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Comm 620: Mobile Phones, On-Line Community, and Social Change, a year-long biweekly multidisciplinary research seminar

Instructors:
François Bar (Communication),
Steve Anderson (Cinematic Arts)
Murali Annavaram (Viterbi School of Engineering)

This seminar explores how mobile phones can serve to build on-line community, even among people who are mostly off-line. It runs in parallel with “Mobile Voices”, an academic-community partnership project to research and design a platform allowing low-wage immigrants in Los Angeles to publish stories about their lives and their communities directly from their mobile phones. The seminar provides a venue where researchers can explore the social, theoretical and technical issues raised by Mobile Voices. Students will engage in year-long research projects, individually or in groups, structured to culminate in publication by the end of the year. Some of these projects will directly be part of Mobile Voices, but there will be room for other research projects exploring the role of mobile phones in fostering community and/or social change.

Information about Mobile Voices can be found at https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/VozMob and a syllabus-in-progress for the class at https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/VozMobClass

Posted on Engadget:

"It looks like Motorola isn't about to let Apple have the goofy, non-existent product spotlight to itself, with a recent patent application of its revealing some plans of its own for a head-mounted display."

USC has received a $200,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to explore how interactive digital games could be designed to improve players’ health behaviors and outcomes.

In the last IGDA newsletter, you might have missed a link to a page with all of the talks from the IGDA Leadership Forum. It's completely justified my $50 by itself.

In particular, I wanted to share this talk, called "Working With Publishers as a Developer Producer". Chris Natsuume does a great job of detailing a approach to collaborating with your publisher, starting with how your company's goals contribute to a more positive relationship in the first place, and going all the way through development.

Normally I wouldn't post this to the main page, but I've been getting a couple disparate requests to cancel their Empireville memberships, and I wanted to put the information front and center:

For anybody here who'd like to know -

Call Empireville up ((206) 607-8073), and choose the cancel option from the main menu (Number 5, I believe). Follow the over-the-phone instructions, and that will take you right out.

Time: Wednesday, April 30, 6-9pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Featuring Spring Semester Class Projects from :
- CTIN 485L Advanced Game Development - Brinson
- CTIN 544 Experiments in Interactivity (Hoberman)
- CTIN 463 Anatomy of a Game (Hight)
- CTIN 405 Design and Technology for Mobile (Bleecker)
- CTIN 406 Sound Design for Games ­(Diamante)
- CTIN 488 Game Design Workshop (Swain/Arey/Diamante)
- CTIN 484/489 Intermediate Game Design (Brinson & Fullerton)
- CTIN 491 Advanced Game Project ( Swain)
- CTIN 492 Experimental Game Topics (Bleecker)
- CTIN 544 Experiments in Interactivity( Production 1) (Kratky)
- CTIN 542 Interactive Experience Design (Bolas)
- CTIN 590 Directed Research - Fisher

and more....

Food and Drink will be provided starting at 5:45.

***SCHEDULE below*****

Speakers: Mk Haley, Jill Smolin, and Josh Grow, SIGGRAPH 2008 committee members
Time: Wednesday, April 9, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

This week the CTAN 522 John C Hench Animation & Digital Arts Seminar combines forces with the CTIN 511 Interactive Media Seminar. Our visiting speakers will be three of the committee members for SIGGRAPH 2008 here in LA: Mk Haley, Jill Smolin, and Josh Grow. Jill represents the Animation Festival, Josh represents the Student Volunteer Program, and Mk represents the Interactive Installations. They will talk about the SIGGRAPH conference itself, as well as provide some examples of student submitted work, and a discussion related to how to best submit your work for consideration.

