Enhanced reality live role playing

Live role-playing is a form of improvisational theatre played for the experience of the performers and without an audience. These games form a challenging application domain for ubiquitous technology. We discuss the design options for enhanced reality live role-playing and the role of technology in live role-playing games

Configuring the Ubiquitous Home

Abstract. This paper presents the development of a lightweight component model that allows user to manage the introduction and arrangement of new interactive services and devices in the home. Interaction techniques developed through userparticipation enable household members – rather than designers – to configure an

Windows on the World: An example of Augmented Virtuality

This work presents a system for creating augmented virtuality. We present a tool and methodology that can be used to create virtual worlds that are augmented by video textures taken of real world objects. These textures are images automatically extracted from images of real world scenes. The idea is to construct and update, in real time, a representation of the salient and relevant features of the real world. This idea has the advantage of constructing a virtual world that has the relevant data of the real world, but maintaining the flexibility of a virtual world. One advantage of the virtual-real world representation is that it is not dependent on physical location and can be manipulated in a way not subject to the temporal, spatial, and physical constraints found in the real world

Designing Leisure Applications for the Mundane Car-Commute.

Commuting by car from home to work can be very time consuming. We have conducted a study to explore what people are doing, and want to do, while commuting. People use their time in the car on a wide variety of activities with great innovation. There was no unanimous activity that everyone wanted, rather a wide variety of activities were requested. Three different categories of activity were identified which we refer to as mundane, vocational and traffic related. To demonstrate a possible IT service supporting commuters, a prototype based on speech output and a simple input mechanism from a wheel was developed. This service moves sampling of music from the conventional shop into the car. The prototype was informally tested with users, which resulted in a number of improvements. Preliminary user results indicate good functionality, a comprehensive interaction interface

IPerG position paper

Pervasive games are a radically _digital_ new game form that extends gaming experiences out into the physical world­ be it on city streets or in remote wilderness. Players equipped with handheld and wearable interfaces move through the world. Sensors capture information about their current context, including their location. The sensor info is used to deliver a gaming experience that changes according to where they are, what they are doing and even how they feel. Focus of pervasive games will be only the game play and not the device used as pervasive games will provide focus points where many media experiences can be integrated including TV, film, public events etc. The players are unchained from their console and provided with a gaming experience interwoven with the physical world, offering them gameplay that is potentially available at any place and any time. To achieve a high quality pervasive gameplay experience, new technologies and game design tools to support the creation of new compelling forms of content must be explored. Pervasive games have high educational and cultural potential, being able to reveal aspects of the culture and history of a given environment to visitors and residents alike

Reality Portals

Through interactive augmented virtuality we provide the ability to interactively explore a remote space inside a virtual environment. This paper presents a tool and technique that can be used to create such virtual worlds that are augmented by video textures taken of real world objects. The system constructs and updates, in near real-time, a representation of the user-defined salient and relevant features of the real world. This technique has the advantage of constructing a virtual world that contains the relevant video-data of the real world, while maintaining the flexibility of a virtual world. The virtual-real world representation is not dependent on physical location and can be manipulated in a way not subject to the temporal, spatial, and physical constraints found in the real world. Another advantage is that spatializing the video-data may afford more intuitive examination

Tangible handimation - real-time animation with a sequencer-based tangible interface.

In this paper, we present the development of Tangible Handimation, a sequencer-inspired animation system for recording and playback of whole or individual parts of animations through direct manipulation and tangible interfaces. The development of the system from a keyboard and mouse set-up, Handimation, is described including a workshop with professionals. Users reported the system as enabling real-time performances and making the animation process more democratic, and based upon their input support for imminent feed-forward information was added to the design

A toolkit for user re-configuration of ubiquitous domestic environments

This paper describes a distributed system with the aim to allow inhabitants to re-configure arrangements of devices and to understand the behaviour of these devices in tandem by making visible the various configurations. The purpose is to address the evolutionary nature of the domestic environments. We describe two different configuration facilities and the underlying infrastructure

Designing Ubiquitous Computing Games - A Report from a Workshop Exploring Ubiquitous Computing Entertainment

We report from a Research Atelier that explored how ubiquitous computing could be applied to fun and entertainment. The Atelier lasted for five days, starting with two days of scenario development and brainstorming activities. This led to three fairly concrete – though very different – game ideas. The background and motivation for the Atelier is described, as well as the method used and the games developed