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Some images from my first (thesis) collection of mod vignettes: sept08 - may09

File this in the short notice category - ICT has paid interships this summer. Apply here.

Not all will get funded, however the four positions that are posted for the lab I work in are:

3D Environment Artist Intern 0918
Mixed Reality Redirected Walking

Virtual Human Artist Intern 0919
Mixed Reality Virtual Humans

Data Collection Software Developer Intern 0920
Mixed Reality Redirected Walking

Gesture Markup Software Developer Intern 0921
Mixed Reality Virtual Humans


The ICT offers select interdisciplinary paid internships for creative and technical students wishing to pursue careers in simulation, interactive media, and virtual reality fields. ICT’s mission is to create compelling immersive and engaging systems for effective learning for the military, entertainment, and educational purposes.

You need Darwiin remote and a wii remote and a bluetooth adapter. This reads a text file from the Darwiin and then utilizes it in processing and it shows up as movement.



PImage wiimote_top, wiimote_front;
int accX, accY, accZ, orientation;

void setup()
{
size(600, 400);
frameRate(60 );

smooth();






//wiimote_top = loadImage("shake.jpg");
//wiimote_front = loadImage("turn.jpg");
}

void draw()
{
background(0);
fill(255);
ellipse(400.0,300.0, 50, 50);

// load the textfile generated from DarwiinRemote and converts it into strings
String [] wiimote_file = loadStrings("/wiimote.txt");

if (wiimote_file.length == 1)//this if statement reads the TXT file and converts
//it into movement.
{
String [] wiimote_values = wiimote_file[0].split(";");

accX = Integer.parseInt(wiimote_values[0]);
accY = Integer.parseInt(wiimote_values[1]);
accZ = Integer.parseInt(wiimote_values[2]);

orientation = Integer.parseInt(wiimote_values[3]);
}

ellipse(132-accX/2.0, 190-accY/2.0, 300,400);

translate(width/2, 70);
if(orientation == 1)
rotate(-PI/2);
else if(orientation == 2)
rotate(PI);
else if(orientation == 3)
rotate(PI/2);
//rect(wiimote_front, -wiimote_front.width/2, -wiimote_front.height/2);
}

Class in affective computing is offered by CS on Thursday afternoons. I am going to audit it, might be interesting for IMD students to consider, and there is space in the class. Supposed to be able to walk away with a 'toolkit of code' by the end.

Syllabus Here

Affective Computing is computing that relates to, arises from, or deliberately influences emotions. This course will overview the theory of human emotion (how it arises from and influences cognition, the body and the social environment), techniques for recognizing and synthesizing emotional behavior, and illustrate how these can be applied to application design.

Check out "The Moment" photosynth, a navigable 3d space made up of thousands of 2d pictures taken at the inauguration.

One step closer to understanding the technology upon which our universe runs?

"According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?page=1

Four years ago, I wrote an instructor's manual on interface design for videogames. Around that time, I was also scribbling critical studies articles about text, graphics, and idioms. Many are part of discussions on MUD-Dev. If you want to listen to a few of these far out, opinionated articles, Ryan Wiancko reads these user interface articles and many more by other designers.

Whoa - an iphone app to make stereo images!


Also appears to be some new iphone apps that turn the iphone into a MAXMSP or Arduino controller:

This page contains lots of great iPhone apps, including an app that turns your iPhone into a Max/MSP controller, an app that simulates a scrolling LED banner on the screen of your iPhone, as well as many other projects that illustrate Mr. Akamatsu's interesting approach to software hacking on consumer electronic devices. This approach is also reflected in the many interesting Max/MSP objects he has created, perhaps the most famous being his object that interfaces the Wii Remote with Max/MSP.

Discussion leader: Veronica Paredes
Time: Wednesday, November 19, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Discussion Title: "Technologies of Perception"
Tonight's seminar will focus on the toic of "Technologies of Perception" raised in the previous two seminar presentations by Jim Campbell and Perry Hoberman. Logs for the backchannel discussion can be reviewed on the respective talk announcements..