ACM SIGGRAPH's mission is to promote the generation and dissemination of information on computer graphics and interactive techniques and to foster a membership community whose core values help them to catalyze the innovation and application of computer graphics and interactive techniques. Some highlights of the annual conference are its Animation Theater and Electronic Theater presentations, where recently created CG films are played, and an installation of Emerging Technologies that showcases recent work from the crossroads of science, art, and technology and celebrates the best in creativity and innovation from the past year. Dozens of research papers are presented each year, and SIGGRAPH is widely considered the most prestigious forum for the publication of computer graphics research. In addition to the papers, there are numerous panels of industry experts set up to discuss a wide variety of topics, from computer graphics to machine interactivity to education. This year, the conference is also co-located with the 3rd annual Sandbox Videogame Symposium.

Speakers: Jonathan Strietzel and John Snoddy, Big Stage Entertainment
Time: Wednesday, April 2, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Big Stage is a media company whose breakthrough technology allows users to easily create and integrate a life-like 3-D avatar of themselves into everything from famous movie scenes, TV shows and video games, to music videos, short video clips, virtual worlds, still images, user-generated content, instant messages, e-mails, social networks and more – instantly. All Big Stage content can then be shared across social networks,mobile phones, and more.

The privately held, Pasadena, Calif.-based company was founded by three tech entrepreneurs who shared a vision for a new media paradigm in which users themselves inhabited the very content which they consumed, and in which the digital fidelity of 3-D animated people -- created and controlled by average consumers -- would soon render virtual performances almost indistinguishable from original performances captured in high-resolution media.

Big Stage’s life-like avatar creation system stems from advanced stereo reconstruction technology funded by multiple government grants, including the CIA, as part of a nineyear cumulative research project at USC. Company Co-Founder Jonathan Strietzel first saw the potential for this technology while meeting with the project’s chief scientist, Doug Fidaleo, Ph.D., at USC. He then assembled Co-Founders Jon Kraft and Jon Snoddy, who each brought unique skills and perspectives to the table, and were able to craft a powerful business vision, secure funding, obtain the core technology license from USC, and hire Fidaleo to officially help bring their vision to life.

Building on the USC research, Chief Technology Officer Snoddy, Chief Scientist Fidaleo and their team were able to take the quality and accuracy of complex, expensive 3-D scanning technology previously only available to production houses and animation companies and offer it to any consumer with a digital camera through a free, fun and easy to use Internet-based platform, for wide-spread entertainment immersion.

BACKCHANNEL LOG from PRESENTATION: Download file

Speakers: Patrick Goddi & Kurt MacDonald, HP Labs
Time: Wednesday, February 27, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)


Title: "Mediascapes make fun of GPS"

This talk covers the current state of HP Labs' mscape platform, a software toolkit for building, playing and sharing discreet location-based games and rich media experiences for handheld GPS devices. Each "mediascape" can be opened in the editor so that everyone can see how it's built. The non-commercial beta version of the software is freely available for download and use. And mscapers.com is a community-driven, sharing website where many examples of games, tours and other experimental locative media can be downloaded.

Patrick Goddi is a senior researcher at HP Labs in Palo Alto.
Kurt MacDonald is an independent designer and USC Interactive Media alum.



BACKCHANNEL LOG: Download file

AmautaLab
3820 Willat Avenue, Culver City, CA 90232
January 25, 2008 7:00pm on

Artist and author Mark Stephen Meadows presents a one-night event in Los Angeles that unveils "avatars" - the online representation of a person. The exhibit features one dozen portraits - both photographic and interactive - of avatars in Second Life, the online virtual world where people are building an alternative city that, like Los Angeles itself, is based on media and a life of leisure, automation, and wealth.

These photographs and installations each portray avatars as the inner hero of their real-life user. Psychological mirrors and self-portraits in their own right, the avatar is fast becoming as important to popular culture as mainstream celebrities. As of 2008 there are almost one billion registerd avatars, and over 30 million in virtual worlds. This exhibit explores why avatars are becoming so popular, and pokes at the reasons why they can be so dangerous.

In addition to the portraits, Meadows will also be releasing his new book, "I, Avatar; The Culture and Consequences of Having A Second Life" from which some of these portraits were taken.

OK. I know MMMO is a better term since RPGs aren't the only genre in this category, but hey, I had to make this title as long as possible.

