It's on... USC vs Carnegie Mellon, Feb 4

The Intercollegiate Game Challenge between USC and Carnegie Mellon is on for Friday February 4. Practice session: 1-3 pm. Competition: 3-5 pm.

Come represent USC as a player or come be a spectator or - better yet - do both.

Full event details here

Please RSVP here

Note amazing flyer here

IM Forum for 2/2/05: Jim Banister

Title: "Narrative for Networked Media: Form vs. Function, and the Nature of Story in the Age of Digital Networks"
Location: USC Zemeckis Center, Room 201
Time: 6:00pm-8pm, 2/2/2005

Developing content to engage audiences in the digital age requires a deeper understanding of the nature of forms of digital media. Both as creator and consumer of media, we are communicating and entertaining from entirely new perspectives. From the fundamentals of media creation to the secrets of producing "hit" web and wireless programming, seminar participants learn the fundamentals of networked media (such as web and wireless) and how these emergent media differ from static or traditional linear media (such as television, film, print) and interactive media (such as games); and how engaging audiences radically differs between them. Learn to employ the "four Cs" of programming (content, community, commerce, and code) and explore the primary colors of narrative: storytelling (telling a story); storyforming (designing engines that allows a user to form stories); and storydwelling (designing experiences that allow participants to "live" a story, actually or virtually). Special emphasis is given to networked media-- media that allow one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many interactions between creator and audience, such as the Web, wireless, and all forms of broadband Internet; and to "enginets," a form of narrative that is native to networked media, and which has fueled the phenomenal success of virtually all "hit" web and wireless sites/services.

Presented by Jim Banister, author of "Word of Mouse: The New Age of Networked Media," and Managing Director of Spectrum MediaWorks.

CTIN 489 Field Trip to EA Redwood City a success

The class spent two days working with Maxis designers and engineers making original Sims 2 Objects. Both the students and the Maxis folks had a lot of fun. The class learned a tremendous amount about designing for the Sims and about how EA teams work.

Click here to see a photo chronology of the trip.

LEA Special cfp: Locative Media - Deadline 7 March 2005

LEA Special Issue: Locative Media

* Worldwide Call for Submissions *

Guest Editor: Drew Hemment
lctvmedia@astn.net

The Leonardo Electronic Almanac (ISSN No: 1071-4391) is inviting
papers [and artworks] that deal with the emerging data-based
spatial practice of Locative Media.

Across a broad range of contexts the interface between data
environments and location has emerged as a central concern,
reversing the trend towards digital content being viewed as
placeless, or only encountered in the amorphous space of the
internet. Artists have long been concerned with place and
location, but the combination of mobile devices with positioning
technologies opens up a manifold of different ways in which
geographical space can be encountered and drawn. An emerging field
of creative practice is coalescing around artists and
technologists who are exploring the use of portable, networked,
location-aware computing devices for social interfaces to places
and artistic interventions in which geographical space becomes a
canvas.

More here: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/LEA2004/authors.htm#lmedia

*** IEEE VR 2005 Workshop CALL FOR PAPERS ***

The recent flurry of display technology development has produced families of technologies that make fixed and projected pixels cheaper, faster, more flexible, and of higher quality. These advances enable ‘smart pixels’ and enable a number of burgeoning applications ranging from displays being used for better and more flexible images, to user interaction, scene sensing, and environment enhancement.

This workshop will provide an opportunity to expand attendee thinking about ways to use contemporary display devices in VR systems and applications.

The submission of short or long abstracts describing recently completed work, work in progress, and publicly presentable ideas for unimplemented and/or unusual systems or applications is encouraged.

Submissions due Feb 4th. Ask Mark for details.

Topics of interest include:

* multiview, multifocal, or high dynamic range displays;
* omnistereo projection systems;
* ad hoc or “poor man’s” projection systems;
* ultra wide field of view HMD optics;
* ultra fast displays;
* head-worn or hand-held (mobile) paradigms;
* hybrid display systems and applications;
* adaptive projector display systems;
* extended color gamut or color matching displays;
* projector-based user/device tracking, interaction, or Mixed Reality reconstruction;
* embedded pixels for Spatially-Augmented Reality; and
* rendering techniques associated with the above.

