developed with Square Enix Co., Ltd. featured the NeuroSky commercial headset, dubbed the MindSet, operating in conjunction with Windows PC machines.

Like the Emotiv Systems interface we encountered earlier this year, the recently introduced MindSet resembles a pair of headphones. It incorporates a single electrode contacting the user?s forehead while reading the player?s brainwave information, or EEG data. The headset registers the current state of relaxation or concentration of players, allowing them to perform a variety of actions within the game. Although demonstration was carried out using Windows based PCs, the MindSet is also capable of interfacing to a variety of gaming platforms, including console and mobile platforms.

For further info visit NeuroSky

Full article

Posted in General |

?FastFoot-Challenge?: First LIVE Channel for GPS Games

Tuesday October 07, 2008

The spin-off company ?urban team? of the Center for Computing Technologies (TZI) has caused a furor with FastFoot-Challenge in the world of video games. The former computer scientists of the University of Bremen have brought together, what did not belong together before: the combination of sports and video games. In the action game FastFoot-Challenge, up to five players compete against each other with their mobile phones and GPS receivers and transform 2km of city, park, or forest into their playing field.

But GPS games are not only fun for the players, they are exciting for the audience, too. With FastFoot-Challenge LIVE, urban team now offers the players a virtual stadium. On the basis of the satellite maps of Google Earth, viewers from all over the world can follow the games live on the Internet. With the high level of detail of the live broadcast, the audience can excactly see the positions of the players and can get a picture of the players' strategies. Because FastFoot-Challenge is playable in most parts of the world, the viewers will be taken on a journey to a variety of locations. ?We want to establish GPS games and GPS sports as exciting live entertainment and provide the players with a broad audience.?, says Tom Nicolai of urban team.

The website www.fastfoot.mobi is the entry point for the live channel.

See full article

Posted in Location-based |

Augmented Reality Makes Commercial Headway

Wednesday October 01, 2008

Rich Jenkins opens a child?s picture book and aims a camera phone at a page depicting a cartoon panda bear that is gesturing toward a set of Chinese characters. As Jenkins and I view the page through the cell phone screen, the printed panda suddenly erupts into a 3-D video version that points at the first symbol, pronounces it in Mandarin and then defines it in English.

Jenkins, who leads Media Power, a New York City?based firm that develops mobile communications applications, smiles at my rather startled reaction. ?A software application that we?ve downloaded into this phone reads cues that the book designers have embedded into the graphics,? he explains. ?It then calls up the video segment appropriate for that page from the network server. The result is like a pop-up book on steroids.? Jenkins notes that this new kind of animated content could help kids learn and that these ?magic books? could become available by the end of this year. The company will also be introducing cell phone?enabled museum exhibit tours based on the same technology, as well as the means by which consumers can trigger delivery of targeted advertising by directing camera phones at brand logos.

More: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=digitally-augmented-reality

Posted in Education |

The problem with location-based mobile games:What if nobody else in my location is playing?

Thursday September 25, 2008
by Stuart Dredge

We're going to hear a lot more chatter about location-based mobile games in the coming months.

GPS is an important element for iPhone and Android, which is spurring developers to make games using it. Meanwhile, Nokia has talked publicly of its desire to integrate its mapping services with its N-Gage gaming arm.

Technically, then, location-based gaming is possible, with strong encouragement from the handset and OS makers, who are keen to see games that show off the capabilities of their technology. So it's no surprise that developers are excited. The problem is that many will jump to the conclusion that location-based mobile games are about, well, people playing against each other in their real-world location.

Click here for full article: Location Based Games

Posted in General |

Google Android Father Says Our Mobile Future Is Steeped in Sensors

Thursday September 25, 2008
by Clint Boulton

Andy Rubin, father of Google's Android operating system, waxed ecstatic about the future of mobile computing in a blog post Sept. 19.

The post, timed to whet users' appetites ahead of the introduction of the first Android-based smart phone by Google and T-Mobile in New York Sept. 23, is getting little play in the blogosphere.