When I picked up a N-Gage QD way back in the day, It was actually mostly for one game only, Sega's Pocket Kingdom: Own the World, the first massively multiplayer game that I had seen that worked well on a mobile platform. I was actually rather sad when the system didn't do well (in the US at least, go EU!) since I was really intrigued by the prospect of engaging virtual worlds that players could access on the go.

Well, years later, Nokia is at it again with their N-Series phones, namely the Nokia N81. This device has some nice specs and all your new standard features for a higher end cell phone including, music/video playback, GPS, internet browsing, etc. However, the N81 also dedicated buttons and operating system functions for gaming, which also include N-Gage compatibility. The interesting thing about the Wi-Fi/Cell connection and the gaming bridge is that there are a variety of simpler games (especially in Asia) designed for online multiplayer action such as Tetris, Mahjohng, Poker, etc. that work fairly well, and without lag because of the limited amount of data that needs to be transferred.

I'm extremely excited for the implications for the design and implementation of MMOs like Pocket Kingdom that are still engaging with very strict technical limitations. Perhaps we'll see a surge of portable MUDs as the advance guard if the opportunity to link private servers arises. Turn based strategy games seems like the first genre that would benefit from this because the need for on-the-spot precise data transfer isn't as important.

Nokia N81 Specs via the EU site

A few Pocket Kingdom screens:

The good people at The Go Game are putting on a community game in Santa Monica, on December 15th. It's $30 a person, but these things are (so I hear) a blast.

http://www.thegogame.com/brownie/signup/individual.asp?gameDayID=1670

From their website, the Go Game is :

" an all-out urban adventure game, a technology-fueled, reality-based experience that encourages hard play and a keen eye for the weird, the beautiful, or the faintly out-of-the-ordinary. The "rule book" is reality, the "board" is your city, and the "pieces" are the players -- you and your team.

Through clues downloaded to a wireless device and hints planted in unlikely places, you'll be guided through a city you only think you're familiar with. Clues can appear at any time, anywhere. Perhaps you didn't notice the woman on the bus reading a magazine upside-down. Or the note stuck to the side of the bathroom mirror of your favorite bar, or the electric scooter parked outside with your name on it. After a day of Go, you will."

www.CenturyCityCellPhoneFest.com

EARLY BIRD DEADLINE: November 30, 2007
Fee: Only $25 for first submission; $15 for each submission after!

Be one of the FIRST filmmakers to have your short film screened over
thousands of CELL PHONES through GoTV! (www.gotvnetworks.com).

GoTV Networks is the first made-for-mobile network/studio group that
create on-demand film/television programming customized to the mobile
experience. Cingular, Nextel and Sprint users can view your film for
free!

SHORTS REQUIREMENTS:
* 15 seconds-3 minutes in length
* Available to screen over cell phones
* Short can be shot the traditional way or WITH YOUR CELL PHONE!
* Mail your DVD or upload your film online

Prizes include:
* Cash
* A day with a well-known studio/production company
* Possible distribution deal
* Fuji Film
* Cell phone
* Much more....


REGISTER, upload your film online at www.CenturyCityCellPhoneFest.com

Hasan Elahi is a media artist who found himself on an FBI watch list. Rather than allow the power of surveillance to rest entirely in the hands of a small group, he embraced the transparent life. He meticulously blogs his daily life as a sort of art piece/alibi.

Fun. More on Wired.

It seems that the cinema mail and/or usc mail is hosed today. I recommend that you use alternative email addresses from people or voicemail...I don't think that mailing from the outside of USC is reaching people. No word on a fix yet.

(^(*^@#$(@&^#(^@)#&!@_!#*_#(!#(*

This Friday beginning at 8:00PM Monumento 872 offers an opportunity to unearth and engage downtown Los Angeles in the night using mobile devices, GPS tracking, and media databases, that become part of a live media collage created by visitors, surrounding communities, and online participants. The evening of culture will explore artistic and historical landscapes of Los Angeles through the expressive potential of emerging mobile media, live music, graph art, artist performances, and an installation of art objects. The event celebrates and takes place in one of Los Angeles' latest "historical cultural monuments", the Juncture Block Building, and at the new Los Angeles State Historic Park.

