The Mixed Reality Lab (MXR) aims to push the boundaries of research into interactive new media technologies through the combination of technology, art, and creativity.
Ars Futura: The Art and Design of Our Digital Futures
Moderator: Scott Fisher Panelists: Adrian David Cheok, Dooeun Choi, Alex McDowell
Please join the University of Southern California at the 2013 USC Global Conference in Seoul, South Korea, taking place May 23-25, 2013. The conference will take place at the Grand Hyatt Seoul and will reflect on the interrelated themes of science, technology and health; global business, international stability and the rule of law; and education, the arts and cultural institutions.
via tumblr http://adriancheok.info/post/50980515770
On the 17th of May we will organize the next TEDxBarcelona event with live speakers presenting great ideas. The theme will be: The future of technology and society. It will take place at CosmoCaixa in Barcelona from 14:00 until 20:00. Most of the talks will be presented in english.
Editors in Chief: Zhigeng Pan, Adrian David Cheok, Wolfgang Mueller
This special issue consists of two parts: the first one features original research papers on interactive digital storytelling in the applied context of edutainment; the second part contains a selection of revised and expanded best papers from the 4th eLearning Baltics (eLBa 2011) conference. The papers on digital storytelling have been split into sections on theory, technology, and case studies; the eLBA 2011 conference papers deal with technology and applications, case studies and mobile applications, and game-based learning and social media.
via tumblr http://adriancheok.info/post/50260931247
Online chat with only voice or video is outdated! Now you’re able to hug, kiss, smell, or even taste your buddies remotely! Following Adrian, we experienced a fascinating multisensory tour.
The tour started with his early study, the Real World Pacman. With a pair of glasses, real humans become Pacman picking up cookies on the real world streets. But this is just a warm-up. Buckle up, more surprises are coming!
Following the first sense, sight, one of Adrian’s students using sound transformed a regular umbrella into a katana! Different sound effects are displayed by swinging the umbrella in different ways. Certain movement combinations can trigger special sound effects, such as explosion. Added only sound, an umbrella can have much more fun!
The presentation gradually came to its upsurge when the sense of touch was brought up. With a jacket, or just a ring, you can give your loved one a remote hug. As reported by IEEE Spectrum, Adrian is making a huggable Internet! In fact, it’s not just huggable, but also kissable! Kissenger really blew away everybody’s mind last night.
The tour didn’t stop at the sense of touch. It continued blowing everyone further away by digital smell and electrical and thermal taste.
Now with these possibilities, how can we incorporate all five senses into online teaching and learning? Maybe an online “better kisser” course is a good start? The stimulated audience had very inspiring and funny chats too. This session is definitely this year’s “must attend” one! The public can access a recording of the session here: http://squirrel.adobeconnect.com/p86lgb32brf/
via tumblr http://adriancheok.info/post/49272316819
Adrian David Cheok Professor, Graduate School of Media Design Keio University, Tokyo, Japan will give a speech at Multisensory Internet Learning Using Five SensesTechnology, Colleges, and Community Online Conference
Description: New facilities are arising in the hyper-connected internet era within human media spaces. As a result, new types of communication environments using all the senses (including touch, taste, and smell) can be developed which can increase support for multi-person multi-modal interaction and remote presence. In this alternative computing environment and space based on an integrated design of real and virtual worlds there are different research prototype systems for interactive communication and possibilities for new collaborative internet learning using all of our senses. This allows interaction between humans and their avatars with the aim of novel interactive communication and entertainment.
via tumblr http://adriancheok.info/post/47763605840
Inventor, scientist and professor Adrian Cheok will join us from his lab in Japan to talk about how he sees education changing and how we have to be prepared for a very different future and generation.
via tumblr http://adriancheok.info/post/46582661014
Our project “RingU” is on Camp-Fire! (Japanese version of Kickstarter). Please support our project on Campfire. We appreciate any support no matter how big or small.
World’s first tele-hug ring: With RingU you can give your boyfriend, girlfriend, or best friend a remote hug no matter how far you are from each other.
1) What kinds of technologies realise the ‘reality-virtuality coexistence’ in our daily life?
- Adrian:A process of hyperconnectivity, afforded by such technologies as cloud computing and social media is merging the physical reality and digitaldata.
- Howard: Fundamentally we are talking about video, mobility and cloud. This presumes affordable broadband services with infinite bandwidth.
- Genevieve: It’s more about the experiences supported/enabled by various technologies (e.g. mobile phones, social networks) than technologies themselves. In fact, experiencing virtual worlds is not strictly about technologies- take religious rituals for example.
2) Where is this zeitgeist heading and how will they shape our future?
- Adrian: in a direction that encompasses more of our senses and feelings. Our social networks may extend beyond humans to an emotional/non-verbal communication between humans, their environments, devices and objects.
- Howard: mixed reality technologies will be applied more extensively to the such areas – but not limited to – as virtual training, immersive teaching/learning. These virtual reality-supported learning experiences will increase competence, success and well being in many of our activities.
- Genevieve: The ways for ‘social networking’ will become more diversified,and new modes of digitally enhanced social engagements will continue to emerge. Cultural, social and regulatory frameworks will play an important role in this process.
3) How we can make AR/MR become more humanised and sustainable?
- Adrian: The use of visual, auditory, haptic, olfactory and gustatory senses will enable a new paradigm of more humanised telecommunication. This field has a long way to go, but it would be especially interesting to see how children will grasp these technologies to create value.
- Howard:Are AR/MR technologies about creating alternative realities or enhancing the ‘real world’? – it should be about extending and enhancing our physical world. When used for learning and training, AR/MR can prove to be powerful tools for creativity, innovation, collaboration and productivity.
- Genevieve: We are moving from command-control interactions with technology to possibilities of forming ‘relationships’ with them. Siri for example promises to ‘listen’ and gives us a sense of being taken care of. We might imagine a relationship in which humans and technologies are effectively bound to each other.
via tumblr http://adriancheok.info/post/44447414079
Adrian David Cheok, an Australian who is now a professor at Keio University in Tokyo, is one of the journal’s founders. The way he sees it, the internet has already helped bring people closer together. But it’s an experience limited by the fact that the internet currently only interacts with two of our senses: sight and sound. Anyone who has been brought back to childhood by a smell, or been comforted by a hug or touch — in other words, pretty much everyone — knows how powerful such senses can be.
“Actually, physically it’s also been shown that the smell and taste senses are directly connected to the limbic system of our brain. The limbic system of our brain is responsible for emotion and memory. Unlike the visual sense, which basically gets processed by visual cortex and then the frontal lobe, which is higher-order, logical part, we have direct connection between smell and taste and the emotional and memory part of our brain,” Cheok says.
“So much of our lives now is online, but still I think a lot of us will agree it’s so different than meeting someone face-to-face. You have all these different physical communications that we can’t capture now through an audio/visual screen,” he says. “Essentially I’m really interested in [whether we can] merge all of our five senses of human communication with the internet — with the virtual world. That’s what I call ‘mixed reality’.”
