May 22, 2004
toychest
This post is a proposal that we create a division “toychest” of hardware devices that would be available to all students, with the goal in mind that students would have opportunities to experiment with readily available tools in their projects. The type of items that I think would be most appropriate include:
1. Fairly inexpensive items that can be lent out without much concern.
2. Items that are useful to a number of students. (Other things such as software, and expensive hardware I leave up to others to propose.)
I’ve discussed the idea with some students and gotten a lot of positive feedback, so I’ve created this post to find out:
1. What everyone else thinks of the idea.
2. What everyone thinks we should purchase.
The proposed manner in which the chest would operate is not unlike a library. Students could easily access the items and check them out for use. The potential problem to be solved is how sharing between students would operate.
Some things so far include:
- Motion Trackers: ascension , intersense
- Mid-Priced HMD
- Shutter Glasses
- Projector (so we can do some interesting stuff in locations other than labs, such as installation works)
- Another webcam
Additional things that have come up, aside from “toys”:
- Game Engines
- Software Licenses for students to use on their laptops.
- Hard Drives with large quotas for students to host large media files.
- Visual C++
It would be useful to:
1. Establish what hardware already exists.
2. How available each item is for student use.
- I’ve heard there is an HMD set up for AR
- The Boom HMD
- Mobile devices?
May 21, 2004
playing games = fame and riches
Last year, Mr. Lim made about $300,000 from player fees and commercials. Another top earner, Hung Jin-Ho, whose fingers are insured for $60,000, recently signed a three-year deal with telecom provider KTF Co. that will pay him $480,000 altogether.
Ant Farm: 1968-1978 at Santa Monica: Museum: of Art, June 5- August 14, 2004
Opening reception: Friday, June 4, from 7-9 p.m.
Ant Farm: 1968–1978 is a retrospective of the underground architectural collective whose core members were Doug Michels, Chip Lord, and Curtis Schreier. As a group, the members of Ant Farm helped break down established boundaries between architecture and art, between conceptual and physical production, and between their lives as individuals and their artistic production. Ant Farm was responsible for such iconic works as Cadillac Ranch (Chip Lord, Doug Michaels, Hudson Marquez, 1974)—a modern Stonehenge of ten 1949 to 1964 model Cadillacs buried nose down just outside of Amarillo, Texas—and Media Burn (1975, 25:43 min, color, sound)—a performance on July 4, 1975, where members of the collective drove the Phantom Dream Car, a customized 1959 Cadillac El Dorado Biarritz convertible, through a wall of flaming televisions in the audience-filled parking lot of the San Francisco Cow Palace. Both works illustrate Ant Farm's signature critique of the mainstream culture and media of their day.
May 20, 2004
Digital Simulations of Human Muscle Movement with Novel Animation Capabilities
Sponsored by Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, USC HSC Cultural Events Guild and DISCREET Software.
Mark Snoswell, CEO of cgCharacter and creator of the ACT simulation software, explores the many practical applications for digital animation, including entertainment and medical research.
Thu, May 20, 2004 from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Admission: Free
Clinical Sciences Building (CSC)
Harkness Lecture Hall
Health Sciences Campus
link to event page
link to a 13.4 mb divx video demonsrating the technology (watch as the skin stretches...so great).
game innovation, or an alternative to the 'perfecting the formula model'
May 16, 2004
MIT's Education Arcade Party
Check out all the big wigs @ MIT's party at the Standard! Zimmerman, Jenkins, Spectre, and Fullerton, quite a crew!
May 15, 2004
May 14, 2004
May 13, 2004
May 12, 2004
Casey Reas "TI"
Casey REAS show in Chinatown this Saturday night:
Casey Reas
"TI"
Saturday, May 15, 2004, 7pm - 9pm
http://dma.ucla.edu/telic/index2.htm
telic
975 Chung King Road
Los Angeles, CA 90012
T: 323.962.5069
http://www.telic.info
info@telic.info
BLEEP BLOOP: A Night of Video Game Sounds
Dublab, 1UP Zine, & XLR8R are sponsoring an E3 party Thursday night, May 13th @The Little Temple with:
BIZZART
DJ DOLPHINFORCE
DAEDELUS
JAMES FIGURINE
FLYNN & MORPHO
SUBTITLE
+ Special Guests
FREE / 9pm / 21+
@ The Little Temple
4519 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90029
www.dublab.com
www.xlr8r.com
www.1up-zine.com
http://www.soundsareactive.com/obtain_bizzart.html
http://www.daedelusdarling.com/
May 11, 2004
ALT+CTRL Festival of Independent and Alternative Games
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS/SPONSORSHIP
ALT+CTRL
Festival of Independent and Alternative Games
Festival: October 5-November 23
Conference: October 8-9, 2004
Beall Center for Art and Technology
University of California Irvine
SUBMISSION DEADLINE JUNE 1, 2004.