Google watchers are probably tuckered out from the series of prognosticating blog posts Google has pumped out since Marissa Mayer blogged exhaustively on the future of search. However, I think it's important to pay attention to Rubin with the Android Dream so close at hand. 

See full article here:Mobile future

Posted in General |

ICA'S CONFERENCE PAPER SUBMISSION SITE IS NOW OPEN.

Thursday September 18, 2008
Deadline for submission: November 3, 2008 (Monday, 11:00 pm (2300 hours), EST)

ICA Annual Conference in Chicago Theme: Keywords in Communication May 21-25, 2009

CONSIDER SUBMITTING A POSTER FOR THE SCHOLAR TO SCHOLAR INTERACTIVE PAPER SESSION!

Call for papers: http://www.icahdq.org/conferences/2009/2009CFP.pdf

Paper submission site: http://www.icahdq.org/cfp/

Posted in General |

Digital Art and Culture (DAC)2009 Conference

Thursday September 18, 2008
Digital Art and Culture (DAC)2009 will occur in mid-December, 2009, on the campus of the University of California, Irvine, in sunny Orange County, just south of Los Angeles.
Right now, the most pressing issue is the Call for Themes and Theme Leaders

Conference email address:dac09dir@uci.edu.

Posted in General |

NetGames 2008 Call for Participation and Workshops

Thursday September 18, 2008
Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games: NetGames 2008 October 21st and 22nd, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
Website: http://netgames2008.cs.wpi.edu/

The 7th Annual Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games (NetGames 2008) will be held in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA on October 21-22, 2008. The sponsor is Worcester Polytechnic Institute with cooperation from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM SIGMM and ACM SIGCOMM).

The highlights of this year's program includes fourteen full-length papers, poster session, an industry panel, a keynote and a game jam!

KEY DATES:
Early registration: September 21, 2008 Final registration: October 10, 2008* Workshop: October 21-22, 2008 *Note! There will be no on-site registration!

Posted in General |

Emergency Management in a Mobile World CFP

Tuesday May 20, 2008

Call for Papers : Emergency Management in a Mobile World

A Special Session at the
MOBILE LIFE CONFERENCES and EXHIBITIONS

? mSOCIETY 2008  ? The 1st International Conference on Mobile Society
? EURO mGOV 2008 ? The  3rd  European Conference on Mobile Government

15 -19 September 2008, Sheraton Voyager, Antalya, Turkey
http://www.mgovernment.org/events/index.html     mlife@mgovernment.org

Chairs:
???-
Thomas Rose, and Gertraud Peinel
Head of research department, and project manager at the Fraunhofer FIT

The domain of emergency management is a specific part of the e- and mGovernment world. The preparation for emergency events ? caused by natural as well as man-made reasons ? has gained increasing attention from the research community due to the potential impact of such events.

In case of major disaster, radio and television might give first hints of what to do and what to avoid but this is rarely done in coordination with the local emergency managers. Therefore, further details for the specific region of interest as well as for the specific situation characteristics (including event information like occurrence place and time, estimated duration, subjects affected, possible conditions ? technical or other ? for its finalisation) are not available.

Goals of this special session are therefore to
-establish the realms of emergency management as a specific topic of interest at this conference.
- discuss socio-technical methodologies for the development and deployment of IT solutions for emergency management tasks with a particular account on mobile technologies, e.g. mobility of citizens as well as rescue teams.
- elaborate the impact of mobile technologies on the emergency management life-cycle.
- discuss the role and their potential contributions of business partners to emergencies: capacities for communication channels, information relay centres, ad hoc call centres, and business models.
- relate country-specific organisational and legal frameworks, e.g. cross border procedures.
- tie relationships among research on mGovernment and crisis management: detect common problems and solutions, identify needs of actions, and show how IT solutions and new business models can restructure also the way of emergency management.