Robotics plays a key role in making that a reality, through what is known as telepresence. Basically, it means transmitting actions into a robotic surrogate somewhere else. This can be fairly simple, Cheok says. Cheok and his students have already developed a ring worn on the finger that can deliver a gentle squeeze from a loved one, via a smart phone app. A student of Cheok’s has recently commercially released a vest that can transmit hugs, which is proving useful for calming autistic children. Cheok’s engineers are working on systems to transmit taste, via electrical impulses to the tongue, as well as smell, either via electrical stimulation or the release of chemicals.
The goal further down the track will be the creation of robotic avatars — representations or embodiments of people, though not necessarily made to look like them. To start with, these will be soft, fluffy and not particularly complex. For example, we could transmit our presence into a pillow or teddy bear. But as the endeavours of such scientists as Hiroshi Ishiguro progress, the creation of human-like surrogates will become possible.
“We’re definitely getting there… The rate of change of technology is exponential. What before maybe we thought would take 50 years now takes 5 or 10. I don’t think it’s going to be very far off when we have humanoid robots. They may be expensive at first,” Cheok says.
“I think at that stage, we can have virtual avatars; virtual robots which then, for example, [let you] be in Tokyo or Sydney and give a conference in Los Angeles. You don’t have to fly there. Your robot can be there.”
If there’s one major obstacle in the way of Japan’s projected robo-utopia, it’s the country’s economic situation. Japan has been in a state of economic malaise for more than two decades, and memories of the robot-supported boom years are fading. Neither the companies likely to do the research nor the Japanese government are as flush with cash as they used to be.
One of Japan’s major strengths — its peacenik constitution — has also proved to be a weakness. In the United States, the massive military-industrial complex has marshalled resources to create some truly impressive machinery; drones, for example, have been developed to meet guaranteed demand from government agencies. In Japan, however, there is little co-ordination between different institutions and industries, explains Nishida of Kyoto University.
“People are just interested in working on small parts of the problem, rather than looking at the whole,” Nishida says. While some work on artificial intelligence, others are focussed on the outer physical appearance of robots. With co-ordination and plenty of funding, a fairly complete intelligent android could be built within the next decade or two, he says. Under current conditions, it will probably take longer.
But the consensus is that such robots are coming, and that they will most likely be made first in Japan.
Cheok, of Keio University, says he’s not convinced we’ll produce thinking, feeling, conscious robots until at least the middle of the century, if at all. But he is certain we’re heading towards a loving technological future.
Thanks to their Shinto beliefs, the Japanese have fewer cultural barriers standing in the way of forming close emotional bonds with machines. But as robots become smarter and better looking, he says many more people of other cultures will become ensnared.
“I think the thing is that we already develop bonding with not very intelligent beings. As a kid you might have kept a pet hamster or pet mouse. They’re not actually so intelligent. But I think that a kid can even cry when the hamster dies,” he says.
“I’m not a biologist. I don’t know why we developed empathy but I’m sure there’s an important evolutionary reason why we developed empathy. That empathy doesn’t just stop at human beings. We can develop empathy for small creatures and animals. I don’t think the leap is very far where you can develop empathy for robots.”
via tumblr http://adriancheok.info/post/43648610982
Paper, as a traditional material for art and communication, shows great potential as a medium for organic user interfaces, with its ubiquity and flexibility. However, controlling and powering the sensors and actuators that enable interactive paper-crafts has not been fully explored. We present a method of selective inductive power transmission (SIPT) to support interactive paper-crafts. The novelty of this method is that the power transmitter can be controlled to selectively activate one specific receiver at a time through inductive power transferring with multiple receivers. This was achieved by changing the output frequency of the power transmitter to match the impedance of the receivers. The receivers could be embedded or printed to drive paper-crafts. Based on inductor–capacitor oscillating circuit and a function generator with a power amplifier, we developed two different prototypes of SIPT. By comparing the performance of both prototypes, we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the two systems, and their applications in different contexts of paper-crafts. In addition, we proposed the instructions for using SIPT in developing interactive paper-crafts. With this technology and instructions, we hope to facilitate users to easily design new types of paper-craft systems without being concerned about the arrangement of wire connections to power supply on a massive scale.
via tumblr http://adriancheok.info/post/43499096553
In this paper, we present a synergy of technology and traditional craft made possible with AmbiKraf Byobu. AmbiKraf is a non-emissive, color-changing fabric technology that allows subtle animations on fabrics. Byobu is a traditional Japanese room-divider screen, usually painted by artisans and crafts people. We first discuss the organic qualities of AmbiKraf technology that particularly lend itself to traditional art and craft practice. These qualities include the animation of ambient, non-intrusive and calming motifs using non-emissive display characteristics. We then discuss in detail how AmbiKraf technology is implemented and paired with the art form of Byobu. Interaction with the system is also briefly touched upon, as well as discussion regarding the cultural implications and mutual benefit of combining technology with traditional craft. Through the use of AmbiKraf technology embodied by the Byobu, we hope to provide a convincing example that sensitively combines traditional textile crafts with new technology in order to help redefine the meaning and role of traditional textiles.
via tumblr http://adriancheok.info/post/43478030448
World Economic Forum 2012 – A Game Changing Year (by YGL Alumni). Young Global Leader Adrian David Cheok is interviewed about Augmented Reality as a Game Changer in 2012. Other interviewees in the video include Aung San Suu Kyi, Ian Solomon (World Bank), Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Salman Khan (Khan Academy),
via tumblr http://adriancheok.info/post/41878435406
Yongsoon Choi (Ph.D candidate, Supervisor: Adrian David Cheok) is one of the winners of Interaction 13 Student Design Challenge. He will be awarded a prize by Interaction and Experience Research (IXR) at Intel Labs and the IxDA.
About Interaction 13 Each year, the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) holds a conference that draws thousands of interaction designers from around the globe. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the IxDA and its 6th annual conference- Interaction13. The world’s largest Interaction Design conference touches down in Toronto from January 27th-31st in this year.
PlayfulTechnology This year, Interaction and Experience Research (IXR) at Intel Labs and the IxDA wanted applicants to explore the experience implications of “playful technology.” Considering the paradigm shifts in what technology means and how we interact with it and building on the work that Intel Labs has been doing around the changing relationships we have with technology.
Extract: With the continuous advancements in computing and media, technology has widened to include multi-sensory experiences in remote interactions. Using electrical, thermal, and magnetic stimulation technologies we are currently experimenting on reproducing smell and taste sensations digitally. As a fundamental aim of this research, we will develop novel user interfaces that empower people’s life with digitized taste and smell communication capabilities. This research will generate important avenues for further research areas using smell and taste based interactions and new media. As the ultimate goal of this project we will develop devices which could actuate taste and smell sensations digitally through the Internet.
We will need to develop new protocols to codify these sensations as well as how to transmit them over the internet. New interfaces for how to send and receive these kinds of sensations will have to be designed. We hope that this will open the doors to new paradigms in human-computer interface design and new fields of research in academia.
via tumblr http://adriancheok.info/post/40775226310
20th April 2013 11:45 – 12:15 HOW WILL EDUCATION CHANGE?
