Towards virtual communities on the Web: Actors and audience

We report about ongoing research in a virtual reality environment where visitors can interact with agents that help them to obtain information, to perform certain transactions and to collaborate with them in order to get some tasks done. Our environment models a theatre in our hometown. We discuss attempts to let this environment evolve into a theatre community where we do not only have goal-directed visitors, but also visitors that that are not sure whether they want to buy or just want information or visitors who just want to look around. It is shown that we need a multi-user and multiagent environment to realize our goals. Since our environment models a theatre it is also interesting to investigate the roles of performers and audience in this environment. For that reason we discuss capabilities and personalities of agents. Some notes on the historical development of networked communities are included

A conceptual framework for interactive virtual storytelling

This paper presents a framework of an interactive storytelling system. It can integrate five components: management centre, evaluation centre, intelligent virtual agent, intelligent virtual environment, and users, making possible interactive solutions where the communication among these components is conducted in a rational and intelligent way. Environment plays an important role in providing heuristic information for agents through communicating with the management centre. The main idea is based on the principle of heuristic guiding of the behaviour of intelligent agents for guaranteeing the unexpectedness and consistent themes

Agents for educational games and simulations

This book consists mainly of revised papers that were presented at the Agents for Educational Games and Simulation (AEGS) workshop held on May 2, 2011, as part of the Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized topical sections on middleware applications, dialogues and learning, adaption and convergence, and agent applications

Specification Techniques for Multi-Modal Dialogues in the U-Wish Project

In this paper we describe the development of a specification\ud technique for specifying interactive web-based services. We\ud wanted to design a language that can be a means of\ud communication between designers and developers of interactive services, that makes it easier to develop web-based services fitted to the users and that shortens the pathway from design to implementation. The language, still under development, is based on process algebra and can be\ud connected to the results of task analysis. We have been\ud working on the automatic generation of executable prototypes\ud out of the specifications. In this way the specification\ud language can establish a connection between users, design\ud and implementation. A first version of this language is\ud available as well as prototype tools for executing the specifications. Ideas will be given as to how to make the connection between specifications and task analysis

A framework for realistic 3D tele-immersion

Meeting, socializing and conversing online with a group of people using teleconferencing systems is still quite differ- ent from the experience of meeting face to face. We are abruptly aware that we are online and that the people we are engaging with are not in close proximity. Analogous to how talking on the telephone does not replicate the experi- ence of talking in person. Several causes for these differences have been identified and we propose inspiring and innova- tive solutions to these hurdles in attempt to provide a more realistic, believable and engaging online conversational expe- rience. We present the distributed and scalable framework REVERIE that provides a balanced mix of these solutions. Applications build on top of the REVERIE framework will be able to provide interactive, immersive, photo-realistic ex- periences to a multitude of users that for them will feel much more similar to having face to face meetings than the expe- rience offered by conventional teleconferencing systems

Liberate your avatar; the revolution will be social networked

This paper brings together the practice-based creative research of artists Charlotte Gould and Paul Sermon, culminating in a collaborative interactive installation that investigates new forms of social and political narrative in multi-user virtual environments. The authors' artistic projects deal with the ironies and stereotypes that are found within Second Life in particular. Paul Sermon’s current creative practice looks specifically at the concepts of presence and performance within Second Life and 'first life', and attempts to bridge these two spaces through mixed reality techniques and interfaces. Charlotte Gould’s Ludic Second Life Narrative radically questions the way that users embody themselves in on-line virtual environments and identifies a counter-aesthetic that challenges the conventions of digital realism and consumerism. These research activities and outcomes come together within a collaborative site-specific public installation entitled Urban Intersections for ISEA09, focusing on contested virtual spaces that mirror the social and political history of Belfast. The authors' current collaborative practice critically investigates social, cultural and creative interactions in Second Life. Through these practice-based experiments the authors' argue that an enhanced social and cultural discourse within multi-user virtual environments will inevitably lead to growth, cohesion and public empowerment, and like all social networking platforms, contribute to greater social and political change in first life