The Future of the Internet III

Presents survey results on technology experts' predictions on the Internet's social, political, and economic impact as of 2020, including its effects on integrity and tolerance, intellectual property law, and the division between personal and work lives

Mobile virtual worlds

This thesis examines the role of mobile access to virtual worlds in massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG:s). Online gaming worlds have existed for decades, but ever since the smartphone has become more common, new interaction possibilities to these worlds have emerged. We have conducted a literature review to clarify existing gaps in the research community regarding mobile virtual worlds. Through this review, we have constructed a research model containing previously established motivation factors for MMORPG:s, interconnected with possible categories of how to improve the game experience with mobile features. An online survey on this topic was sent out to World of Warcraft players and the results show that many aspects of gameplay through mobile access could improve the gaming experience of virtual gaming worlds. The responses showed very mixed feelings about using many game features from the mobile phone, especially those that tie in with real life. An important finding among the results is the strong reluctance among the players to pay extra money for the addition of mobile access to the virtual world, and a low motivation to use synchronous gameplay features via a mobile computing device

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Metaverse

Non peer reviewe

Examining the role of smart TVs and VR HMDs in synchronous at-a-distance media consumption

This article examines synchronous at-a-distance media consumption from two perspectives: How it can be facilitated using existing consumer displays (through TVs combined with smartphones), and imminently available consumer displays (through virtual reality (VR) HMDs combined with RGBD sensing). First, we discuss results from an initial evaluation of a synchronous shared at-a-distance smart TV system, CastAway. Through week-long in-home deployments with five couples, we gain formative insights into the adoption and usage of at-a-distance media consumption and how couples communicated during said consumption. We then examine how the imminent availability and potential adoption of consumer VR HMDs could affect preferences toward how synchronous at-a-distance media consumption is conducted, in a laboratory study of 12 pairs, by enhancing media immersion and supporting embodied telepresence for communication. Finally, we discuss the implications these studies have for the near-future of consumer synchronous at-a-distance media consumption. When combined, these studies begin to explore a design space regarding the varying ways in which at-a-distance media consumption can be supported and experienced (through music, TV content, augmenting existing TV content for immersion, and immersive VR content), what factors might influence usage and adoption and the implications for supporting communication and telepresence during media consumption

Optimal configuration of active and backup servers for augmented reality cooperative games

Interactive applications as online games and mobile devices have become more and more popular in recent years. From their combination, new and interesting cooperative services could be generated. For instance, gamers endowed with Augmented Reality (AR) visors connected as wireless nodes in an ad-hoc network, can interact with each other while immersed in the game. To enable this vision, we discuss here a hybrid architecture enabling game play in ad-hoc mode instead of the traditional client-server setting. In our architecture, one of the player nodes also acts as the server of the game, whereas other backup server nodes are ready to become active servers in case of disconnection of the network i.e. due to low energy level of the currently active server. This allows to have a longer gaming session before incurring in disconnections or energy exhaustion. In this context, the server election strategy with the aim of maximizing network lifetime is not so straightforward. To this end, we have hence analyzed this issue through a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model and both numerical and simulation-based analysis shows that the backup servers solution fulfills its design objective

Landscape Study in Wireless and Mobile Learning in the post-16 sector

In the post-16 sector (further and higher education, and adult and community learning) there is a need to understand how wireless and mobile technologies can contribute to improving the student experience of learning, and help institutions fulfil their missions in an age of incomparably fast technological change. In the context of this interest and growing need, a Landscape Study project was commissioned by JISC through the Innovation strand of the JISC e-Learning Programme in 2004-5. Our project aims were to take a birds-eye view of developments and practice in the UK and internationally, and to communicate our findings to a broad and varied audience. The Summary report is accompanied by 3 associated reports on 'Current Uses', 'Potential Uses' and 'Strategic Aspects'. (The four reports are available in one single document here.

Architecture landscape

The network architecture evolution journey will carry on in the years ahead, driving a large scale adoption of 5th Generation (5G) and 5G-Advanced use cases with significantly decreased deployment and operational costs, and enabling new and innovative use-case-driven solutions towards 6th Generation (6G) with higher economic and societal values. The goal of this chapter, thus, is to present the envisioned societal impact, use cases and the End-to-End (E2E) 6G architecture. The E2E 6G architecture includes summarization of the various technical enablers as well as the system and functional views of the architecture

From hybrid space to dislocated space: Mobile virtual reality and a third stage of mobile media theory

Research in the field of mobile communication studies (MCS) has generally moved away from focusing on how mobile phones distract users from their physical environment to considering how the experience of space and place can be enhanced by locative smartphone applications. This article argues that trajectory may be complicated by the emergence of a new type of mobile technology: mobile virtual reality (MVR). While an increasing number of handsets are specifically developed with MVR in mind, there is little to no research that situates this phenomenon within the continuum of MCS. The intention of this paper is accordingly twofold. First, the article conceptualizes MVR as a connective tissue between the two sequential tropes of MCS: physical distraction and spatial enhancement. Second, the article introduces the concept of ‘dislocated space’ as a way of understanding the embodied space MVR might configure

The Metaverse: Survey, Trends, Novel Pipeline Ecosystem & Future Directions

The Metaverse offers a second world beyond reality, where boundaries are non-existent, and possibilities are endless through engagement and immersive experiences using the virtual reality (VR) technology. Many disciplines can benefit from the advancement of the Metaverse when accurately developed, including the fields of technology, gaming, education, art, and culture. Nevertheless, developing the Metaverse environment to its full potential is an ambiguous task that needs proper guidance and directions. Existing surveys on the Metaverse focus only on a specific aspect and discipline of the Metaverse and lack a holistic view of the entire process. To this end, a more holistic, multi-disciplinary, in-depth, and academic and industry-oriented review is required to provide a thorough study of the Metaverse development pipeline. To address these issues, we present in this survey a novel multi-layered pipeline ecosystem composed of (1) the Metaverse computing, networking, communications and hardware infrastructure, (2) environment digitization, and (3) user interactions. For every layer, we discuss the components that detail the steps of its development. Also, for each of these components, we examine the impact of a set of enabling technologies and empowering domains (e.g., Artificial Intelligence, Security & Privacy, Blockchain, Business, Ethics, and Social) on its advancement. In addition, we explain the importance of these technologies to support decentralization, interoperability, user experiences, interactions, and monetization. Our presented study highlights the existing challenges for each component, followed by research directions and potential solutions. To the best of our knowledge, this survey is the most comprehensive and allows users, scholars, and entrepreneurs to get an in-depth understanding of the Metaverse ecosystem to find their opportunities and potentials for contribution