Inventor, scientist and professor Adrian Cheok will join us from his lab in Japan to talk about how he sees education changing and how we have to be prepared for a very different future and generation.
via tumblr http://www.adriancheok.info/post/46582661014
Our project “RingU” is on Camp-Fire! (Japanese version of Kickstarter). Please support our project on Campfire. We appreciate any support no matter how big or small.
World’s first tele-hug ring: With RingU you can give your boyfriend, girlfriend, or best friend a remote hug no matter how far you are from each other.
1) What kinds of technologies realise the ‘reality-virtuality coexistence’ in our daily life?
- Adrian:A process of hyperconnectivity, afforded by such technologies as cloud computing and social media is merging the physical reality and digitaldata.
- Howard: Fundamentally we are talking about video, mobility and cloud. This presumes affordable broadband services with infinite bandwidth.
- Genevieve: It’s more about the experiences supported/enabled by various technologies (e.g. mobile phones, social networks) than technologies themselves. In fact, experiencing virtual worlds is not strictly about technologies- take religious rituals for example.
2) Where is this zeitgeist heading and how will they shape our future?
- Adrian: in a direction that encompasses more of our senses and feelings. Our social networks may extend beyond humans to an emotional/non-verbal communication between humans, their environments, devices and objects.
- Howard: mixed reality technologies will be applied more extensively to the such areas – but not limited to – as virtual training, immersive teaching/learning. These virtual reality-supported learning experiences will increase competence, success and well being in many of our activities.
- Genevieve: The ways for ‘social networking’ will become more diversified,and new modes of digitally enhanced social engagements will continue to emerge. Cultural, social and regulatory frameworks will play an important role in this process.
3) How we can make AR/MR become more humanised and sustainable?
- Adrian: The use of visual, auditory, haptic, olfactory and gustatory senses will enable a newparadigm of more humanised telecommunication. This field has a long way to go, but it would be especially interesting to see how children will grasp these technologies to create value.
- Howard:Are AR/MR technologies about creating alternative realities or enhancing the ‘real world’? – it should be about extending and enhancing our physical world. When used for learning and training, AR/MR can prove to be powerful tools for creativity, innovation, collaboration and productivity.
- Genevieve: We are moving from command-controlinteractions with technology to possibilities of forming ‘relationships’ with them. Siri for example promises to ‘listen’ and gives us a sense of being taken care of. We might imagine a relationship in which humans and technologies are effectively bound to each other.
via tumblr http://www.adriancheok.info/post/44447414079
Adrian David Cheok, an Australian who is now a professor at Keio University in Tokyo, is one of the journal’s founders. The way he sees it, the internet has already helped bring people closer together. But it’s an experience limited by the fact that the internet currently only interacts with two of our senses: sight and sound. Anyone who has been brought back to childhood by a smell, or been comforted by a hug or touch — in other words, pretty much everyone — knows how powerful such senses can be.
“Actually, physically it’s also been shown that the smell and taste senses are directly connected to the limbic system of our brain. The limbic system of our brain is responsible for emotion and memory. Unlike the visual sense, which basically gets processed by visual cortex and then the frontal lobe, which is higher-order, logical part, we have direct connection between smell and taste and the emotional and memory part of our brain,” Cheok says.
“So much of our lives now is online, but still I think a lot of us will agree it’s so different than meeting someone face-to-face. You have all these different physical communications that we can’t capture now through an audio/visual screen,” he says. “Essentially I’m really interested in [whether we can] merge all of our five senses of human communication with the internet — with the virtual world. That’s what I call ‘mixed reality’.”
Robotics plays a key role in making that a reality, through what is known as telepresence. Basically, it means transmitting actions into a robotic surrogate somewhere else. This can be fairly simple, Cheok says. Cheok and his students have already developed a ring worn on the finger that can deliver a gentle squeeze from a loved one, via a smart phone app. A student of Cheok’s has recently commercially released a vest that can transmit hugs, which is proving useful for calming autistic children. Cheok’s engineers are working on systems to transmit taste, via electrical impulses to the tongue, as well as smell, either via electrical stimulation or the release of chemicals.
The goal further down the track will be the creation of robotic avatars — representations or embodiments of people, though not necessarily made to look like them. To start with, these will be soft, fluffy and not particularly complex. For example, we could transmit our presence into a pillow or teddy bear. But as the endeavours of such scientists as Hiroshi Ishiguro progress, the creation of human-like surrogates will become possible.
“We’re definitely getting there… The rate of change of technology is exponential. What before maybe we thought would take 50 years now takes 5 or 10. I don’t think it’s going to be very far off when we have humanoid robots. They may be expensive at first,” Cheok says.
“I think at that stage, we can have virtual avatars; virtual robots which then, for example, [let you] be in Tokyo or Sydney and give a conference in Los Angeles. You don’t have to fly there. Your robot can be there.”
If there’s one major obstacle in the way of Japan’s projected robo-utopia, it’s the country’s economic situation. Japan has been in a state of economic malaise for more than two decades, and memories of the robot-supported boom years are fading. Neither the companies likely to do the research nor the Japanese government are as flush with cash as they used to be.
One of Japan’s major strengths — its peacenik constitution — has also proved to be a weakness. In the United States, the massive military-industrial complex has marshalled resources to create some truly impressive machinery; drones, for example, have been developed to meet guaranteed demand from government agencies. In Japan, however, there is little co-ordination between different institutions and industries, explains Nishida of Kyoto University.
“People are just interested in working on small parts of the problem, rather than looking at the whole,” Nishida says. While some work on artificial intelligence, others are focussed on the outer physical appearance of robots. With co-ordination and plenty of funding, a fairly complete intelligent android could be built within the next decade or two, he says. Under current conditions, it will probably take longer.
But the consensus is that such robots are coming, and that they will most likely be made first in Japan.
Cheok, of Keio University, says he’s not convinced we’ll produce thinking, feeling, conscious robots until at least the middle of the century, if at all. But he is certain we’re heading towards a loving technological future.
Thanks to their Shinto beliefs, the Japanese have fewer cultural barriers standing in the way of forming close emotional bonds with machines. But as robots become smarter and better looking, he says many more people of other cultures will become ensnared.
“I think the thing is that we already develop bonding with not very intelligent beings. As a kid you might have kept a pet hamster or pet mouse. They’re not actually so intelligent. But I think that a kid can even cry when the hamster dies,” he says.