This may come as a shock to many of you, but I do indeed have an iPod. However....I think I've used it twice, I got it from a promotion deal with my Macbook, and I just don't feel the need to carry around a years worth of music. However, I was recently browsing Alice's wonderful blog, uh....Wonderland, and was alerted to a Lost game for the iPod.

Being immune to the massive brain washing effect of the recent iPod exodus, I wandered onto Apple's iTunes store to check out what was available for the iPod in terms of downloadable games. I was fairly surprised to find there was a pretty big market for games on the iPod, with even a few independent sites offering homebrew games.

I used to be one of those guys in high school who would twink out their Texas Instruments graphing calculators, and also I used to be really big on games when I still had a working Palm Pilot. There was a freaking massive amount of independent developers, professionally made games, and homebrew for these platforms, but while the iPod is much more popular and prevalent in pop culture, there's not much of a independent homebrew group in place.

I think this may be due in part to the more nerdy and techy groups and culture attached to the former two devices, and the iPod being more a trendy thing, much like those Goddamn Ugg boots. Have I made any mention at American Herd Mentality before? If not, strike one. Going back to the subject, for the most part, the games that I have seen for the iPod tend to go towards casual, with games like Sudoku, Tetris, and Bejeweled.

After looking around, there seems to be a lot of adventure/exploration style games in the independent sector, with the new lost game being the only one professionally developed. There were also a great deal of independent quiz games, which it looks like are independent modifications to the iQuiz game from Apple.

It's a great idea to put these casual, pick up and play games on a device like the iPod, kind of turning it into the equivalent of the cell phone in terms of platforms for games in the United States as compared to Japan. I'm not sure how easy it is to play with the scroll wheel, but I'm gonna pick up some stuff and see exactly how it works, more on this later.

The prices are also much more reasonable than cell phone games, with games set at a standard 4.99. If you're interested in putting any of these games on your iPod, be warned, as they will only work with 5th generation and up iPods. Links follow.


Apple iTunes Games Store
iPod Arcade, Independent Games for the iPod
Some info on iPod DRM and hacking your iPod for games (Near the Bottom)
Install iLinux on your iPod and open up an entirely new library of games!
Wonderland Blog

Verizon Wireless has recently released a new and unique feature through their V Cast Music service. Called V Cast Song ID, this new service supposedly allows users to use their cell phone to id any song (probably limited to what V Cast sells through their service) by recording it with their cell phone, which then identifies it and starts a download.

I'm guessing the software tries to identify key portions of songs, but the question is, how exactly? Anyone have any ideas on this? When I see this, it's almost like looking at the demo system with games that have become mainstay, except this time, it's more passive and spontaneous.

Something else that is similar are those DS Download stations that you see floating around random game stores and Best Buys, however, I'd really like to see something more similar for gaming. Perhaps the next generation of portable game systems would allow users to start digital downloads of games that players might see at a friends house or at a game store.

Imagine, sitting at a buddies place and he's playing a cool new game that you've never seen before, but after playing it for a bit, you're convinced you really like it. You turn on your Sony Playstation Portable Hyper Xtreme Gaming Unit V2.0 and login to your personal PSPHXGUV2.0 (TM) website, where you select the game and start a digital download on your Playstation 4 (You play it with your mind!). By the time you get home, your game is downloaded and ready to play. Cool, very cool. Something even better would be if the game system itself was able to send out some sort of Bluetooth ID to the portable system to automatically send the player to a website to start downloading on the home console.

Regardless, it's a really cool feature, and I don't believe I've seen this kind of feature in Asia yet, kudos to Verizon for taking this initiative.

Official Verizon V CAST Music Page
One of the V CAST Song ID commercials, via D.H.A.D.M.