The Virtual University and Avatar Technology: E-learning Through Future Technology

E-learning gains increasingly importance in academic education. Beyond present distance learning technologies a new opportunity emerges by the use of advanced avatar technology. Virtual robots acting in an environment of a virtual campus offer opportunities of advanced learning experiences. Human Machine Interaction (HMI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can bridge time zones and ease professional constraints of mature students. Undergraduate students may use such technology to build up topics of their studies beyond taught lectures. Objectives of the paper are to research the options, extent and limitations of avatar technology for academic studies in under- and postgraduate courses and to discuss students' potential acceptance or rejection of interaction with AI. The research method is a case study based on Sir Tony Dyson's avatar technology iBot2000. Sir Tony is a worldwide acknowledged robot specialist, creator of Star Wars' R2D2, who developed in recent years the iBot2000 technology, intelligent avatars adaptable to different environments with the availability to speak up to eight different languages and capable to provide logic answers to questions asked. This technology underwent many prototypes with the latest specific goal to offer blended E-learning entering the field of the virtual 3-D university extending Web2.0 to Web3.0 (Dyson. 2009). Sir Tony included his vast experiences gained in his personal (teaching) work with children for which he received his knighthood. The data was mainly collected through interviews with Sir Tony Dyson, which helps discover the inventor’s view on why such technology is of advantage for academic studies. Based on interviews with Sir Tony, this research critically analyses the options, richness and restrictions, which avatar (iBot2000) technology may add to academic studies. The conclusion will discuss the opportunities, which avatar technology may be able to bring to learning and teaching activities, and the foreseeable limitations – the amount of resources required and the complexity to build a fully integrated virtual 3-D campus. Key Words: virtual learning, avatar technology, iBot2000, virtual universit

The Utilization of Virtual Reality for Commercial Purpose: Taking Television Broadcast Advertising as an Example

In general, current research suggests that virtual environments, compared to classical advertising media, provide users with a higher level of presence, more perceptual and psychological immersion. This paper reviews how virtual reality enables private companies and public organizations to support business advertising by creating new business opportunities and to promote more proactive service management by using television broadcast advertising as a medium. This, in turn, will have the effect of making him I her less aware of embedded persuasive message, which will thus have a moderating effect on various advertising-related outcomes, less advertising recall, but more positive brand attitude, and favorable purchase intention This paper that due to their specific character, integration, interactivity, hypermedia, immersive and narrative virtual environment could be a more effective persuasion charmel than classical advertising media. This is a momentum to see how far virtual reality is able to rival video in television advertising. Virtual reality has grown very well nowadays but the usage in society and in the business community is minimal. Therefore, by introducing virtual reality in new environment; advertising will create a new era, which provides technical foundation for the computer software and hardware that drives to the advertising environment. This project will be of interest to practitioners involved in virtual environment development in the television broadcast advertising. The scope of studies for this project covered the advertising, education, entertainment and human senses. All scopes are inter-related in this research. Rapid Application Development (RAD) has been chosen as a methodology of the project. This will be a useful finding for product in virtual reality advertising.

ENTERPRISE INFORMATION PORTALS VS. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE PORTALS

An "enterprise portal" a platform intranet access to corporatedata and system resource information together in one place.The enterprise portal is the gateway to the information systemof the enterprise for all staff and eventually partners. The issueof the portal is to seek to focus the user within the systemThe enterprise portal is the gateway to the data system Thisarticle's main objective is to develop a comprehensive anda balanced overview of the technical information portal andbusiness management knowledge, while showing how they arelikely to enhance productivity and accelerate innovation in theenterprise. Hummingbird hopes to help you identify many ofthe technologies that underpin the management of knowledge, while giving you a maximum element to support yourdecision-making process.On appelle "portail d'entreprise" une plate-forme intranetdonnant accès à des données de l'entreprise ainsi qu'à desressources du système d'information regroupées au sein d'uneinterface unique.Le portail d'entreprise est ainsi la porte d'entrée vers les données dusystème d'information de l'entreprise pour l'ensemble du personnelet éventuellement les partenaires. L'enjeu du portail est de chercherà centrer l'utilisateur au sein du système d'information.Ce article a pour principal objectif de dresser un panoramacomplet et équilibré des technologies de portail d'informationd'entreprise et de gestion de la connaissance, tout en montrant enquoi celles-ci sont susceptibles de renforcer la productivité etd'accélérer l'innovation dans l'entreprise. Hummingbird espère ainsivous aider à identifier un grand nombre des technologies qui soustendent la gestion de la connaissance, tout en vous procurant un maximum d'éléments d'appréciation pour appuyer votre processusdécisionnel

Moveable worlds/digital scenographies

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ Intellect Ltd 2010.The mixed reality choreographic installation UKIYO explored in this article reflects an interest in scenographic practices that connect physical space to virtual worlds and explore how performers can move between material and immaterial spaces. The spatial design for UKIYO is inspired by Japanese hanamichi and western fashion runways, emphasizing the research production company's commitment to various creative crossovers between movement languages, innovative wearable design for interactive performance, acoustic and electronic sound processing and digital image objects that have a plastic as well as an immaterial/virtual dimension. The work integrates various forms of making art in order to visualize things that are not in themselves visual, or which connect visual and kinaesthetic/tactile/auditory experiences. The ‘Moveable Worlds’ in this essay are also reflections of the narrative spaces, subtexts and auditory relationships in the mutating matrix of an installation-space inviting the audience to move around and follow its sensorial experiences, drawn near to the bodies of the dancers.Brunel University, the British Council, and the Japan Foundation

AtDelfi: Automatically Designing Legible, Full Instructions For Games

This paper introduces a fully automatic method for generating video game tutorials. The AtDELFI system (AuTomatically DEsigning Legible, Full Instructions for games) was created to investigate procedural generation of instructions that teach players how to play video games. We present a representation of game rules and mechanics using a graph system as well as a tutorial generation method that uses said graph representation. We demonstrate the concept by testing it on games within the General Video Game Artificial Intelligence (GVG-AI) framework; the paper discusses tutorials generated for eight different games. Our findings suggest that a graph representation scheme works well for simple arcade style games such as Space Invaders and Pacman, but it appears that tutorials for more complex games might require higher-level understanding of the game than just single mechanics.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, published at Foundations of Digital Games Conference 201

Opening new dimensions for e-Tourism

In this paper we describe an e-Tourism environment that takes a community-driven approach to foster a lively society of travelers who exchange travel experiences, recommend tourism destinations or just listen to catch some interesting gossip. Moreover, business transactions such as booking a trip or getting assistance from travel advisors or community members are constituent parts of this environment. All these happen in an integrated, game-like e-Business application where each e-Tourist is impersonated as an avatar. More precisely, we apply 3D Electronic Institutions, a framework developed and employed in the area of multi-agent systems, to the tourism domain. The system interface is realized by means of a 3D game engine that provides sophisticated 3D visualization and enables humans to interact with the environment. We present "itchy feet", a prototype implementing this 3D e-Tourism environment to showcase first visual impressions. This new environment is a perfect research playground for examining heterogeneous societies comprising humans and software agents, and their relationship in e-Tourism. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2006