“I’m not a biologist. I don’t know why we developed empathy but I’m sure there’s an important evolutionary reason why we developed empathy. That empathy doesn’t just stop at human beings. We can develop empathy for small creatures and animals. I don’t think the leap is very far where you can develop empathy for robots.”
via tumblr http://www.adriancheok.info/post/43648610982
Paper, as a traditional material for art and communication, shows great potential as a medium for organic user interfaces, with its ubiquity and flexibility. However, controlling and powering the sensors and actuators that enable interactive paper-crafts has not been fully explored. We present a method of selective inductive power transmission (SIPT) to support interactive paper-crafts. The novelty of this method is that the power transmitter can be controlled to selectively activate one specific receiver at a time through inductive power transferring with multiple receivers. This was achieved by changing the output frequency of the power transmitter to match the impedance of the receivers. The receivers could be embedded or printed to drive paper-crafts. Based on inductor–capacitor oscillating circuit and a function generator with a power amplifier, we developed two different prototypes of SIPT. By comparing the performance of both prototypes, we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the two systems, and their applications in different contexts of paper-crafts. In addition, we proposed the instructions for using SIPT in developing interactive paper-crafts. With this technology and instructions, we hope to facilitate users to easily design new types of paper-craft systems without being concerned about the arrangement of wire connections to power supply on a massive scale.
via tumblr http://www.adriancheok.info/post/43499096553
In this paper, we present a synergy of technology and traditional craft made possible with AmbiKraf Byobu. AmbiKraf is a non-emissive, color-changing fabric technology that allows subtle animations on fabrics. Byobu is a traditional Japanese room-divider screen, usually painted by artisans and crafts people. We first discuss the organic qualities of AmbiKraf technology that particularly lend itself to traditional art and craft practice. These qualities include the animation of ambient, non-intrusive and calming motifs using non-emissive display characteristics. We then discuss in detail how AmbiKraf technology is implemented and paired with the art form of Byobu. Interaction with the system is also briefly touched upon, as well as discussion regarding the cultural implications and mutual benefit of combining technology with traditional craft. Through the use of AmbiKraf technology embodied by the Byobu, we hope to provide a convincing example that sensitively combines traditional textile crafts with new technology in order to help redefine the meaning and role of traditional textiles.
via tumblr http://www.adriancheok.info/post/43478030448
World Economic Forum 2012 – A Game Changing Year (by YGL Alumni). Young Global Leader Adrian David Cheok is interviewed about Augmented Reality as a Game Changer in 2012. Other interviewees in the video include Aung San Suu Kyi, Ian Solomon (World Bank), Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Salman Khan (Khan Academy),
via tumblr http://www.adriancheok.info/post/41878435406
Yongsoon Choi (Ph.D candidate, Supervisor: Adrian David Cheok) is one of the winners of Interaction 13 Student Design Challenge. He will be awarded a prize by Interaction and Experience Research (IXR) at Intel Labs and the IxDA.
About Interaction 13 Each year, the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) holds a conference that draws thousands of interaction designers from around the globe. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the IxDA and its 6th annual conference- Interaction13. The world’s largest Interaction Design conference touches down in Toronto from January 27th-31st in this year.
PlayfulTechnology This year, Interaction and Experience Research (IXR) at Intel Labs and the IxDA wanted applicants to explore the experience implications of “playful technology.” Considering the paradigm shifts in what technology means and how we interact with it and building on the work that Intel Labs has been doing around the changing relationships we have with technology.
Extract: With the continuous advancements in computing and media, technology has widened to include multi-sensory experiences in remote interactions. Using electrical, thermal, and magnetic stimulation technologies we are currently experimenting on reproducing smell and taste sensations digitally. As a fundamental aim of this research, we will develop novel user interfaces that empower people’s life with digitized taste and smell communication capabilities. This research will generate important avenues for further research areas using smell and taste based interactions and new media. As the ultimate goal of this project we will develop devices which could actuate taste and smell sensations digitally through the Internet.
We will need to develop new protocols to codify these sensations as well as how to transmit them over the internet. New interfaces for how to send and receive these kinds of sensations will have to be designed. We hope that this will open the doors to new paradigms in human-computer interface design and new fields of research in academia.
via tumblr http://www.adriancheok.info/post/40775226310
What is it?
With the Mini-Hug Ring you can give your boyfriend, girlfriend, or best friend a remote hug no matter how far you are from each other.
Anywhere you are, just hug the ring on your finger and at the same moment your significant other will feel that hug. For that very instant, you’ll feel each other’s warm presence.
It’s the world’s first tele-hug ring.
Who is it for?
For anyone in a relationship, romantic, platonic or by blood, age 8 to 88, who sometimes during the day cares to share their warm feelings but cannot be together because they are busy. With RingU, you’ll always be able to share your feelings with your friends, family, or loved one.
Why RingU?
You can always text your beloved partner, but it will never replace your sense of touch. Research has shown that empathetic communication strengthens relationships.
How does it work?
“Hugging” the ring by one person transmits the touch sense digitally to the other ring which replicates the sensation.
Using Bluetooth 4.0 the ring communicates with your smartphone which transmits the touch message over the internet.
To pair two rings all you need to do it bring them together to trigger its powers, or, if they are remote – use the complementary mobile app.
The ring supports 3 types of hugs: a Mini-Hug, an Intense Hug, and an Urgent Hug (short squeeze, long squeeze and a series of hugs in a row – respectively)
User can also set their partner’s ring led color. There are 5 different colors (green, blue, yellow, red, orange) and user can set each of the color to a certain emotion.
What does the RingU application do?
The ring comes with a corresponding private social network for two where you can send corresponding messages, photos, videos, together with your physical ring hugging. It also displays the time, date, and location of all your sent and received hugs. The ring synchronizes with the social network app seamlessly.
It allows you to customize the functions of the ring, pair with with your ring of choice.
Splash Screen
This screen will be displayed as a welcome screen when user runs the
RingU application. It shows the main logo of RingU service
Select Pair Screen
This screen will be shown when user runs the application for the first
time. It will ask user to select pair to be connected with their ring. User
will have choice to select pair by connecting to facebook or by entering
the e-mail address of their partner. RingU app will do the rest to pair
both users and allow them to send emotion with RingU
Main Screen
This will be the main screen in the app for user to interact with their
partner. Status icon shows whether both rings are connected. Pictures
of both users will be shown on the screen and their relationship will be
shown, which in this case : Best Friends. Recent mood of your partner is
also shown , so that user can easily understand what his/her partner
currently feeling. The emotion icons in the bottom part of the screen are
used to send the particular emotions to partner, such as hug, miss, or
intense hug.
History Screen
This screen will show the log of interaction. Recent mood and emotions
sent between both users will be shown in timeline.
Is it a gadget or jewelry? What is it made of?
We think it’s both and much more!
It’s stylish and will look beautiful on your finger, and it is technically an accessory to your mobile phone – however think about it as a new form of remote empathetic communication.
The standard RingU is made of a textured plastic case.
Does it come in multiple colors?
You’re part of the design process! Three color options are already set: Arctic White, Jet Black and Violet Purple. If you back any of the color options, we’ll email you a survey after the project closes so you can vote on a new, 4th color option. Later on, we’ll email you again asking which of the final color options you’d like to select. Even if you don’t like the Voter’s Choice, you’ll be able to choose from White/Black/Purple.
Compatibility: iPhone 3GS, 4, 4S running iOS 5 or any iPod Touch with iOS 5 and above. selected Android phones will have compatibility in future.
Can I customize its appearance?
We are always open for feedback and ideas from the community and will periodically release new form factors.