Experimental Game Lab at UC San Diego

Looks like my alma mater's got their own new game lab:

A gift of more than $290,000 from Sammy Studios, Inc., the Carlsbad, California-based videogame company, a subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings, was made in the fall of 2004 to support UCSD’s Experimental Game Lab (EGL) at the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA).

“Computer games are a defining cultural form for the 21st century,” said Sheldon Brown, director of CRCA’s Experimental Game Lab and leader of the New Media Arts Layer at Cal-(IT)2. “The technology and aesthetics of computer games are driving the future development of computer graphics, visual communications and information infrastructures. The intellectual exchange at the core of this relationship will support the development of new types of expressive capacities through technological innovations.”

Link: UCSD Center for Research in Computing and the Arts

NIME CFP

this is totally late, because the deadline is on monday the 31st.

but NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression) is an annual conference that brings together, as the title subtly suggests, new musical interfaces.

I know of a few of you (noha/brad/aaron/erin) that may be interested in this kind of thing (?), so this seemed like a good venue. Keep it in mind for next year, too, I guess. Sorry about the late heads up.

good read

interesting new essay in the ny times by steven johnson, author of emergence and mind wide open. you'll have to google those since I don't have the energy to link to them right now.

the article basically goes into how using software has helped johnson see connections between things he never would seen by storing his stuff in databases then performing cross-refs and etc.

a good read via boingboing (or, the Cory Doctorow DRM talk translation Blog)

Speaking today : Dayton Taylor

You are welcome to join us today (Friday 28) at 3:15pm in the IML for a brainstorm with Dayton Taylor, inventor of the Timetrack camera array.
Dayton, who could be called the new Muybridge, is one of the leading inventors of the camera array (bullet-time effect, virtual camera movement). More details here.


.

Dayton is president of the visual effects companies Movia and Digitalair and has worked with directors such as Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham, Tony Kaye.

Justin Hall mentioned in Greek Press!

One of our very own students and a prolific blogger, Mr. Justin Hall is mentioned in the Saturday issue of the web version of 'Eleftherotipia" (Free Press), one of the most prominent papers in Greece. Journalist Katerina Shina writes about the blogging phenomenon...

Below is my rough translation from the Greek text but keep in mind that Greek is very hard to translate into English.

"In an explosion of untamed curiosity, I visited the place of an internet old-timer, the Californian Justin Hall (Justin's Links) - an autobiographical saga that would make Proust blush - and Paul Ford's Ftrain, something between a personal diary and experimental writing. I was taken away for hours even though it is hard for me to get used to hypertext, this non-linear writing style of our digital civilization. Through passing by, tracing back and peeling away, one can sometimes reach the heart of genuine need, and the core of a borderline communication naivété that manages to transmutate itself into an art, maybe even under the pressure of urgency."

Read Article in Greek (if you can...)

The text below precedes the above quote:

STOP

"One would easily characterize them as the 'Gates of Self-Exposure': websites replacing futons, confessionals and 'strictly private' diaries. Open Diary, diarist.net and Diaryland are the most well known and most visited web 'rings' (interconnected diaries in a contiguous circle) and 'burbs' (stemming maybe from 'burble', 'babble', 'twitter') where lonesome visitors with specific obsessions connect themselves at their own will with other 'diarywriters' they recognize as 'one of their own'.

I encountered such a burb recently: Breasts of Doom (thank god for humor) where women of every age share their thoughts about the 'breasts that rule their lives', their giant breasts (wow - what a problem that must be). Later, I counted 64 (!) sites dedicated to knitting, 19 to smokers and even one purely dedicated to women worldwide named 'Katherine' (which naturally peaked my interest...) Web chains, burbs and rings manage to connect anyone with everyone: dog lovers, soccer fans, sex workers, collectors and hobbyists of all sorts in neighborhoods of remarkable familiarity and confessed honesty."

IM Forum for 1/26/05: Bing Gordon

Bing Gordon will be speaking to us at tonight's 511 seminar in the ZML. He is Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer at Electronic Arts.