Readings for this discussion are:
1. Donald Hoffman, "Peeking Behind the Icons" from Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See (1998).
2. George Lakoff interviewed by Iain A. Boal, "Body, Brain, and Communication" from Resisting the Virtual Life (1995).
3. Alva Noe, "Perspective in Content" from Action in Perception (2004).

Other recommended Readings are:
1. "Virtual Environments, Personal Simulators & Telepresence." by Fisher, Scott S. in Virtual Reality: Theory, Practice and Promise, S. Helsel and J.Roth, ed. , Meckler Publishing, 1991
2. "The Ultimate Display" by I E Sutherland (1965) Proceedings of IFIP Congress
3. "Amplified Smell" in The Inventions of Daedalus by David E. H. Jones (1982)

Speaker: Perry Hoberman, Associate Research Professor, Interactive Media Division
Time: Wednesday, November 12, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Bio: Perry Hoberman is an installation artist whose work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and worldwide. He works with a variety of technologies, ranging from utterly obsolete to seasonably state-of-the-art. His installation "Timetable" was awarded the Grand Prix at the ICC Biennale '99 in Tokyo, and "Systems Maintenance" won a 1999 Prix Ars Electronica "Award of Distinction"."Unexpected Obstacles", a retrospective survey of his work, was exhibited during summer 1998 at the ZKM Mediamuseum in Karlsruhe, Germany, and before that at Gallery Otso in Espoo, Finland. Other recent works include "ZOMBIAC", exhibited at the Kiasma Museum in Helsinki, and "Workaholic", shown at the exhibition "Vision Ruhr" in Dortmund, Germany. His work has been featured in the "Future Cinema" exhibition at the ZKM Center for New Media in Karlsruhe. Hoberman has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, and is both a 2002 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and a 2002 Rockefeller Foundation Media Art Fellow. He is represented by Postmasters Gallery in New York.

BACKCHANNEL LOG from presentation: Download file

From Engadget:

"We've never really gotten the knack for video chat. Either we're bothered by the lack of eye contact, freaked by the uneasy silences or just way too ugly, but whatever it is we're sure the Minoru 3D Webcam is going to make it all much more immersive and difficult. Featuring dual cameras spaced about a face-width apart, Minoru creates a stereoscopic effect for viewing with old-school red and blue 3D glasses. The camera supports all sorts of video chat services, or you can shoot 3D video and shuffle it up to YouTube, and 2D is also available for all the squares out there. Minoru's currently competing in the CES Innovations competition, and should be hitting shelves in December at a sub-$100 pricepoint".

REXplorer is a mobile, pervasive spell-casting game designed for tourists of Regensburg, Germany. The game creates player encounters with spirits (historical figures) that are associated with significant buildings in an urban setting. A novel mobile interaction mechanism of “casting a spell” (making a gesture by waving a mobile phone through the air) allows the player to awaken and communicate with a spirit to continue playing the game. The game is designed to inform visitors about history in a fun manner. The results of a formative evaluation are explored to inform the design of future serious pervasive games.

For further reading of this article:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/132757j14k9p5677/

Interesting video coverage of Immersive's 360 camera in Wall WSJ this week:

"Immersive Media Corp. (TSXV: IMC) (“IMC”), the leader in 360º spherical video technology, has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal and WSJ.com as part of reporter Andy Jordan’s “Tech Diary” series. In this profile, Andy spent some time in New York City with an Immersive Media team and at a Red Bull event that Immersive Media was filming. Entitled Tech Diary: The Grapefruit Cam, the profile is available for viewing at WSJ.com".

"As a technology reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Andy Jordan regularly chronicles the stories that can be found when people and technology come together. In this episode, he asks “What if streaming video could be shot in 360 degrees?” He finds the answer when he takes Tech Diary to a Red Bull big jump to check it out. “The mouse moves where the spinal column can't,” says Andy Jordan, describing a “mondo geodesic streaming video dome camera the size of a grapefruit with 11 lenses.”

Techno pundits and industry experts at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), held in August were hailing 3D films as the next big thing.

At the forum, animation supremo and CEO of DreamWorks Jeffery Katzenberg, said 3D filmmaking was the "greatest innovation to occur in the movie business in 70 years."

