Category Archives: design

Open Wonderland

design, , , ,

Even if Sun was brought by Oracle, wonderland seems to live on albeit with a slightly different name
http://www.openwonderland.org/

Open Wonderland is a 100% Java open source toolkit for creating collaborative 3D virtual worlds. Within those worlds, users can communicate with high-fidelity, immersive audio, share live desktop applications, and collaborate in an education, business, or government context. Wonderland is completely extensible; developers and graphic artists can extend its functionality to create entirely new worlds and add new features to existing world.

Of course open cobalt http://www.opencobalt.org/ is still going, and stereo 3D has been added, http://nsuslovi.blogspot.com/2010/04/stereo-3d-filter-in-open-cobalt.html

UPDATE: Another peer to peer metaverse is http://www.solipsis.org

cfp: Nordes 2011 Conference

Conference, design, , ,

http://designresearch.fi/nordes2011/

Nordes invites you to the 4th Nordic Design Research Conference “Making Design Matter!”

Location: School of Art and Design, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland

Date: May-June 2011 at the Department of Design at Aalto University, which is physically located in the Arabia neighborhood in East-Central Helsinki.
Deadline: January 10, 2011: Submission system is closed.

Nordes calls for perspectives on ‘Making Design Matter’. In the 2011 Nordic Design Research Conference, you are invited to present and discuss how design matters today.

Nordes 2011 in Helsinki is the 4th in a series of biannual conferences, which has included conferences in Copenhagen in 2005, Stockholm in 2007 and Oslo in 2009. Organized by Nordes – an open network of people interested in design research in the Nordic countries – the conference is attended by about 200 people and has rapidly been established as an important venue for design research. It serves several constituencies in design, ranging from design studies, history and management to professional design and practice-based research in art, crafts and design.

Participation is also open to people from outside the Nordic countries.

This website will be continually updated with information about the conference. Click above or here to read the Call for Participation!

cfp:Design Ed Asia

Conference, design, game, virtual heritage,

http://www.sd.polyu.edu.hk/designedconference2010/index.php

Design Education has the chance to preserve world cultures, and the skills of those cultures, through digital, fashion, graphic, interior and product design. In some regions of the world, it may be one of the only ways to preserve the visible language of a culture. Do you have an important story to tell about design and culture? Are the artifacts your students design steeped in the culture of their region or are they made for a nondescript global market? Please share your insights with us at DesignEd Asia.

We invite papers in the following topic areas:

  • Successful cultural content integration into the curriculum
  • Regional cultural design projects
  • Sustainability and cultural designs
  • Entrepreneurial local cultural designs
  • Designing for other cultures
  • or a topic of your choice that relates to design education

Abstracts Due: 31 July, 2010
Abstract Review and Notification: 30 August, 2010
Conference: 30 October and 1 November, 2010, Hong Kong

Sydney students develop robots for Marines

design, ,

This article describes the robots as Terminator but I suspect they are closer to the mannequins in an old Doctor Who issue
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/gadgets/3963622/Sydney-students-develop-robots-for-Marines

“The Rover robots, the first such “smart targets” to be adopted for training exercises by the US military, are armoured autonomous robots that look, move and behave like real people. Australian troops are already using them for training.Teams of the robots can execute complex pre-planned scenarios and are intelligent enough to scatter and run for cover when a buddy robot is shot. The robots, which weigh 150 kilograms, are based on the Segway platform. They do not need to be controlled with a joystick and can accelerate at up to 12.6km/h.They use GPS and a scanning laser range-finder for navigation, positioning and obstacle detection and avoidance. The robots are networked so they can be monitored and given commands remotely.”

CFP: History and heritage in games and virtual worlds: Special Issue of Games and Culture

Architecture, design, game, virtual heritage, , , , ,

Title: History and heritage in games and virtual worlds: Special Issue of Games and Culture (SAGE).

The virtual worlds of modern games provide a unique way for us to interact with our memories, interpretations, beliefs, and traditions. This can be the digital simulation and interpretation cultural heritage in the real world, or the equally real social legacies of online communities. We invite you to tackle the complex issues of making these histories come alive in this special issue of Games and Culture.