We will also publish the 3D models, technical drawings, and software of the ring as creative commons, so hardware hackers can customize it and create new form factors and add functions on their own.
What are the luxury rings?
The luxury rings are true jewelry cast from 24 karat gold or xx silver, or diamond. It makes a great wedding, engagement, or anniversary ring!
In what stage of development is it?
We have been working on similar empathetic communication devices for over 10 years. As seen in the video, RingU is in a working prototype stage.
With the your support we be able to bring the ring to fingers all over the world.
Your contribution will help fine tune the design, finish developing the iOS SDK, complete global Bluetooth certification, and the large component order.
For more information, please download the following files:
Adrian David Cheok is Director of the Mixed Reality Lab. He is a Full Professor in Keio University, Graduate School of Media Design. He worked in real-time systems, soft computing, and embedded computing in Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs. He has been working on research covering mixed reality, human-computer interfaces, wearable computers and ubiquitous computing, fuzzy systems,embedded systems, power electronics. He has carried out research projects in the area of wearable computers and mixed reality from Nike, National Oilwell Varco, Defense Science Technology Agency, Ministry of Communications and Arts, National Arts Council, Singapore Science Center, and Hougang Primary School. In the Mixed Reality Lab, he led a team of over 100 researchers and students. He was invited to exhibit for two years in the Ars Electronica Museum of the Future, launching in the Ars Electronica Festival 2003. His early work included the work “3d-live”which was a pioneering work integrating live recorded 3d humans in mixed reality, with the effect of this invention being similar to the Princess Leia hologram in the movie Star Wars. His work “Poultry Internet” was one of the pioneering works on virtual realitycommunication between humans and animals. His works “Human Pacman”, “Magic Land”, and “Metazoa Ludens”, were each selected as one of the worlds top inventions by Wired and invited to be exhibited in Wired nextfest 2005 and 2007.
Yongsoon Choi is currently a PhD candidate at the graduate school of media design of Keio University in Japan, and he is also working as a researcher at the Keio-NUS CUTE Center, jointly operated by Keio University in Japan with National University of Singapore in Singapore. He received my B.A. in Fashion Design from the Design College of Kookmin University in Seoul, Korea, and subsequently M.A. in Interaction Design from the Graduate School of Techno Design of Kookmin University. Fluent in interactive design, He worked on a variety of commercial projects including web programming & user interface design in YEScomm (IBM Korea CRM & CTI solution) and he also executed Kitchen Media project (with NEC, Korea), developed 3D Motion GUI in DTV project(with Samsung Electronics, Korea), developed Home Network Service Scenario in the integration Middleware Platform project (with ETRI, Korea) and Digital Mirror and Auditory User Interface projects (with ICU, Korea) as a project manager and user experience designer. His research are novel experiential communication media using food and fashion, wearable interaction & interfaces, and affective fashion communication media (Sound Perfume & Light Perfume projects).
Jordan is a recent graduate from the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University and holds a masters degree in entertainment technology and a bachelor’s degree in computer science. He is currently a PhD student at the Keio Media Design program where he serves as an engineer for the RingU project. Before joining Keio, he served as a visiting researcher for Dr. Igarashi’s Design Interface Project in Tokyo. At CMU, he worked on a social vehicle simulator for NEC’s C&C Innovation Lab and a location-based interaction exhibit for the 2012 World Expo in Yeosu, Keorea. He also served as an enginnering intern for social gaming company, Geisha Tokyo Entertainment. His research interests are exploring new narratives with human-human and human-computer communication and multisensory input, specifically, digital taste and smell.
Keijiro Abe
Keijiro is a twenty three years old Master Degree student. He is interested in multi sensory communication and managing art projects. Currently, at KMD, he is working on RingU project and Art travel project which is aimed to connect people through art experiences. He also works as coordinator on a study program collaborating with Stanford University.
A twenty two years old Indonesian, first year graduate school student currently studying Multi-sensory Media at Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University. Have a deep passion both in IT and design since middle school, and have been continuing to improve himself throughout the years with web and mobile application development as his mainstream.
Ori Inbar
Ori Inbar is the co-founder and CEO of Augmented Reality.ORG, a global non-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing augmented reality (AR).
Augmented Reality.ORG’s mission is to promote the true potential of AR, and hatch augmented reality initiatives that offer unique value to its active users.
It is a dark time for the Rebellion. Although the Death Star has been destroyed, Imperial troops have driven the Rebel forces from their hidden base and pursued them across the galaxy.
A small band of rebels struggle to restore freedom to the galaxy…
The Jedi Knights are returning, watch out for something new coming in Spring 2012…
Adrian David Cheok is one of the pioneers of what is known as mixed reality. He examines ways in which the digital and physical worlds can better interact. The result is a series of incredible ideas that have the potential to make all our lives easier over the long term.
Under the Art in Transit program at Kent Ridge MRT Station (newly opened station on the circle line in Singapore), a new media art piece entitled Poetry Mix-Up is commissioned. The Poetry Mix-up system is developed by Mixed Reality Lab of National University of Singapore. The system allows local travelers to send an SMS to generate a poem based on the submission. The final output generated is shown in a digital display on the lift shaft at the platform level as shown in the images.
The exhibition of Poetry Mix-Up will be invited by Art Center Nabi where has been in the forefront of the convergence of art and media technologies of the time in Korea and will be held from 1st to 31 of July. And in this time, Poetry Mix-up will present participants messages from Seoul and Daejeon each other.
In November 2010, a team of students and research staff from the Mixed Reality Lab led by Assoc Prof Adrian Cheok walked away with the Creative Showcase Golden Award at the 7th International Advances in Computers and Entertainment Conference, a premier forum for interactive entertainment, held in Taiwan.
The meeting was recently concluded in Taichung, Taiwan. The objectives of this meeting were:
To establish or increase mutual awareness among Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) relevant to AR through a carefully managed “discovery” process that is mindful of the IPR policies of the respective SDOs, to establish or increase dialog among leadership of industry associations whose members are specifically interested in Augmented Reality initiatives and SDOs, to explore how SDOs and industry associations will define “contact zones” of mutual interest, to permit participants of the meeting to share their views and objectives, as well as progress/status of their activities, and to introduce new and important topics likely to impact the future of AR such as Spatial Law and Policy.
Program Committee members for this meeting were:
Neil Trevett, NVIDIA
Martin Lechner, Wikitude
Carl Reed, OGC
Douglas Knisely, Qualcomm
Gerard Kim, University of Korea
Adrian David Cheok, National University of Singapore CUTE Center
Ed Parsons, Google
Lars Erik Bolstad, Opera
The paper titled “A Multimodal Virtual Anatomy Learning Tool for Medical Education”, has been selected as the best paper from the session of ‘Learning Technologies / Strategies for Assessing Student Learning and Teaching,’ at the 2nd International Conference on Education, Training and Informatics (ICETI 2011), held in Orlando, Florida, USA, on March 27th – 30th, 2011. This project is jointly developed by Keio-NUS CUTE Center (NUS) and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (NUS) which is particularly useful medical students to identify key anatomy structures and their complex spatial relationships.