Topics for Submission include but are not limited to
- Emergency Management in a Mobile World: challenges, barriers, and opportunities
- Business models, public private partnerships
-Characteristics of mobile emergency services (e.g., reach, costs, acceptance, complexity, side-effects)
- Best practices and lessons learnt
- Planning methodologies for emergency preparation

Expected audience: Authorities, risk experts, and e/mGovernment scientists

Submissions in the form of research papers (max 10 pages) and practice talks (max 1 page) are solicited via the conferences online submission system at the
http://www.mgovernment.org/confadmin/confadmin.php
Further information on submissions and all about  the conference can be found at
http://www.mgovernment.org/events/mgov2008/home.html

For all enquiries, please write to the session chairs: thomas.rose@fit.fraunhofer.de, gertraud.peinel@fit.fraunhofer.de or the conference secreteriat mlife@mgovernment.org

Posted in Education | Comments [0]

Cybergames 2008 Call for Papers

Monday May 19, 2008

Call for Papers
The 4th International Conference on Games Research and Development, CyberGames
Beijing Normal University, China October 27-30, 2008

The 4th International Conference on Games Research and Development 2008 (CyberGames 2008) will be held during October 27-30, 2008 at the Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China. CyberGames aims to explore the latest developments in the computer games and interactive entertainment technologies.

Papers are invited in the following games research and development topics (but not limited to them) from both industry and academia:

  • Game Platforms, Game Hardware, Game Software, Games on Grid Computing
  • HCI technologies for Games, Interactive digital medias
  • Simulation Games, Pervasive Entertainment
  • Game Culture: Boomer vs Gamer
  • Edutainment Games, Online and Multiplayer Games, Mobile and Handheld Gaming
  • Games AI, Agents for Games, Game Level Design
  • Game Physics, Game Mechanics

Publication

The conference proceedings will be published in ACM Digital Library. The best 6 papers from Cybergames 2008 will be invited to submit an expanded version for publication in the online journal ?ACM Computers in Entertainment?.The top 50% of the papers from Cybergames 2008 will be invited to submit a revised paper for publication in the International Journal of Computer Games Technology published by Hindawi Publishing Corporation. The paper submissions must use the exact ACM SIG templates. Please find the template (Latex and Word) at http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html

Important Dates

  • Full Papers Submission Deadline: May31st, 2008
  • Full Papers Notification of Acceptance: July 14th, 2008
  • Conference Dates: Oct. 27-30th, 2008

Conference Chair
Prof. Ge Jianping Beijing Normal University, China
Prof. Xiao Yongliang Beijing Normal University, China
Prof. Zhou Mingquan Beijing Normal University, China

For more information please visit the Conference Websites
http://www.coetechweek.com/cybergames/ (international) or
http://cybergames2008.bnu.edu.cn (China Edunet)
or send an email to CyberGames2008@bnu.edu.cn

Posted in Education |

IJGCMS Call for Papers

Monday May 19, 2008

The International Journal of Gaming and Computer Mediated Simulations (IJGCMS) is currently reviewing papers for the Spring Issue, 2009. If you have a paper that you have been working on, or you know of others that are in the process of finishing up a paper, please consider submitting your paper (or asking them to submit their paper) for review at IJGCMS. To have enough time to be reviewed for publication, manuscripts for volume #2 would need to be submitted by June 15, 2008.

The full call is available on the IJGCMS website at: http://www.igi-global.com/ijgcms. Paper submissions or questions can be sent to ijgcms@gmail.com.

Posted in Education |

Call for Papers, Panels, Special Sessions, Tutorials, Exhibitions and Demos

Friday April 11, 2008

Call for
Papers, Panels, Special Sessions, Tutorials, Exhibitions and Demos

mSOCIETY 2008
????????
The 1st International Conference on Mobile Society
18-19 September 2008, Sheraton Voyager, Antalya, Turkey
http://www.mgovernment.org/events/

SPONSORS, ORGANIZERS and SUPPORTERS:
? TURKCELL (Diamond Sponsor), TurkSat (Gold Sponsor)
? Mobile Government Consortium International, UK, AykeyNet, UK
? Dept. of Computer Engineering, TOBB University of Economics and
Technology, Turkey,
? Center for Information and Society, University of Washington, USA.