For information, to place an online submission, or to learn more about sponsorship opportunities, please visit:
http://proxy.arts.uci.edu/gamelab/events/alt_ctrl_04.html
Presented by:
Cal-(IT)2 Game Culture & Technology Lab: http://www.ucgamelab.net
Beall Center for Art and Technology: http://beallcenter.uci.edu
May 09, 2004
Game Boy GPS
from boingboing:
Red Sky Mobile is launching a GPS unit for the Game Boy Advance next week at E3. It includes a set of APIs to enable "GPS Gaming." Link
one more:
from slashdot:
"Majesco Games has announced a new application for the Game Boy Advance, the Wireless Messenger. Using the Wireless Messenger players will be able to send instant text messages through their Game Boy. The product is set to be released later this year and will make its first public appearance at the E3 Convention next week." Majesco has also announced a Wireless Link, which will "use the standard Game Boy Advance link cable and enable users to play any multiplayer GBA title without the restrictions of the cables", and has just launched the Game Boy Advance Video range, with the "initial roll-out... [including] the first two volumes of SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly OddParents, as well as Dora the Explorer Vol 1."
May 07, 2004
Ads in Online Environments
WSJ article on New approach to product placement in Habbo Hotel.
Advertisers, Teens
Hang Out Online
At the Habbo Hotel
By ERIN WHITE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
May 7, 2004
LONDON -- When teen magazine CosmoGirl wanted to attract readers in the Netherlands, it checked into the Habbo Hotel, a European teenage chat and games Web site.
The venue, which bills itself as a virtual "teenager playground," looks like an online videogame. Teens log on, create their own characters, chat with other users and play games. By maneuvering their virtual selves, teens can visit different rooms, including ones they can decorate with furniture they select from Habbo's site.
In February, CosmoGirl set up a room of its own. The result: "Club CosmoGirl," which is designed to look like an American hamburger joint. Inside, a billboard displays the CosmoGirl logo, which, if clicked, takes visitors to the magazine's Web site. CosmoGirl, which is published in the Netherlands through a joint venture between Hearst Corp. of the U.S. and Dutch publisher De Telegraaf Tijdschriften Group, says 9% to 10% of virtual visitors click on the link, a comparatively high rate among Web sites. That has helped to build readership in the Netherlands, where it had its debut last year, in an increasingly competitive teen-magazine market.
It is all part of advertisers' efforts to target people in ever more precise and subtle ways. Advertisers are particularly eager to blend into teenagers' lives in a way that doesn't strike savvy teens as too overt. Habbo says it turns down ads it deems uncool or inappropriate, and takes steps such as prohibiting pop-up ads to make sure its advertising isn't annoying or overly intrusive.
Habbo's roots lie in advertising. A few years back, Jussi Nurmio, chairman of Finnish advertising-agency concern Taivas Group, which is 33%-owned by British ad giant WPP Group PLC, noticed some young techies had created a surprisingly popular fan site for a local rock band. Seeing potential, Taivas backed the creation of Sulake Labs Ltd., a Finnish game-development company of which Taivas owns one-third, to launch the Habbo Hotel as a new youth site. (Mr. Nurmio remains the chairman of Taivas and is the chairman of Sulake.)
Since launching the first Habbo site in 2000, the sites have attracted big-name marketers such as Procter & Gamble Co. So far, Habbo has sites in nine countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan, and plans to debut in an additional 11 by the end of the year.
Habbo makes money by getting users to pay a small amount to purchase furniture and to play some games, as well as from advertising revenue.
"All of the big brands have to find new ways to reach this teenage audience," says Timo Soininen, the chief executive of Sulake. Ad messages to teens work better, he says, "if you can create an environment which is their own and then find clever ways of addressing them."