The members of the A Multimodal Virtual Anatomy Learning Tool for Medical Education team are:
Ponnampalam Gopalakrishnakone
Lu Jianfeng
Goh Poh Sun
Asanka Abeykoon
Owen Noel Newton Fernando
Adrian David Cheok
Eng Tat, a graduating PhD scholar from Mixed Reality Lab/CUTE Center, has been selected as one of the 100 young Chinese leaders to participate in this year’s Dragon 100 forum. The forum will be held from 24 July – 1 August 2011, in Hong Kong and Taiwan, under the theme, “Caring about the Poor – Today and Tomorrow”. The organizer, the Dragon Foundation, was initiated jointly by the Home Affairs Bureau and Home Affairs Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government and The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups.
Dragon 100 is an annual event at which 100 of these ethnic Chinese leaders of tomorrow, aged 18-35 come together to discuss pertinent global issues and explore about the social affair, economic development, Chinese history, culture and tradition. They must have demonstrated leadership skills, academic prowess and a commitment to the community. The Programme is intended to generate synergy among these participants from across the world so that they work together, strengthen contacts and build up networks. The selection process has been competitive, with nominations from universities, organizations and corporations from various geographical locations around the world.
Dragon100 Young Chinese Leaders Forum 2011 Invitation letter: http://tinyurl.com/6azx6ac
In order to evaluate the performance of Lovotics robot a novel method for measuring human – robot is proposed by Lovotics team in CUTE Center. A user study is conducted to evaluate the emotional effect of interaction with the robot. 20 users experienced interaction with Lovotics robot and answered questionnaires which were designed based on psychology of love especially to measure love scales between the participants and the robot.
ACE 2011: 8th Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology Conference incorporating DIMEA 2011 (6th Digital Interactive Media Entertainment and Arts Conference) In Cooperation with ACM and ACM SIGCHI Lisbon, Portugal 8-11 November, 2011
Papers Submission Due: 1 June 2011
Workshop Proposal Submission Due: 15 June 2011
Late Breaking Results Submission Due: 24 June 2011
Creative Show Case Submission Due: 24 June 2011
Tutorial Submission Due: 24 June 2011
Game Competition Submission Due: 20 September 2011
Witz Alive is a preschool show for children from 3 – 6 years old based on three characters, the tiger (TAMMY), the monkey (ITCHEE), and the bird (WINGZ). Augmented reality application, WITZ Alive AR, is jointly developed by CUTE Center, NUS and Real Space pvt. LTD to provide an added interactive experience for children. We believe that this will enhance their experience outside the television box, where they can immerse themselves in the exciting AR technology by seeing their favorite WITZ characters come to life.
Giving out 1,000 markers to pre-school teachers who will in turn hand it out to students during their classes
OKTO will be producing trailers that will run on OKTO to promote the WITZ Augmented Reality (will update on airtime and dates)
Mom & Baby Event: held the demo on OKTO booth, where children experienced the demo from 18th – 20th March, Expo, from 11am – 8pm (below are some photos from the event)
Broadcast on the WITZ Alive AR through singaporemotherhood.com which has around 50,000 subscribers. This will showcase Augmented Reality as the key information for them to try out with their children.
You’ve been there, staring inside your fridge loaded with ingredients but just don’t quite know how to put things together to make a nice decent meal. Or have you come across an awesome recipe that you really wanted to try out but just missed that one important ingredient required for that recipe?
Now, you don’t have to worry about these problems anymore! FoodGenie comes to your rescue!!
FoodGenie is a cool iPhone app that gives everyone a chance to become a super chef and helps your neighbours in cooking. It helps ordinary people (like you) make extraordinary dishes with what you have in the fridge. When there is a really important ingredient missing, it helps you find that missing ingredient by encouraging sharing of ingredients between neighbours. Guess what? You may get to know some really cool neighbours in your building! So what are you waiting for? Check out FoodGenie now!!!
*FoodGenie was created in 48 hours by a team of four enthusiastic jammers – Shawn Foo, Dhairya Dand, Zhu Kenning and Emma Zhang.
Reclaiming the Commons: Collaborating and Competing in The New Economic Order
Dr Adrian D. Cheok – Director, Mixed Reality Lab, National University of Singapore
SESSION 2: FIRMS & TRANSFORMATION
SPECIAL ADDRESS: Synthetic Reality: The Science and Applications of Virtual, Mixed, and Augmented Reality Adrian David Cheok is Director of the Mixed Reality Lab and Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore. He was appointed to be a Full Professor of Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University, from April 2008.
He received several outstanding awards: A-STAR Young Scientist of the Year Award 2003, the SCS Singapore Young Professional of the Year Award 2004, Fellow in Education, World Technology Network in 2004, and Microsoft Research Award for Gaming and Graphics in 2005. He was also awarded the Young Global Leader 2008 by World Economic Forum.
When Mr Khoo Eng Tat took up Electrical and Computing Engineering for his Bachelor of Engineering degree, he never knew it would open up a world which integrates technology with art and music. For this, he said, he has much to thank his supervisor, Assoc Prof Adrian Cheok, Director, Mixed Reality Lab at NUS.
Wang Xuan, a 2nd Year Ph.D. student in our lab, has recently been selected as the winner for Communication Technologies and Interface Track, Young Researchers and Ph.D. Workshop for Research on Innovative Solutions for Elderly (YR-RISE). She was also placed the third for best oral and poster presentation at the workshop. The workshop was held as part of the 2nd Ambient Assisting Living (AAL) Forum in Odense, Denmark from Sep 15th to 18th, 2010. The AAL is a new joint research and development funding supported by the European Community. The research project she presented is entitled “Confucius Chat: Mediating Cultural Communication between Elderly and Children using New Media”.
We have entered a new era of humanity. For the first time we haveconstant 24/7 real time global communication. How has this changedhumanity and the internet generation? How will learning change. Whatare the mega trends we will see from this digital exponential revolution.
Liquid Interfaces won the Creative Showcase Golden Award at ACE2010 in
Taiwan. The competition was part of the Advances in Computer
Entertainment conference which brings together researchers and
practitioners from industry and academia to present and discuss their
work in breakthrough areas in computer entertainment.
From more than 15 projects Liquid Interfaces was chosen as the first price by the
attendees public poll. The second position was shared by two projects
“VirtualPhilharmony: a conducting system focused on a sensation of
conducting a real orchestra” and “A Software System for Creating and
Developing Mobile Augmented Reality Applications”
The members of the Liquid Interfaces team are:
Jeffrey Tzu Kwan Valino Koh,
Kasun Karunanayaka,
Jose R. Sepulveda,
Mili John Tharakan,
Jeremy Heng,
Liu Yi Jiang,
Eishem Bilal Naik,
Adrian David Cheok
Art and Technology of Entertainment Computing and Communication takes a blue sky research perspective on the field of interactive media for entertainment computing. Adrian David Cheok argues that entertainment as an end-product is useful for interactive play, however it is also a powerful tool for learning and communication and it is also a key driver for the development of information technology. This book explores the future of entertainment technologies used for communication and describes quantum step research. It will inform and inspire readers to create their own radical inventions and innovations that are not incremental, but which break through ideas and non-obvious solutions. One of the main explorations is the examination of how new forms of computer interaction can lead to radical new forms of technology and art for entertainment computing. Art and Technology of Entertainment Computing and Communication is an informative and inspirational text for students and the next generation of researchers. It’s main aim is to provide information that will hopefully help change the world and society for the better, through new modes of entertainment and communication. Academics, researchers, engineers, game designers, and interaction designers, will find the content both interesting and valuable. Entertainment is the “engine” to inspire people and drive innovation in interactive digital media design.