Submissions can include (but are not limited to):
• Critiques of games and online worlds that involve historical situations or heritage sites.
• Guidelines and arguments as to the design and experience of games and virtual worlds for history and heritage
• Interviews (both physical-world and in-world) with designers of the above games and virtual worlds.
• Critiques or evaluations of sandbox games and virtual environments regarding history and heritage.
• Reports on accidental or planned historical or cultural events, artifacts and rituals that take place in games and virtual worlds.
• Explorations on how to best utilize the unique interactive, technical and psychological aspects of games and virtual worlds for the purpose of historical or heritage-based learning.

This special issue of Games and Culture has two overarching goals:

• To provide case studies involving the design, use and evaluation of history and heritage-based games and virtual worlds.
• To outline the key theoretical debates pertaining to the issues raised by the design, use and evaluation of these games and virtual worlds.
Authors are encouraged to include a critical perspective, including discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of their own methods.

EDITORS
Erik Champion and Jeffrey Jacobson

SUBMISSION
A one-page abstract describing the scope of your manuscript should be sent to invirtualworlds@gmail.com by September 10, 2010. Please include proposed topic, an overview of chosen methods and tools, and what games or virtual worlds you will explore in your manuscript.

Abstracts accepted for this special issue will be asked to submit manuscripts electronically to Games and Culture at: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/games by January 7, 2010. Submissions must be Microsoft Word or Word Perfect file format, conform to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (Sixth Edition) style guidelines, and indicate in the cover letter that you wish to be considered for this special issue. Manuscripts may not exceed 9000 words, one or two images may be included.

KEY DATES
Abstracts Due: Friday 10 September 2010

Abstract Judgments Due to Authors: Friday 8 October 2010
Full Papers Due: Friday 7 January 2011
Decision Letters and Revision Suggestions For Papers By: Monday 21 February 2011
Final Drafts Due: Monday 4 April 2011
Final Decision/Revision Response Due To Authors: Monday 16 May 2011
Final Manuscript Due: Monday 13 June 2011
Copyedited and Typeset Proofs Completed By: August 1 2011

Publication Date: October 2011 16.4 issue

For any inquiries please email Erik or Jeffrey via invirtualworlds@gmail.com

WordPress for iOS

design, game, , ,

so even wordpress is creating new UIs for the iPAD (even if the iOS is not really unique-yet-grumble grumble).

But now even I am beginning to see the value of the iPAD to the point of even purchasing one–is there a stand to use it with Unity 3D games? And a webcam for augmented reality interaction?
And a stylus to use as a secondary monitor for collaborative sketch applications? Now that would be useful. As well as a less fragile look.

3D Flash in October?

design, game, ,

http://twitpic.com/22qyzo/full

next generation 3D Flash Player “coming in October”.

Flash Player 3D Future at MAX, Wednesday room 503

Join Sebastian Marketsmueller, Adobe Flash Player engineer, for a deep dive into the next-generation 3D API coming in a future version of Flash Player. Marketsmueller will unveil exciting new APIs and demos never shown before, including some exclusive content you cannot miss as a Flash Platform developer.
Audience:Web Developer, Application Developer
Skill Level:Intermediate
Speaker:Sebastian Marketsmueller
Products:ActionScript, Flash Player
Times:
Wednesday, October, 27th, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm

The Tartan Online : Minput makes movement a new way to control small electronics

design, game, virtual heritage,

Minput, a device that hopes to solve the problem of space and visibility in small devices and screens, is being developed by Chris Harrison and Scott Hudson, who are both part of Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute. Harrison has already been featured in The Tartan for his work with Skinput, which turns the arm into a touchpad.

When sliding Minput over a surface, sensors on the bottom can register movement to control various software on the device. In this respect, Minput is a mouse with the computer screen attached, and it can be manipulated without having the user’s fingers block the screen.

Minput allows mouse control and optical tracking to be applied to small mobile devices.

According to a demonstration in Harrison’s video, Minput could be operated anywhere a user could possibly use the device, including on a table, on the leg of one’s pants, and on a user’s palm. Because there are two sensors on the device, a variety of motion can be detected, including twisting the device on a table. According to www.chrisharrison.com, the optical devices use negligible tracking power. According to the video, Minput supports three “input modalities,” or ways the user can manipulate the device. Gestural input modality involves motions like flicks and twists and was demonstrated using photo-browsing software. Flicking the device in a certain direction changes the image, while twisting changes the number of images on the screen, like a zooming function. These inputs can be changed to perform many functions on different programs. The variety of motions allows programs on the devices to change certain settings without having to navigate complex menus.

video at http://thetartan.org/2010/4/26/scitech/minput/slideshow?start=1

Unreal Development Kit

design, game, , ,

Chris Blundell at www.plutonicdesign.com told me he is highly impressed by the free editor and that it creates better game levels than found in the game!