Bio from the EA site:

Mr. Gordon has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer since March 1998. Prior to this, he served as Executive Vice President, Marketing since October 1995. From August 1993 to October 1995, he served as Executive Vice President of EA Studios and as Senior Vice President of Entertainment Production since February 1992. He also served as Senior Vice President of Marketing, as General Manager of EA Studios, as Vice President of Marketing, as Director of Advertising and as Vice President of the former entertainment division while employed by the company. Bing holds a B.A. degree from Yale University and an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University.

Classic Game Theme Goes Classical

The Game Developers Conference 2005 has a new attraction. The event, which will take place in San Francisco, California for the first time this year, will feature a Dear Friends: Music from Final Fantasy Symphony Concert. The concert will take place at the Masonic Auditorium on March 7th. Conducted by Grammy Awards winner Arnie Roth, the Symphony Silicon Valley orchestra and a full chorus will perform songs from various Final Fantasy installments. Composer Nobuo Uematsu himself will be present at the event and meet with VIP ticket holders after the concert.

Mitchel Resnik Speaking At HMC Lecture "Creative Society"

Mitchel Resnick, associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Laboratory, will present his talk "Sowing the Seeds for a More Creative Society" at Harvey Mudd College on Wednesday, Jan. 26, at 7 p.m. in Galileo Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public.

"In the 1980s, many people talked about the transition from the 'Industrial Society' to the 'Information Society,'" Resnick said. "In the 1990s, people began to talk about the 'Knowledge Society.' I prefer a different conception: the 'Creative Society.' As I see it, success in the future (for individuals, for communities, for companies, for nations as a whole) will be based not on how much we know, but on our ability to think and act creatively."

Resnick describes current educational practices as "woefully inadequate." In his talk, he will discuss new technologies and new educational initiatives developed specifically to help children learn to design, invent and express themselves creatively -- so that they are prepared for life in the Creative Society. The ultimate goal is a world full of creative people who are constantly inventing new opportunities for themselves and their communities.

Resnick's work at MIT explores how new technologies can help people learn new things in new ways. His research group developed the ideas underlying the LEGO Mindstorms robotics construction kit, and he has led the development of several projects designed to help people learn about complex systems and emergent phenomena. He co-founded the Computer Clubhouse project, an award-winning network of after-school learning centers for youth from under-served communities.

Resnick earned his B.A. in physics at Princeton University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science at MIT. He worked for five years as a science/technology journalist for Business Week magazine, and he has consulted around the world on the uses of computers in education. He is the author of the book "Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams" (1994), co-author of "Adventures in Modeling" (2001), and co-editor of "Constructionism in Practice" (1996).

He has taught courses with such "creative" titles as: Creative Learning through Programming, Design That Matters, Programming as an Everyday Activity for Everyone, Teens in a Technological Society, How to Learn (Almost) Anything, Systems and Self, and Tools for Thought. More information about his teaching and research is available at: http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/

The Dr. Bruce J. Nelson '74 Distinguished Speaker Series was created by Nelson's family to honor the memory of the late HMC alumnus. For more information about Bruce J. Nelson and the series, visit the Web site at: www.dof.hmc.edu/spkr/.

Kutaragi Responds to PSP Flaw

Here's the article in Gamespot.

Make of it what you will... >_>

backchannel tool?

MoonEdit: multi-platform collaborative text editor.

Cooperative multi-user text editing over the internet. Every co-author can edit the shared document at any time, from any place, and at the same time! There's no need to send files via FTP or to compare documents when multiple users need to make changes to it independently.

link via waxy

EA@USC Lecture Series - January 26

Announcing the EA@USC Lecture Series. This monthly event brings top designers, engineers, and executives from Electronic Arts offices around the world to the USC campus. The first event is Wednesday January 26 from 1-5 pm at USC's Bing Theater.

All members of the USC community, as well as all Electronic Arts employees, are welcome.

Details, speaker list, and RSVP here.

Check out the cool event poster here.

1001 - desktop flickr client

beta version is out.

http://1001.kung-foo.tv/

Backseat Playground

Reblogged from we-make-money-not-art.com


Backseat Playground, developed by John Paul Bichard, Liselott Brunnberg and Oskar Juhlin at the Interactive Institute in Stockholm, is a mobile gaming research project that will enable kids to play with the world outside their window from the back seat of a car. This augmented reality game uses a digital compass and a GPS-receiver to connect the game to the passing landscape. By aiming the device towards objects, players can defend themselves against creatures or pick up magic artefacts.

