Cultural heritage communities: Technologies and challenges

This workshop will explore the role of technology support-ing and mediating cultural heritage practices for both pro-febional communities (cultural heritage profebionals, her-itage institutions, etc.) and civic communities (citizen-led heritage initiatives, heritage volunteers, personal and com-munity identified heritage, heritage crowdsourcing, etc.). The workshop-which aims to attract participants from her-itage studies and practice, community engagement, digital humanities and human-centred computing-will discub challenges and future opportunities for technology use and for design and participatory procebes in the context of var-ious heritage communities, and the role of different stake-holders in engaging with heritage in a technologically-mediated way

Embodiment of Wearable Augmented Reality Technology in Tourism Experiences

The increasing use of wearable devices for tourism purposes sets the stage for a critical discussion on technological mediation in tourism experience. This paper provides a theoretical reflection on the phenomenon of embodiment relation in technological mediation and then assesses the embodiment of wearable augmented reality technology in a tourism attraction. The findings suggest that technology embodiment is a multidimensional construct consisting of ownership, location, and agency. These support the concept of technology withdrawal, where technology disappears as it becomes part of human actions, and contest the interplay of subjectivity and intentionality between humans and technology in situated experiences such as tourism. It was also found that technology embodiment affects enjoyment and enhances experience with tourism attractions

Merging augmented reality based features in mobile multimedia museum guides

Augmented Reality (AR), a computer science field considered by many as a subfield of the broader concept of Mixed Reality, could alter dramatically the way we interact not only with computers but also with the real environment surrounding us, as well as with other human beings. Augmented Reality has so far been used for applications linked with military training, medicine, maintenance, architecture and urban planning, tourism, and entertainment. This last category embraces museums, considered by many not only as research and exhibition spaces but also as important informal learning environments. Does Augmented Reality has the potential to break into museum and exhibition environments and revolutionize the way we see, approach and comprehend the exposed exhibits, alongside with more traditional interpretation and communication methods? This presentation examines both the state of the art in Augmented Reality Applications for Cultural Heritage and Mobile Multimedia Guides for the museum setting, proposing an Augmented Reality approach for the last. A taxonomy of augmented and non augmented functions is proposed, aspects of the development are presented and reasons that could favor or slow down the integration of Augmented Reality in mobile museum guides are tackled down. The potential mutual benefits both for the Augmented Reality community as well as for cultural heritage professional are also presented briefly

A public 3D visualization tool for the ?Musée des Arts et Métiers de Paris?

A useful and durable construction of knowledge can sometimes be built upon the experience of discovering and the construction of a contextual awareness. In this article we present a tool to browse a catalog of 3D objects taken from the Muse des arts et métiers de Paris. The purpose of this multimedia kiosk is to enhance the visit experience by helping users to built meaningful relations between objects and domains. Users select subjects of interest during the visit by collecting cards placed beside the real objects in the muse- ums galleries. The cards are tagged with reactvision fiducial marks that enable the user to manipulate the 3D object representation on the screen. We present this tool and we focus more precisely on in- teraction issues both for individuals and groups in a public context and for a private use at home

Susceptibility to seasickness

This paper explains part of the observed variability in passenger illness ratings aboard ships by gender, age and sickness history. Within the framework of a European project, 2840 questionnaires, gathered on several ships operating all over Europe, were analysed. Gender, age and sickness history all had a highly significant effect on seasickness. Furthermore, these effects could be characterized by two fixed parameters describing a general age effect, a third parameter dependent on sickness history and a fourth parameter dependent on gender. Female illness ratings peaked at an age of 11 years, 1.5 times as high as male ratings, which peaked at an age of 21 years. At higher ages, illness ratings decrease to only 20% of their maximum, reducing gender differences to zero. Passengers with a previous history of seasickness rated their illness about two times higher than those who had not felt sick before