But.. still only for PC..I do wonder how much it costs for a game to go commercial though when sold as an educational game by an educational institute-hundreds of thousands? Or do they take a percentage of the profits (which seems a more desirable option!)

It seems to me that a free game editor is one great leap for indie and educational games (i.e. Unity, XNA-kind of, UDK) but there also needs to be a cheap path to Playstation 3 or XBox..any such pathway out there? Perhaps Blender can be ported to Playstation or XBox?

Skin the next input device

design,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8587486.stm

US researchers have found a way to work out where the tap touches and use that to control phones and music players. Coupled with a tiny projector the system can use the skin as a surface on which to display menu choices, a number pad or a screen. Early work suggests the system, called Skinput, can be learned with about 20 minutes of training. “The human body is the ultimate input device,” Chris Harrison, Skinput’s creator, told BBC News.

Further link to CMU invention: http://news.cs.cmu.edu/article.php?a=1322
Video: http://techblips.dailyradar.com/video/skinput-appropriating-the-body-as-an-input-surface-chi/

Microsoft Research Image Composite Editor (ICE) free for Win machines

design, game, virtual heritage, ,

Microsoft Image Composite Editor is an advanced panoramic image stitcher. The application takes a set of overlapping photographs of a scene shot from a single camera location and creates a high-resolution panorama incorporating all the source images at full resolution. The stitched panorama can be saved in a wide variety of formats, from common formats like JPEG and TIFF to multi-resolution tiled formats like HD View and Silverlight Deep Zoom.

vacancy for HCI researcher at HIT Lab NZ

design, , , ,

The HIT Lab NZ (www.hitlabnz.org) at the University of Canterbury has a continuing full time lecture/senior lecture position available. We are looking for an outstanding HCI researcher who is interested in leading research in novel computer interfaces/interaction design and working closely with graduate students.

The deadline is tight – March 8th, but it’s a great role and probably the only position of its type that we will have available for the next few years. It’s ideal for someone who would like to do great research in an academic environment without having too much teaching overhead.

If you know anyone who might be interested please get them to have a look at:
http://vacancies.canterbury.ac.nz/positiondetail.asp?p=4684
or get them to email mark.billinghurst AT hitlabnz.org

CFP: International Journal of People-Oriented Programming (IJPOP)

design, game

***CFP: INAUGURAL ISSUE*** SUBMISSION DUE DATE: 1st May 2010

International Journal of People-Oriented Programming (IJPOP)
www.igi-global.com/IJPOP

Co-Editors-in-Chief: Steve Goschnick & Sandrine Balbo
Published: Semi-annual (both in Print and Electronic form)

Mission of IJPOP:

The International Journal of People-Oriented Programming (IJPOP) is cross-discipline in range yet singularly focused on empowering individuals to conceptualise, design, program, configure and orchestrate Internet-powered mashups, game mods (modifications), aggregate and structure personal media and build standalone cloud-based and client-side applications (on smartphones, netbooks, laptops, desktops, home network and novel appliances) – into self-fashioned tools and products that ultimately suit the user’s own unique needs and aspirations. Other individuals may well take up such apps, mods and mashups for themselves, further customising, enhancing and embellishing them, or they may in part be used in a social or family context (to the benefit of the collective aspirations of those Social Worlds of which the individual is a part) – nonetheless, the focus of composition, development and customisation is on a product for oneself, upon theory, concepts, techniques, methodologies and ultimately tools that service a market of one. Our mission is to be the first journal that comes to mind to academics and practitioners alike and remain the best with regard to all aspects of People-Oriented Programming. Our papers and reviews will be insightful and compelling to both educators and researchers, and often to a wider audience too – the people for whom this paradigm of software development has come about.

WebGL

design, game,

Is this a wow!?…Still digesting this..

http://www.abakia.de/blog/2010/02/10/webgl-my-first-impressions/

3d computer graphics in web applications seem to be still a topic thats is heavily associated with technologies like flash, shockwave or other plugin based platforms. This may become history soon. At least if the development of WebGL browsers will proceed as it currently does. If you already use a WebGL enabled browser and had a look at one of the several examples as they appear constantly on http://learningwebgl.com/, then you will figure out quickly what I’m talking about.