"Dyadin" makes IGF 2005 Student Showcase

Looks like our summer project for the Independent Game Festival is going to make the GDC show floor!

To the uninformed, Dyadin is the result of an Interactive Media project where a game was designed and built from scratch over the summer. The game itself involves cooperative play from players in two separate, but eerily connected worlds.

Thanks to everyone who made this possible (don't want to forget anyone crucial, so: you know who you are, and if you don't you will soon...)

Big Art Group @ REDCAT

Flicker | West Coast Premiere
January 19-23, 2005

Part multimedia extravaganza and part slasher film, Flicker uses inventive technology and high voltage live performance to create an innovative storytelling form that director Caden Manson calls "Real Time Film." Manson's New York company uses the language of media in a unique narrative form, pushing the formal boundaries of theater and film to create culturally transgressive and challenging new works.

REDCAT
Big Art Group

[Michael L + I saw this tonight. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in live cinema, media performance or whatever you want to call it. Fast paced, very funny, extremely inventive, and inspiring in its use of low tech for big FX. It's on thru Sunday.

DATE CHANGE: Intercollegiate Game Challenge rescheduled for Friday 2/4

Apologies for the late notice but the Intercollegiate Game Challenge: USC vs. Carnegie Mellon has been rescheduled for Friday February 4. The date change has been made at Carnegie Mellon's request.

There will be no event tomorrow January 21.

Full details about the event are here.

Not One Damn Dime!

IM Forum for 1/19/05: Interactive Panoramic Cinema

Title: "Experiments in Interactive Panoramic Cinema"
Location: USC Zemeckis Center, Room 201
Time: 6:00pm-8pm, 1/19/2005

Steve Anderson, Susana Ruiz, and Scott Fisher will give a summary of the work done over the past year with Sony's Fourth View panoramic video camera system. This will be a runthrough of a paper to be given by Steve tomorrow in the annual SPIE conference in San Jose on "The Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality 2005" chaired by Mark Bolas.

Paper abstract: For most of the past 100 years, cinema has been the premier medium for defining and expressing relations to the visible world. However, cinematic spectacles delivered in darkened theaters are predicated on a denial of both the body and the physical surroundings of the spectators who are watching it. To overcome these deficiencies, filmmakers have historically turned to narrative, seducing audiences with compelling stories and providing realistic characters with whom to identify. This paper describes several research projects in interactive panoramic cinema that attempt to sidestep the narrative preoccupations of conventional cinema and instead are based on notions of space, movement and embodied spectatorship rather than just storytelling. Example projects include interactive works developed with the use of a unique 360 degree camera and editing system, and also development of panoramic imagery for a large projection environment with 14 screens on 3 adjacent walls in a 5-4-5 configuration with observations and findings from an experiment projecting panoramic video on 12 of the 14, in a 4-4-4 270 degree configuration.

TellBush.org

	Announcing TellBush.org, An Experiment In Telephonic Democracy. Call 1.800.734.1463 To Leave A Voice Message For Bush. Your Voice Message Will Appear On TellBush.org And Get Itself Emailed To Bush At The Whitehouse. TellBush.org - Giving Bush An Inaugural Ear Full.

Grafedia

From Grand Text Auto :

Hey this is a cool project: Grafedia is attempting to write a hypertext on the streets of New York. All it takes is a picture cellfone and some magic chalk. Like the Yellow Arrow project, the idea of this project is that people mark things as significant in the physical world, and then them in cyberspace. Grafedia encourages users to upload images, audio and video. To make Grafedia, you simply write a word (with a blue underline) somewhere in the world, and then email a corresponding media file to (that word)@grafedia.net. This makes me want to get one of them newfangled mobile phone things with video capabilities. Via Turbulence.

Grafedia

MLKJR

Shame on Google for not decorating their banner to celebrate MLK jr. Day, when they do a little something for just about every other damned holiday out there.