That was the thinking at Konami Europe, a unit of game-maker Konami Corp., when it used Habbo Hotel to promote a dance videogame for Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 2 in the U.K. last year. Konami ran a traditional ad campaign for "Dancing Stage MegaMix" on TV and in magazines, but also wanted something that helped create word-of-mouth for the game.
So Konami set up a venue inside Habbo Hotel: a "Saturday Night Fever"-style glowing dance floor where users could send their characters to dance contests. Konami placed billboards and posters on streets and buildings inside the Habbo site; Konami also announced the competitions in an e-mail newsletter to Habbo users.
"We didn't want it rammed down people's throats," says Steve Merrett, a Konami spokesman. "If an online community like that is enthused by something, they take that enthusiasm and tell their friends."
Write to Erin White at erin.white@wsj.com1
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108387122840904212,00.html
Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1) mailto:erin.white@wsj.com
Subservient Chicken
OK, it doesn't get any stranger than this... or does it?
> http://www.subservientchicken.com/
May 06, 2004
Prix Ars Electronica 2004
This year's awards for best Interactive Art works:
Golden Nica Award:
Ben Rubin, Mark Hansen (USA): "Listening Post?"
A darkened space, 231 fluorescent text displays attached to a taut, vertically-strung, semi-circular net, eight loudspeakers and two subwoofers-this is the setting for "Listening Post." An aluminum lattice on the wall opposite the net reflects the light of the monitor screens and controls the acoustics of the space. Several computers analyze data from thousands of Internet chat rooms and newsgroups, and cull out 85 postings that begin with "I am," "I like" or "I love." Gradually, the communiqués appear on the displays, filling more and more space with their light. The selected texts vary in length and complexity; simpler and shorter ones come first. The beep of a telephone answering machine precedes the appearance of each message. This setting is variously modified in different segments. "Listening Post" sheds light on the enormous quantity of the online discourse in the digital Tower of Babel and reveals the absolutely unbelievable mass of human communication in the Internet.
Award of Distinction:
Feng Mengbo (Tadschikistan):
"Ah_Q"
With "Quake III" as the basis of his work, Feng has come up with a very different sort of video game. On one hand, the keyboard has been replaced by a "dancing board" to allow users to control the game with their feet; on the other hand, Feng Mengbo has imparted a clearly ironic-political note to the game by inserting himself-camera in one hand, plasma gun in the other-into the game as an on-screen figure. Feng Mengbo is one of the leading Chinese media artists. His games, films and photographs reflect his unique style and creativity in dealing with virtual reality.
Award of Distinction:
Kenneth Rinaldo (USA):
"Augmented Fish Reality"
"Augmented Fish Reality" is an interactive installation. Each of five goldfish bowls containing Siamese fighting fish sits atop a rolling pedestal. Four infrared sensors built into each goldfish bowl register the movements of the fish and transform them into movements of the pedestals. In this way, the fish can move about in space. Siamese fighting fish have excellent vision and display a high degree of social organization. The installation thus enables the fish to communicate with one another; in addition, there is interaction among the fish and visitors to the installation. Images captured by mini-cameras mounted in the goldfish bowls are projected within the installation space in real time and enable visitors to observe the world from the perspective of the fish.
Honorary Mentions:
DEMI-PAS Julien Maire D
alert Barbara Musil A
Messa di Voce Golan Levin, Zachary Lieberman, Jaap Blonk, Joan La Barbara USA, NL
Loops Marc Downie, Paul Kaiser, Shelley Eshkar; The Media Lab, MIT USA
We interrupt your regularly scheduled program ... Daniel Sauer; Osman Khan/UCLA Design, Media Arts USA
3 minutes² Naziha Mestaoui, Yacine Aït Kaci F
Topobo, Amanda Parkes, Hayes Raffle; MIT Media Lab USA
Iso-phone James Auger, Jimmy Loizeau, Stefan Agamanolis; Media Lab Europe IRL
Turing Train Terminal Severin Hofmann, David Moises A
Isadora / Future of Memory Improvisation; Future of Memory Mark Coniglio, Dawn Stoppiello USA
1000 Deathclock in Paris Miyajima Tatsuo, Tachibana Hajime J
Interactive generative stage and dynamic costume for André Werners "Marlowe, the Jew of Malta" Joachim Sauter, Nils Krüger D
Festival of Independent and Alternative Games
Due day is coming. June 1st.
