Recover:designing a videogame to assist with recovery from PTSD

Recover is a game prototype that was developed to explore the potential of videogames to provide users recovering from PTSD with an alternative form of immersive self-help. The game is presented as a playable concept that focuses on mindfulness techniques whilst aiming to engage and retain users. The concept also includes a companion application for mobile, whilst the main videogame has been designed for use with Virtual Reality (VR) headsets

Designing for frustration and disputes in the family car

This article appears with the express permission of the publisher, IGI Global.Families spend an increasing amount of time in the car carrying out a number of activities including driving to work, caring for children and co-ordinating drop-offs and pickups. While families travelling in cars may face stress from difficult road conditions, they are also likely to be frustrated by coordinating a number of activities and resolving disputes within the confined space of car. A rising number of in-car infotainment and driver-assistance systems aim to help reduce the stress from outside the vehicle and improve the experience of driving but may fail to address sources of stress from within the car. From ethnographic studies of family car journeys, we examine the work of parents in managing multiple stresses while driving, along with the challenges of distractions from media use in the car. Keeping these family extracts as a focus for analysis, we draw out some design considerations that help build on the observations from our empirical work.Microsoft Research and the Dorothy Hodgkin Awar

CHORUS Deliverable 4.5: Report of the 3rd CHORUS Conference

The third and last CHORUS conference on Multimedia Search Engines took place from the 26th to the 27th of May 2009 in Brussels, Belgium. About 100 participants from 15 European countries, the US, Japan and Australia learned about the latest developments in the domain. An exhibition of 13 stands presented 16 research projects currently ongoing around the world