There is a good write up from the LA times by Earl Ofari Hutchinson about the lack of support this holiday receives from most anyone outside the black community.

Give your workers a day off this Monday; watch a parade, or better yet, join one; listen once again to "I have a dream." And make no mistake: Honoring Martin Luther King Jr. is honoring the best that America ever was.

link via the LAist

CMU First Years

The CMU-ETC first years get to go on a "West Coast Tour" and visit places like Rockstar, Pixar, Rhythm & Hues, etc.

http://etc.cmu.edu/news_popup.php?newsID=281695

If they get to come all the way from Pittsburgh, then we should definitely be able to organize our own little tour.

Rupert wants a piece

According to the Financial Times, chief operating officer Peter Chernin said that News Corp is "kicking the tyres of pretty much all video games companies".

Santa Monica-based Activison is said to be one firm on its takeover list.

Video games are "big business", the paper quoted Mr Chernin as saying. We "would like to get into it".

Players Wanted: USC vs Carnegie Mellon Intercollegiate Game Challenge

USC is playing Carnegie Mellon in an online game competition. You are invited.

Come represent USC as a player or just come be a spectator and have fun. Prizes will be given out to both players and spectators.

The date is next Friday January 21. See full details about the event, the games, and the competition scoring here.

Also check out our cool flier here.

Hope you can make it!

Goodbye, Media Lab Europe

Outside looking in and inside looking out.

Huygens images obtained above the surface of Titan...

Captured live off Nasa's TV feed(http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html) just before noon, at ESA's monitor room in Europe. Should be getting more photos later this evening...

Spam Assassin

This looks intriguing.

Road Trip to San Jose?

Beat Box Cave Art (image provided by Margaret Dolinsky)

Next week the SPIE conference will have two special sessions:

Collaborative Virtual Environment Art Exhibition
January 19, 2005 – 7:30-9:30pm PST

Virtual Reality Works: Demonstration and Panel Discussion
January 20, 2005 – 4:40-5:30pm PST

More information can be found here and here.

I can throw an Empty Van waiting to be driven up North and a few Spare Bedrooms in my house in Mountain View (bring your own sleeping bags)if that helps to get anyone up there.

Ben Hooker @IMD, 1/13/05

Ben Hooker will give an informal presentation about his work In the CTIN 544 class tomorrow (Thursday afternoon) from 5-6pm in the IML. All are welcome to attend.

Ben is a research fellow and visiting tutor in the Interaction Design department at the Royal College of Art. He is also a final-year tutor on the Graphic Design course at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Through architecture and design, his projects explore the consequences of computer-based 'data landscapes' merging with real spaces.

For more information see http://www.dataclimates.com and
http://www.interaction.rca.ac.uk/research/people/ben/1.html

First their was Flickr..

Then there was Mappr..

The Best of the Next 25 Years (Ars t+25 Predictions Timeline)

For Ars Electronica last year, I produced a predictions timeline, where anyone could enter a prediction online, year by year, for the next 25 years, and where anyone could vote on them. When we officially froze the website at the end of the Festival, 500 predictions were entered with almost 18,000 votes.

Though many of the predictions were interesting, the voting idea didn't work (go figure). The IMD First Year students last term in CTIN 511 came to the rescue and ranked all 500 individually, with a 0 (not interesting), a 1 (OK / maybe / not sure), or a 2 (very interesting / clever / funny / insightful). We ended up with 10 sets of the 500 numbers.

The Ars folks just compiled 2 Top 50 lists at my request, based on compiling these numbers:
weighting 0-->0, 1-->1, and 2-->3
weighting 0-->0, 1-->1, and 2-->5

Please check them out. We'd be grateful for your feedback. Ars will then post this list publicly on their website.

Great job, First Year Students!

Inner and Outer Space: Film Artists Explore the Universe

Thursday, January 13 @ 7:30pm

The Skirball and the Getty Research Institute are proud to co-sponsor an evening of short films that explore the intersection of science and art. The screening will encompass the early experiments of pioneer George Méliès alongside the more abstract musings on light, color, and movement found in the work of László Moholy-Nagy, Ralph Steiner, James Whitney, and Stan Brakhage. Also included will be more straightforwardly scientific "documentaries" by Charles and Ray Eames and Jean Painlevé.