ALT+CTRL fills a vital niche by providing a juried venue outside the mainstream game industry to showcase the latest independent games to both publishers and the general public. For sponsors it is an opportunity to show their support for indpendent game developers, artists and modders who are trying to push the envelope of what games are and can be. The event will also give sponsors exposure to a projected audience of over 2500 indy developers, game industry publishers, and game fans.
Similar to what the Sundance Film Festival does for filmmakers, ALT+CTRL seeks to cultivate a vibrant independent game community, and bring both the game industry and the general public new and novel applications in game design, game genres, methodologies and approaches to game play.
ALT+CTRL will include the following components:
Exhibition of independent games presented on customized game machines, plus game art related performances
Public screening of "machinima" (films made "on location" in computer games)
Conference on game design and culture, featuring creative leaders from the game industry, artists and independent game developers, academics, cultural theorists, and festival jurors (streamed and archived online)
Outreach to local middle and high school students
Online exhibition archive and catalog, including papers and proceedings from the conference
If you think you have something that fits this description and deserves to be shown, here's our CALL FOR SUBMISSION.
http://proxy.arts.uci.edu/gamelab/events/alt_ctrl_04.html
phoberman says:
School's out for summer
(pause)
School's out for-ever (or not really...)
Let Down by Academia, Game Pioneer Changed Paths
from today's NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/technology/circuits/06vide.html
You've been Lifegamed!
What's it like to be interviewed on stage about your life - and have the result turned immediately into a play? By Maddy Costa
link
May 05, 2004
Humanoids for the Home
From an amusing article on entertainment robotics in Technology Review:
Help in negotiating the complex environment of a modern home, enthusiasts argue, will come from a network of tiny radio frequency identification chips. At the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, scientists are training robots to sort and wash dishes by combining visual data with RFID input. If a robot sees something round and platelike, it scans the object. The plate's RFID chip reports, in essence, I'm a plate! I get washed and put in the corner cupboard, second shelf!
May 04, 2004
Interactive Videodance at UCI
The Beall Center for Art and Technology is pleased
to present the premier of
Active Space: Interactive Videodance
by Lisa Naugle and John Crawford
with Frédéric Bevilacqua
Opening reception: Wednesday May 12, 8-9 pm
The Beall Center for Art and Technology, UC Irvine
is located in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts
Building 712 in the Arts Plaza, Irvine, CA
http://beallcenter.uci.edu
"Interactive Videodance," a Beall-sponsored research project in the
Active Space environment, makes its premiere in a performance and
installation. Active Space combines the human body with video sensing
systems, motion capture animation, software development, and
interactive video and sound design to generate visual imagery and
sound.
During the performances, dancers and choreographers will demonstrate
the artistic potential of the Active Space project. The installation
component enables visitors to "play" the space, improvising and
exploring new ways to interact with others through computer
technology.
Lisa Naugle, assistant professor of dance at UCI, is the recipient of
the Cecil and Ida Green Honors Professor's Award, 2000. Naugle was a
member of the Nancy Hauser Dance Company and has performed and
choreographed in London, Amsterdam, Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary
and Canada, as well as throughout the U.S.
John Crawford is a digital media artist, interactive performance
director and software designer. He teaches videodance, motion capture
animation and digital arts at UCI. Since 1992, his digital media work
has been performed and exhibited across North America and in Europe,
and he has taught extensively in performance and technology in New
York, Seattle and Vancouver, Canada.
Frederic Bevilacqua, who has taught physics and helped develop optic
sensors, is researching multi-media music installations through IRCAM
in Paris.
Interactive Videodance Performance:
May 12-14, 7 pm
May 15, Noon Matinee and 7pm
May 20-21, 7 pm
May 22, Noon Matinee and 7pm
Performance time: 50 minutes
Limited Seating
Gratis tickets: 949) 824-2787
Active Space Exhibition:
May 13 - 22, 2004
Gallery Hours:
Monday - Friday 12-5 pm
Saturday 1-5 pm
Sunday 12-5 pm
Free and open to the public
Information: 949) 824-4339
May 01, 2004
pac manhattan
some folks at ITP in NYC have developed a mobile game based on Pac-Man called Pac-Manhattan. Seems nice and polished -- would love to play and see how well it works. I think the best thing about it is the costumes...
UPDATE:
Ok, this isn't that cool... thought they were using GPS+wifi - turns out it's a total hack. Hacks aren't inherently bad, but this hack (having to stay on the phone the phone time) seems like it would demolish any fun the game might have provided.