On Thursday the 2nd of December David Freeman visited CUTE center to give his workshop titled “Giving Engaging and Memorable Presentations”. David Freeman is a Los Angeles based story writer which teaches the “Beyond Structure” story writing workshop world wide. His workshop is taken by novelists, screenwriters, directors, producers, stars, and key creative an marketing executives for the major Hollywood companies. All the students in the lab attended the one day workshop. In his workshop Mr Freeman provided the audience with a series of drills to engage audiences.
Liquid Interfaces won the Creative Showcase Golden Award at ACE2010 in Taiwan. The competition was part of the Advances in Computer Entertainment conference which brings together researchers and practitioners from industry and academia to present and discuss their work in breakthrough areas in computer entertainment. From more than 15 projects Liquid Interfaces was chosen as the first price by the attendees public poll. The second position was shared by two projects “VirtualPhilharmony: a conducting system focused on a sensation of conducting a real orchestra” and “A Software System for Creating and Developing Mobile Augmented Reality Applications” The conference attracted a multi-disciplinary group including experts in the arts, sociology, anthropology, psychology, marketing, computer science and design. Liquid Interfaces Gold Award
IEEE/RSJ 2010 International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2010)
June 22-24, 2010
Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands
Hooman A. Samani
The IEEE/RSJ 2010 International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2010) was held on October 18-22, 2010 at the Taipei International Conference Center(TICC), Taipei, Taiwan. IROS 2010 was the 23rd year of the conference.
The conference theme was “Intelligent Robotics in the Next Transition” The theme of IROS 2010 was chosen such that the conference would continue reflect the ever increasing interest in interactions, co-works, and co-existence of robots with human, cognitive robotics and other forms of intelligent machines and systems, with the goal for improving the better quality of human life.
The Keio-NUS CUTE Center had the honor of presenting the project “AmbiKraf – Breathing life into textiles” at this year’s Ars Electronica 2010 festival from 2nd to the 11th of September 2010. The theme of this year’s festival was “repair” which focused on innovative solutions towards many of societal issues. This year the festival was dispersed over few key locations in the city with bulk of the installations being at the Tabakfabrik of Linz. Tabakfabrik is an old tobacco factory that was set up in 1850 for the manufacture of cigars and pipes. After its constant growth throughout the years that expanded its workforce to approximately 1000 people, the factory ceased its operations in 2009. The city of Linz recently acquired the Tabakfabrik again is currently being assessed for its future options of use.
We presented “AmbiKraf – Breathing life into textiles” as an installation in the ‘Future Factory’ category. Here we presented an interactive byobu screen. In this installation we had a custom made byobu screen that animated flowers appearing and disappearing in a very subtle manner. With AmbiKraf we showcased how the future technology can ‘repair’ the traditional arts and crafts of textiles by merging those age old traditions with the future technology. The installation was well received for its efforts of bringing back these old traditions in a suitable manner for the contemporary society. In addition, Mili Tharakan, a Research Fellow of the CUTE Center in Singapore delivered a talk based on the theme of AmbiKraf at the “Future Factory Talks” session.
This year’s festival also featured some of the other key works such as “Oribotics” by Matthew Gardiner, the “HONDA ASIMO”, “Telenoid” by Hiroshi Ishiguro – a key figure in the android robotics field, etc.
AmbiKraf received an honorary mentioning at the recently concluded Nokia UbiMedia MindTrek Awards 2010, in Tampere Finland. This competition was held as a part of the MindTrek Conference which is a leading Nordic digital media and business conference, focusing on social media & Web 2.0. The Nokia UbiMedia MindTrek Competition is a competition sponsored by Nokia in search of projects, products or services that seek to broaden our understanding of how ubiquitous media will influence out future.
Nokia UbiMedia MindTrek Certificate
Attracting over 20 entrants from around the world, the jury selected three projects as the finalists with ‘AmbiKraf’ from the Keio-NUS CUTE Center in Singapore and ‘iBall’ from Hasselt University/EDM in Benlgium receiving honorary mentions. The winner of the competition was ‘myGreenspace’ by the eHealth Group RWTH Aachen, Kai Kasugai und Felix Heidrich. The press release on the honorary mention stated “The jurywould like to express their recognition for two distinct projects which did not make the top three, but definitely deserve an honorable mention. The motion-sensitive “iBall”, invented by Hasselt University / EDM in Belgium, enhances traditional ball games with mobile gaming features. The AmbiKraf project from Keio-NUS CUTE Center, National University of Singapore, has invented a technology to render smooth animations on textiles using thermo chromic ink. Both projects extend ubiquitous media into new areas of application in convincing ways.”
Name of the newspaper – El Mercurio
Name of the Journalist – Amalia Torres
Title – Virtual hugs and intelligent pillows invented in Asia
Sewing machines, books on the psychology of love and a lot of disorder may not be the image you have of a scientific laboratory. Less from the one who has the difficult task of bringing the virtual world to reality.
However, the Mixed Reality Lab at the National University of Singapore operates on a different logic.
According to Professor José Sepúlveda a Spanish researcher who came to this place, as several scholars and foreign students, motivated by the projects, “we spend all the time discussing ideas and only the craziest ones get to be implemented”.
An example? One of the first inventions from the laboratory was to create a human Pacman. To play, participants carried a backpack with a computer and used special glasses that allowed them to see the city as if it were the classic eighties game. Thus, a player takes the role of Pacman while his friends were the ghosts that had to reach it.
“The original idea was to bring to the physical world what we saw on the screen. But now we go further. We are investigating how to make the interaction complete, using the internet to send information to all the senses such as smell, touch, or taste”says Adrian Cheok, director of the laboratory.
So innovative are the projects that emerge from these students in engineering, design, sociology and psychology that have won dozens of awards in France, Italy, Taiwan and the United States. Here, some of their best ideas.
2.0 Huggy Pajamas
Imagine you are on a business trip away from your son. At night you connect through Skype, read him a story and then you hug him. How? With the “Huggy pajama, a jacket that using air pockets in the back, shoulders and chest, can can give you the sensation of receiving a hug, because it inflates in those areas.
To operate it, the person sending the hug pushes a button in a device connected to the internet. “This project does not replace the real hug, but it helps to feel closer. When we showed the prototype, I received email from a mother whose daugther was in intensive care in the hospital. She wrote to tell us how this could be useful for people like her” says Professor Cheok.