Tuesday, September 9, 2008 : 6:00pm
University Park Campus
USC Fisher Museum of Art

Admission is free.
Reception to follow.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Irving Biederman, the Harold W. Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience at USC and author of over 200 scientific publications, will explore the neural basis of aesthetics. Long a mystery, recent research in cognitive neuroscience has begun to shed light on the biological events that lead us to seek out novel but richly interpretable experiences. Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence will provide a test case for such an account by leading us to experience novel interpretations under conditions in which the dimensions that normally accompany pleasurable perceptual interpretations are reduced, if not eliminated. Think Mary Poppins, noir.

Link

(Adrienne already sent an announcement to the general IMD list, but I just want to make sure that everyone is aware of it - if you are seriously interested in the future of interactive and/or immersive entertainment you will not want to miss this.)



Shivers Down the Spine: IMAX and Immersive Visual Entertainment

Visions and Voices
Thursday, September 4, 2008 : 7:30pm
IMAX Theater, California Science Center
Exposition Park, 39th Street and Figueroa Street
Located across the street from USC. Parking will be available for $8 at Exposition Park.
Admission is free.
Reception to follow.

Explore the power of immersive visual experiences with a screening of the 3-D IMAX movie Mummies 3-D: Secrets of the Pharaohs. The screening will be followed by a discussion with film scholar Alison Griffiths, associate professor of communication studies at Baruch College, City University of New York, and author of Shivers Down Your Spine: Cinema, Museums, and the Immersive View. The discussion will examine the ways that spectacular entertainments shape our bodily and cultural sensibilities. The event will also look at why these attractions maintain such an enduring appeal for a wide variety of audiences, as they bring together science, sensation and virtuality. The event will introduce attendees to the growing academic field of visual studies and to USC’s visual studies program. A reception will follow.

Link

Speaker: Mark Bolas, Assoc. Professor, Interactive Media Division & Director, Mixed Reality Lab, Institute for Creative Technologies.
Time: Wednesday, September 3, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "Growing the Medium"
Abstract: Mark will discuss his work to create a design vocabulary for the multi-faceted medium called VR.

BACKCHANNEL LOG for class (partial): Download file

Video summary of presentation by Susana Ruiz and Jeff Watson:

Everyone should try to make it to SIGGRAPH this year - especially 3rd year students thinking about how to design an interactive media experience for public presentation. 2nd year students would be wise to attend as they think about prior art and their work. 1st year students would benefit. . . well, see, everyone should go.

One day passes and student rates are available to keep costs down, and it is at the LA convention center - a stone's throw (if you have a really good arm) from USC.

Toward this end, the Immersive Lab, using funds from Microsoft Research, is offering 4 $100 stipends. Recipients will be asked to describe a notable exhibit at one of our weekly research meetings. If you are interested, please contact Bryan Jaycox for application details soon.

This Saturday, July 19 during the monthly C.R.A.N.K mob extravaganza we will be stopping by GLOW in Santa Monica. Sounds like a cool summer event. I've never been (so if it's not so cool don't blame me!). So if you like crazy bike rides (and maybe drinking and jump roping and jousting on bicycles) C.R.A.N.K mob will be heading out that way. If not, you can use an old fashion car and head out to Santa Monica.

GLOW 08

Glow will fill the hours between dusk to dawn with compelling, enchanting and effervescent sights and sounds situated in spaces and times that expand possibilities for where, how and when the public experiences contemporary art.



July 19, 2008

7 pm - 7 am

From dusk to dawn, experience the Santa Monica beach, Pier and Palisades Park through the eyes and minds of artists. GLOW will fill the night with compelling, enchanting and effervescent sights and sounds situated in spaces and times that expand the possibilities for where, how and when the public participates in contemporary art.

Featuring over twenty temporary site specific installations and performances, Glow is entirely free to the public. This unique festival is made possible with major funding from the Norton Family Foundation, along with the Durfee Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Starbucks Coffee Company, and other generous sponsors.

Glow is being produced by the City of Santa Monica in partnership with Bayside District, the Pier Restoration Corporation, and the Santa Monica Convention and Visitors Bureau. Part of the premise of Glow is the unique beach front setting and an homage to the grunion, a fish that lives in local waters and comes up to the beach to spawn creating a momentary 'glow'.