Assessment of VR Technology and its Applications to Engineering Problems

Virtual reality applications are making valuable contributions to the field of product realization. This paper presents an assessment of the hardware and software capabilities of VR technology needed to support a meaningful integration of VR applications in the product life cycle analysis. Several examples of VR applications for the various stages of the product life cycle engineering are presented as case studies. These case studies describe research results, fielded systems, technical issues, and implementation issues in the areas of virtual design, virtual manufacturing, virtual assembly, engineering analysis, visualization of analysis results, and collaborative virtual environments. Current issues and problems related to the creation, use, and implementation of virtual environments for engineering design, analysis, and manufacturing are also discussed

Urban environments and new media : redefining a fitness facility through a technologically mediated space

Tese de mestrado. Multimédia. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201

Dance performance in cyberspace - transfer and transformation

The aim of this research undertaking is to understand the potential development of dance performance in the context of cyberculture, by examining the way practitioners use new media to create artworks that include audience participation, and by endeavouring in their theorization. With specific reference to cyberspace as a concept of electronic, networked and navigable space, the enquiry traces the connections such practices have with conventions of the medium of dance, which operate in its widely known condition as a live performing art. But acknowledgement that new media and new contexts of production and reception inform the characteristics of these artworks and their discursive articulation, in terms of the way people and digital technologies interact in contemporary culture, is a major principle to their analysis and evaluation. This qualitative research is based on case-study design as a means of finding pragmatic evidence in particulars, to illustrate abstract concepts, technological processes and aesthetic values that are underway in a new area of knowledge. The field where this research operates within is located by a mapping of published literature that informs a theoretical interdisciplinary framework, which contextualizes the interpretation of artworks. The selected case studies have been subject to a process of systematic and detailed analysis, entailed with a model devised for the purpose of this enquiry. From this undertaking it can be claimed that while an extensive array of technologies, media and interactive models is available in this field, the artists pursue a commitment to demonstrate their worth for specifically developing (new media) dance performance, and for dance performance to articulate technological and critical issues for cyberculture studies. The results of this enquiry also contribute to conceptual understanding of what dance can be, today, in the light of technological changes

Performance Through an Avatar: Exploring Affect and Ideology Through Narrative in Videogames

Videogames are a major source of popular cultural narratives surpassing even Hollywood films. Videogames, however, cast the player as the active agent within the narrative as opposed to film, television, and traditional theatre where the separation between performer and audience is clearly demarcated. This dissertation investigates the affective potential of videogames realized through the relationship of the player and the avatar within the game world. Specifically, I look at the avatar as an affective conduit for the player, how the feedback between the player and avatar creates a cybernetic relationship, how this relationship changes the player, and how this change potentially augments the players interpretation of realityvirtual and otherwise. It is through this changed (and augmented) interpretation of reality that socio/political ideological meaningsintentional or notmay be absorbed by the player. Ethnographic research conducted with six volunteer participants combined with my own autoethnographic research into several recent popular videogames is intersected with theories of affect, embodiment, and ideology. My findings suggest that experience with the virtual realities of game worlds is one step removed from actual experience. Since videogames are composed of representations, the ideological positions embedded within those representations are not simply presented and understood like traditional theatre, film, and television, but are embodied by the player through the avatar as (nearly direct) experience. Theatre, film, and television have rich critical histories and this study of the players performance through the avatar as an affective conduit and receiver/transmitter of ideology joins the growing critical body of work regarding the newer storytelling medium of videogames

Wastiary: A Bestiary of Waste

Wastiary, or Bestiary of Waste, is a creative exercise that occupies letters, numbers, and symbols of Western academic language to compose a list of 35 short entries on the uncomfortable but pressing topic of waste in the contemporary world. The collection is richly illustrated with artwork, photography, collage and mixed media. The book is a heterodox compendium of ‘beasts of waste’, playfully re-imagining the medieval treatise on various kinds of animal. It conveys the message that various forms of waste and pollution have achieved a beast-like or untameable quality, at times pungently transferring to considerations of ‘the human’, or humans treated as waste

The Role of Cybersecurity in the Public Sphere - The European Dimension

he aim of this paper is to present the areas in EU and domestic legal systems which cover currently applicable laws on cybersecurity and the related cyber-liability. Legal regulations related to cybersecurity that are currently in force embrace only a very narrow understanding of the notions of cyberspace and cybercrime. This paper aims to present those areas of the existing regulations in which the notions of cyber-liability have been preliminarily defined. Issues that are currently viewed as only marginally relevant to the functioning of states in the domain of cyberspace operations or artificial intelligence are also related to cyber-liability. The paper covers issues related to online platforms as well as the role of the state and public administration, network technologies and financial institutions in cybersecurity system especially from European perspective. It also investigates the issues related to strategic and political responsibility, cooperation mechanisms, obligations of telecommunication entrepreneurs, personal data and drone operations in public space. Part of the paper is also related to the movement of cultural assents, digital platforms, blocking injunctions and blocking access, threats of the cyberterrorism, cybersecurity, cybercrime in Hungary, including COVID-19 environment, as well as authorities competent for cybersecurity in Germany. This broad perspective is used to better understand regulatory purposes in European contexts to secure digital society development

Learning Race and Ethnicity: Hip-Hop 2.0

Part of the Volume on Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital Media In the twenty-first century, a hip hop music label becomes an indispensable source for learning: a young person's resource for information otherwise suppressed by industry regulation, federally censored, or not considered "news worthy" across corporate broadcast modes of distribution. This chapter, "Hip Hop 2.0," examines how hip hop music label Web sites (Guerrillafunk.com and Slamjamz.com) provide an educational space where young people can interact, learn, and discuss "real world" problems via their commitments to popular culture. These internet music labels "sell" more than music. They broaden how cultural entrepreneurial production and innovative citizen initiatives can be re-interpreted by non-broadcast based media, while constituting a counter-public sphere for political activism and learning through networked digital media. Through these practices, we may witness the realization of the Internet's democratizing possibility at a time when these freedoms are not ensured, both off and online