Mobile Society refers to the emerging trends of the collective life on
earth driven by the technology of networked mobile phones and other
mobile devices. These technologies and their fast and wide adoption
are influencing the way we live in society, the way we run businesses
and the way we are as an individual.

The First International Conference on Mobile Society (mSociety 2008)
aims to be a platform for the presentation, exchange and dissemination
of the latest developments, ideas, applications and services involving
all aspects of practice and research in mSociety.

The mSociety 2008 organization invites all professionals with an
interest in how mobility influences society in both positive and
negative ways. Possible perspectives may include, but are not limited
to, the diffusion and adoption of technology; the dissemination of
mobile content, applications and services for business and
entertainment; the economical, sociological and psychological impact
of mobility on society.

How to participate?
?????????
Please visit the conference web site for submissions, review policy
and further info at www.mgovernment.org/events/
? Researchers: send a maximum of 10 pages of a paper presenting
your research and its results.
? Members of Civil Society Organizations and Private sector
professionals: send a page long proposal for a talk presenting, for
example, an implementation, application or services deployed, cases
studied and experiences gained.

Who will attend?
? Researchers economists, technologists, sociologists and
psychologists from academic institutions and other research
organizations.
? Private Sector professionals from, for example, mobile telco`s,
infrastructure, hardware, content, applications and service providers
to _ individuals and organizations.
? Members of Public Sector, Donors and Civil Society Organizations.

Please get in touch for further information?
mSociety 2008 ? msociety2008@mgovernment.org www.mgovernment.org/events/
Mobile Government Consortium International - info@mgovernment.org
Other mGCI events ? www.mgovernment.org/events/

Posted in General |

SEMINAR COMING Wednesday afternoon, April 16, 2008: Stories, Games, and Multidisciplinarity

Thursday April 10, 2008

Subject: SEMINAR COMING Wednesday afternoon, April 16, 2008: Stories, Games, and Multidisciplinarity

WEDNESDAY . MERCREDI . MITTWOCH . SREDA . SREDA . BUDHVAR . XING-QI-SAN

================================================================================

Department of Computer Science Colloquium Series 2007-2008

*** Celebrating the 40th Anniversary in 2007 ***

???????????????????????????

Stories, Games, and Multidisciplinarity

by

Gunnar Liestol, Media and Communication Department, University of Oslo

http://www.uio.no/sok?person=gunnarl&la=en

Date: Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Time: 01:30 PM (talk begins)

Place: Burns Auditorium Kamphoefner Hall,

NCSU Historical Campus <<== NOTE!!!

More info and parking: http://research.csc.ncsu.edu/colloquia/

Host: Michael Young, Computer Science/Digital Games Research Center

NOTE: If you want to schedule a meeting with the speaker,

please contact the host.

???????????????????????????

ABSTRACT:

This presentation about multidisciplinarity in game studies will propose how concepts from literary theory (Genette and Greimas) can be applied to the analysis of computer gaming. It will also discuss in a more general way some strategies for handling multidisciplinarity in research on digital textuality, including game studies and digital design. Examples will be drawn from Professor Liestol?s current work in relation on positioning and mobility.

SHORT BIO:

Gunnar Liestol is professor at the Department of Media & Communication, University of Oslo. He has a Magister degree in General and Comparative Literature and a Dr. Philos. degree in Media studies with a thesis on Rhetorics of Hypermedia Design. He has designed mulitmedia systems in collaboration with Norwegian and International Publishing houses, and published articles and books on the theory and practice of digital media design. He is currently directing a research project on mobility, positioning and digital genre design.

Posted in General |

Copyright 2007 NC State University Mobile Gaming Research Lab

Site by Yellow House Design