Age Invaders
It is no secret that for many older adults is difficult to play the current computer games, which, however, for children are their favorite pastime. With that in mind, we created “Age Invaders”, a game composed of a large electronic board that is placed on the ground and lights indicating where one must move. Thanks to special slippers, the board knows where the players are, and will deliver different challenges, like chasing a few hearts that light up, or follow the direction of arrows. “This game can bring together different generations, while they exercise together. On the other hand, if the parents want to know what the children and granparents are doing, they can follow the match online online,” says José Sepúlveda.
Playful Utensils
To make a memorable meal, give your guests the latest generation of chopsticks. Here, through an electronic system, the chopsticks create music through the eating movement. The music is transmitted via Wi-Fi and can serve as the soundtrack of the meal. This invention also serves to teach children to use these tools through rhythm.
Poultry Internet
Before creating the “Huggy pajama,” lab students invented and patented a jacket for chickens, a common pet in parts of Asia. The invention works by putting a coat on the animal.
If the owner is not home, he should carry a plastic replica of the pet with a similar jacket (see photo) and connect it to the internet. So, the owner will be able to pet the chicken from a remote location. The project can also be used on dogs and cats.
Robot love
“We want to create a sense of love for robots. So a student is studying what makes us human love: analyzing the movements, physical beauty, tone of voice and psychology,” says Professor José Sepúlveda. “In the future I think there will be robots that have a human couple. There is people that cannot be standed by anyone!” He says. For now, the “lovotics robot is just a prototype.
Safe Kids
“PETIMO (pictured) was born with the idea that there is no safe social networking for children,” says Nimesha Ranasinghe, one of the students in charge of the project. Therefore, the objective of the toy is that, only kids first known in real life can join network in cyberspace. Thus, only when two Petimos approach, children become virtual friends. Then, the robot can let them chat and play them online.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. PhD student Jeffrey Koh was invited to speak at TEDx Zurich, to present his team’s findings regarding the Liquid Interface project. His report can be found here.
Empowering Children As Innovators In Developing Countries
With Creative Thinking and Technology
A Blueprint For The New Strategic Thrust of the Keio-NUS CUTE Center
Professor Adrian David Cheok
October 2010
Background
New Media and Technology are bringing about radical change in the world today. It is affecting the way we work, live and play, and is opening up new potential for economic, social and cultural development. The rapid evolution of New Media and Technology is also accelerating the rate of globalization and increasing communication, trade and exchange between people from all over the world.
Developing countries are increasingly leveraging on the tools of New Media and Technology to overcome challenges, and to seize opportunities in the liberalized global landscape. As New Media and Technology are getting increasingly ubiquitous, they have transformed the way people live in regions where resources are still scarce. For example, cell phones are helping farmers in Kenya market their crops. The Internet is helping slum-dwellers in India find Jobs. Radio soap operas are educating the tribal communities in Afghanistan. Online social networking is supporting a student drive to distribute school supplies in rural China. New Media and Technology has woven into the fabric of their everyday life.
Venue: DAUM building, Hannam-dong, Seoul, Korea
Date: Saturday, November 7 2009
Seoul Bar Camp had 2 sessions and many discussion issues. In fact, I could not count on how many discussions were going on at that time because Seoul Bar camp was very flexible un-conference and I could see many enthused volunteers were presenting their researches and ideas freely during the sessions without presentation allocations. This event was started from almost 10 AM and finished 5PM.
TEDxCanton aims to convey “ideas worth spreading” to individuals, businesses and institutions in our community and beyond by putting together a program of heavyweight local and international speakers. TEDxCanton engages people in Guangzhou and elsewhere in better understanding Guangzhou’s modernity and heritage, and reach out towards the wider world through motivational, intellectual and entertaining experiences. The theme of the event is “The Overflow of the Heart”, or “心溢新意·畅享创想” in Chinese. The mixed reality lab PhD scholars Wei Jun, and Wang Xuan attended this session and below are their reports on their experiences,
The Ambient Assisted Living Joint Program is a new joint research and development funding activity by 23 European Members and Associated States with the financial support of the European Community. The overall objective of the program is to enhance the quality of life of older people and strengthen the industrial base in Europe through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). In the context of the “AAL Forum Odense 2010” the “Young Researchers and PhD workshop” involves students and young researchers from various backgrounds, presenting their research towards technical solutions for the elderly people.
The mixed reality lab PhD scholars Jeffrey Koh, Wei Jun, and Wang Xuan presented their research works in this conference and below are their reports on their experiences,
Similarities and differences between Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality, and how these technologies will enhance human experiences in the future! (The song Sprawl II used in end credits is courtesy Arcade Fire.)
Watch it in iPhone size for Windows (.avi format) or for the Macintosh (.mov format).
Watch it in regular computer size for Windows (.avi format) or for the Macintosh (.mov format).
National Day and a researcher’s e-mail create a surge of interest in the collective scent memory of Singapore.
Graduate student Cao Yan Yan is interviewed by Vivienne Khoo about her project. Her project is an exploration of the use of smell in interactive technology. She is focusing on collective memory using scent as a medium.
Shanghai Expo visitors will get a taste of “next-generation learning” through four educational and interactive applications developed by MXR Lab Spin Off Company: MXR Corporation Pte Ltd, a leading proponent of mixed reality technology in Singapore. Through wIzQubes™, wIzCards™, wIzOpedia™ and wIzDirector™, users can manipulate and interact with physical and digital objects in real time, effectively allowing them to merge the real and virtual worlds and experience a whole new way of learning and storytelling. Theshowcase will also offer an exclusive preview of the prototype of wIzLab™, ane ducational PC game currently in development. The game will enable children to perform and create their very own Mixed Reality science experiments, helping them explore and learn about Chemistry, Biology, technology and the world in an independent and immersive fashion.
On July 18th the Mixed Reality Lab participated in the Punggol North Racial & Religious Harmony Street Parade and Carnival 2010. The MXR booth was visited by the guest of honor Mr Teo Chee Hean, Duputy Prime Minister of Singapore. The Lab presented Confucius Computer and Huggy Pajama with about 150 people using the systems. The confucius system uses new media to revive and model these historical philosophies and teachings, presenting them in new contexts, such as online social chat, music and food. This enables people to experience and explore the ancient culture using the literacy of digital interactivity. Huggy Pajama is a novel wearable system aimed at promoting physical interaction in remote communication between parent and child. This system enables parent and child to hug one another through a novel hugging interface device and a wearable, hug reproducing jacket connected through the Internet. The hugging device is a small, mobile doll with embedded pressure sensing circuit that is able to sense varying levels of human force. This device sends hug signals to a haptic jacket that simulates the feeling of being hugged to the wearer.
The stimulated audience had very inspiring and funny chats too. This session is definitely this year’s “must attend” one! The public can access a recording of the session here: 
ACE 2011: 8th Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology Conference incorporating DIMEA 2011 (6th Digital Interactive Media Entertainment and Arts Conference) In Cooperation with ACM and ACM SIGCHI Lisbon, Portugal 8-11 November, 2011
