From Word Play to World Play: Introducing Humor in Human-Computer Interaction

Humor is important in our life, whether it is at home, at work, or in public spaces. Smart technology is increasingly becoming part of our daily life. Can smart technology, sensors and actuators, not only be used to introduce smartness in our environments, but also to introduce amusement? So far understanding of humor has escaped algorithmic approaches. Nevertheless, humor research knowledge is available and is increasing. First philosophers, then psychologists, then linguists and AI researchers made humor topic of their research. The aim of this paper is to introduce humor research to the human-computer interaction community. In particular we look at how our digitally enhanced physical worlds, or smart environments, can facilitate humor creation

Virtual University of Arkansas Campus

The aim of the Virtual Campus project is to develop a way to automate building 3D virtual worlds using map and other data from the real world. A demonstration presented in this BS honors thesis uses automated tools to build the University of Arkansas campus from data supplied by the UA Center for Advanced Spatial Technology (CAST). At present, in virtual worlds like Second Life and Unity, terraforming of terrain is a manual process, and it can take days to weeks to build a landscape. But by using existing map data, we are now able to automate that process. Working with my Andrew Tackett and Jonathan Holt in our senior design project, we created a script (program) which will take height map data in .raw format and texture data in photographic format and which uses this data, along with functions built into the Unity API, to create a terrain with the proper heights and textures. A second script that I developed for this thesis allows a user to identify certain colored regions as buildings. The script then populates the regions defined as buildings with “sugar cube†buildings (white blocks), which the user can keep, remove, or replace at their discretion. The end result is a 3D landscape that avatars can visit. The design enables users to further populate the virtual campus by replacing the “sugar cube†buildings with their own more detailed 3D building models, created using outside programs. Using such an environment, students can go to a virtual class or meet together at a virtual union. At present, many virtual campuses exist in Second Life, but none that we know of accurately reflect the geography of their campus

The Metaverse evolution: Toward Future Digital Twin Campuses

The term 'Metaverse' has been used to refer to the next generation Internet (NextG). New, developing, and recently innovation technologies have enabled the incorporation of digital twins into education's metaverse. This is a shared virtual area that combines all virtual worlds over the Internet. This will enable users represented by digital avatars to interact and cooperate as if they were in the physical world. While the metaverse may seem futuristic, it is accelerating because of emerging technologies such as AI and Extended Reality. This paper explores the technologies utilised to build the metaverse and practical applications on improving the educational experience and offer value by optimising how students are taught. Thus, we shall study in detail eight enabling technologies that are important for the Metaverse ecosystem: Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality. Autonomy of Avatar, Computer Agent, and Digital Twin. Data Storage, Data sharing and Data interoperability. This article will discuss prospective metaverse technology and its difficulties. Finally, we have looked at societal acceptance, privacy, and security challenge

"Not for me personally, but…" : Players' reactions and thoughts on attempt at inclusiveness in game design

Different studies have assessed, in the past, the potential effects of showcasing inclusiveness of different identities in popular media. Those research often about TV series and movies, have shown the media’s potential to “participate in the construction of the imagined community, the nation, and the membership of that nation” (Nikunen, 2013, p. 307). However, too few of those studies concern video games, even though the relevance of researching that form of media is growing incessantly along with its popularity. The recent events of Gamergate and other criticism in the last years also highlighted that need. In the last years, some members of the gaming industries, touched by the awareness-raising campaigns on the potential effects of representation – or lack thereof – in video games, have attempted to improve the inclusiveness in their designs. That is the case of the Blizzard team creating the first person shooter Overwatch. Jeff Kaplan, Overwatch’s game director, has been explicit about the developers intend to send a message of “inclusiveness and open mindedness” through their game design (Kaplan, 2017), which is why the game was selected for the present research. This thesis includes theory drawn from social sciences concerning representation, visuality, and media effect. As the subject of analysis is a video game, a part of the theory comes also from the field of game research: game analysis essentials, and the notion of the transformativity of games. This basis allows a short analysis of the game Overwatch in order to evaluate partially the inclusiveness and the type of representation observable in the game. How are players reflecting on and reacting to developers’ attempt at inclusive design in the video game Overwatch? To answer the question, in-depth interviews were led with active players of the game. The participants told their first reactions to the game, then expressed their thoughts about the game’s level of inclusiveness, the necessity of that inclusiveness, and the potential effects it could have on themselves or other players. Their answers were compiled and analysed. Although the scope of this work doesn’t allow definite conclusions, it has been found that the interviews are welcoming the inclusiveness in the game Overwatch. Some of them were even to see more diverse representation added to it in the future. Most of the players are however making the distinction between Overwatch and other genre of games, saying that such inclusiveness should not be required from the developers, but encouraged; the participants give value to the developers’ creative freedom and don’t want to see it hindered by pressure from critics. Regarding the potential effects of the game’s values on the players, the participants were mostly unsure about the possibility at first. Yet, towards the end of the interview, as they became more comfortable, some of them shared personal experiences of media effect from Overwatch. Those testimonies were especially interesting as they are comparable to Bandura’s social cognitive theory, which is discussed in the thesis (Bandura, 1977; Kirsch, 2010). The results of this study invite interested researchers to investigate further in that direction

Playful Materialities

Game culture and material culture have always been closely linked. Analog forms of rule-based play (ludus) would hardly be conceivable without dice, cards, and game boards. In the act of free play (paidia), children as well as adults transform simple objects into multifaceted toys in an almost magical way. Even digital play is suffused with material culture: Games are not only mediated by technical interfaces, which we access via hardware and tangible peripherals. They are also subject to material hybridization, paratextual framing, and processes of de-, and re-materialization

Playful Materialities: The Stuff That Games Are Made Of

Game culture and material culture have always been closely linked. Analog forms of rule-based play (ludus) would hardly be conceivable without dice, cards, and game boards. In the act of free play (paidia), children as well as adults transform simple objects into multifaceted toys in an almost magical way. Even digital play is suffused with material culture: Games are not only mediated by technical interfaces, which we access via hardware and tangible peripherals. They are also subject to material hybridization, paratextual framing, and processes of de-, and re-materialization

Playful Materialities

Game culture and material culture have always been closely linked. Analog forms of rule-based play (ludus) would hardly be conceivable without dice, cards, and game boards. In the act of free play (paidia), children as well as adults transform simple objects into multifaceted toys in an almost magical way. Even digital play is suffused with material culture: Games are not only mediated by technical interfaces, which we access via hardware and tangible peripherals. They are also subject to material hybridization, paratextual framing, and processes of de-, and re-materialization