* On Thursdays arrive early and explore the Skirball galleries! All Museum exhibitions, including Einstein, will be free and open until 9:00 p.m.

Skirball Cultural Center

The Beall Center presents LEMUR

League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots

Eric Singer, Jeff Feddersen, Milena Iossifova, Bil Bowen, Luke DuBois

Opening reception January 13, 6:00-9:00 p.m.

Exhibition Dates January 14 - March 19

In a site-specific interactive installation, the LEMUR orchestra makes its California debut with Guitarbot, TibetBot, ForestBot, and !rBot (pronounced "chick-r-bot"), and Modbots. Over 20 bots will be installed representing the largest LEMUR exhibition to date.

Opening reception features a live performance by the LEMUR Orchestra and their creators Eric Singer, Jeff Feddersen, Milena Iossifova, Bil Bowen and Luke DuBois.

http://beallcenter.uci.edu/

IM Forum Speaker for 1/12/05: Bruce Damer

Title: "Virtual worlds beyond games: From your street corner to the dunes of Mars"
Location: USC Zemeckis Center, Room 201
Time: 6:00pm-8pm, 1/12/2005

Abstract:
Bruce Damer will give a sweeping review and demos of the virtual worlds medium from its beginnings in VR and the first multi user spaces on the Internet to some of his current projects in industrial simulations for NASA's return to the moon and learning spaces for children with autism. During this talk, Bruce and Biota.org will make a special announcement involving a NASA/DigitalSpace sponsored global initiative which will involve USC.

Bio:
In 1995, Bruce founded DigitalSpace, the Contact Consortium and Biota.org, three organizations dedicated to pushing the envelope of the virtual worlds medium. Bruce is a 1986 graduate of the USC School of Engineering.

Links:
DigitalSpace Corporation:
http://www.digitalspace.com

Contact Consortium and Biota.org
http://www.ccon.org
http://www.biota.org

About Bruce Damer:
http://www.damer.com

Revenge of the Nerd

Investigators with the Attorney General's High-Tech Crimes Unit say the situation started when a 15-year-old female student created a website called "Loranger's biggest queer.com." The website featured pictures of a 14-year-old male student. He responded with his own web site, which investigators say included a list of students he called "The Preps," and poems so graphically violent, investigators say "they crossed the line."

"When you have students making threats to other students or groups of students on the Internet, talking about killing someone or blowing up the school or shooting a certain group of people, when there's a feud like that and certain words are used," explains Wartelle, "That's when you worry about something escalating or becoming the next columbine and these days you have to take threats seriously."

Cyber-stalking is a relative felony, which means a judge can decide if it is a misdemeanor of the more serious felony crime. It's punishable with a $2,000 fine or one year imprisonment.

Read the Article

War Gaming

Frank Rich's Sunday column about media and culture quotes the former US counter terrorism chief, Richard Clark about a fictional story he's written in the current Atlantic Monthly.

"But why would Mr. Clarke choose fiction as a vehicle for this dark, fact-based scenario?"

"In both the Clinton and Bush administrations, the only time I was really effective in getting senior officers to pay attention was when I had tabletop war games," he said in an interview. "That did more than any briefing paper I might write."

NYTIMES Online: We'll Win This War on '24' by Frank Rich NYTIMES Online

E3 2005

may 17th-20th, LA Convention Center

http://www.e3expo.com/attendees/pricing_information.asp

All we need to get Package 5 (free admission to expo floor) is a recommendation letter from a faculty member and copies of our student IDs.

"da Vinci of data" coming to LA

One-day course taught by Edward Tufte, info-design master. $160 for students. He's in San Diego on 1/24 and LA on 1/25 and 1/26...

Node Explorer

A little "postcard sized" portable, embedded Linux piece of spatial annotation hardware - and the operation here seems to have some smart things to say about why spatial annotation is a promising activity..cool stuff..
Location aware computers and the content and services that run on these devices, will change the way that society experiences the real world. Node is a world leader in developing both the technology and the content production methodology required.

Node provides services and products that take the visitor experience of a building, national park or city further and deeper than ever before.
Node