ACE 2009 Conference

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This year, ACE 2009 (Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology) conference was successfully held in Athens, Greece from October 29th to 31st, 2009. There were very interesting paper sessions as well as creative showcase session in the conference. Poetry Mix-up and Petimo projects from Mixed Reality Lab and KEIO-NUS CUTE Center are accepted in poster, creative showcase and short paper categories. The ACE 2009 Conference student reports from Kening Zhu and Nimesha Ranasinghe are attached below with detailed information and individual experiences.

Links :

Photos: http://share.ovi.com/album/mxrlab.ACEConference20

Special Issue of Springer Virtual Reality Journal – “Virtual Reality and Culture Technology”

Special Issue of Virtual Reality
“Virtual Reality and Culture Technology”
Guest Editors:
Adrian Cheok, Professor at Keio University, Japan.
Woontack Woo, Professor at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Korea.
Tomoe Moriyama, Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, and Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo

Most of current information and computing systems are developed to handle logical information, and most virtual reality technology related to culture are mainly related to heritage applications. However these systems and applications do not consider deeply the contents, form, and meaning of cultures. Until recently it has been believed that a complex and non linear system such as culture could not be modeled by computers. Nevertheless recently computing and interactive media directed at the analysis and modeling and prediction of culture or “culture technology” has emerged [1]. For example if the underlying structures of historical culture can be determined, then it can not only be modeled in virtual reality, but it can be used to predict new forms of modern or pop culture, some which can be based purely in the virtual world.

Through culture technology with virtual reality we can develop novel forms of cultural activity in the arts and humanities, for example creating virtual instruments which merge Electric Guitar with Japanese Shamisen. Or combining intelligent virtual characters of different eras or cultures (e.g. Confucius with Plato) and see new types of interaction that is impossible in the physical world. Essentially this could lead to new forms of transformation and blending of the domains of science, arts and humanities.
In this special issue we call for scientific based virtual reality based research which has a goal to create and disseminate transformative, innovative cultural works and will lead to new paradigms that will positively transform culture.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following areas:
• VR for modelling culture
• Using VR to transform historical and contemporary or pop culture
• Generating new virtual cultures
• New interfaces that can develop in VR for cultural computing (e.g. new virtual musical instruments)
• Complex and dynamic systems of cultural computing
The special issue will appear in the Springer journal Virtual Reality (www.springeronline.com/journal/10055). Papers should typically be less than 8,000 words and of standard journal content: reports of original research, review papers, essays and discussions. Papers will be peer reviewed in accordance with the journal’s normal process. Prospective authors can their intention to submit by notifying the editor with a planned title for the submission and names of authors.
Papers should be submitted in Microsoft Word or Latex formats by
Please direct correspondence to email address: adriancheok (at) mixedrealitylab.org
Papers should be submitted to http://www.editorialmanager.com/vire/ under the relevant special issue category.
Important Dates:
Deadline for submission of full papers: 24th April 2009
Notification of acceptance: 10 July 2009
[1] Tosa N., Matsuoka S., Ellis B., Ueda H., and Nakatsu R. (2005). Cultural Computing with Context-Aware Application: ZENetic Computer, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 3711, pp. 1

Web Link : https://www.mixedrealitylab.org/media/pdf/VR and Culture Techology v22.pdf and Culture Technology v22.pdf

ACE 2009

ACE 2009

(5th Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology Conference)

incorporating

DIMEA 2009

(3rd Digital Interactive Media Entertainment and Arts Conference)

Athens, Greece

October 29-31, 2009

Interactive Entertainment is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. In 1996, the U.S. entertainment software industry reported $2.6 billion in sales revenue; this figure has more than tripled in 2007, yielding $9.5 billion in revenues. In addition, gamers, the target market for interactive entertainment products, are now reaching beyond the traditional 8-34 old male target demographic to include women, Hispanics, and African Americans. This pattern has been observed in several markets, including Japan, China, Korea, and India. Thus, interactive entertainment is becoming part of our everyday life, impacting our thinking, society and culture in many ways. ACE has become the leading academic forum for dissemination of novel research results in the area of entertainment computing. This year for the first time it incorporates DIMEA which has established itself over the last three years as a strong conference on interactive entertainment arts. Together the conference forms an exciting new step blending deeply the latest research in art and technology.

The focus of ACE 2009 is to gather researchers from academia and industry−researchers who are working in multi-disciplinary areas within the arts, psychology, computer science, and design to discuss, present, and demonstrate their new contributions. The goal of ACE is to stimulate discussion in the development and advancement of interactive art and entertainment applications. It, thus, strides to balance several interdisciplinary areas and seeks representation in all these areas, including, but not limited to:

  • Accessibility
  • Aesthetics
  • Affective Computing
  • Ambient Intelligence
  • Animation Techniques
  • Attention
  • Augmented / Mixed Reality
  • Avatars and Virtual Community
  • Community
  • Cultural Computing
  • Digital Entertainment and Sports
  • Digital Broadcasting/Podcasting
  • Digital Cinema
  • Elderly Entertainment
  • Empathy
  • Entertainment Design Theory
  • Experience Design
  • Funology
  • Graphics Techniques
  • Human-Robots Interaction
  • Interaction Design
  • Interactive Computer Graphics
  • Interactive Theatre
  • Internet Networking Media
  • Learning and Children
  • Location-Based Entertainment
  • Metaverse
  • Mixed Media
  • Mobile Entertainment
  • Multimodal Interaction
  • Narratives / Digital Storytelling
  • New Gaming Audiences
  • Novel interfaces
  • Pervasive and Online Games
  • Physical Computing
  • Robotic Love and Affection
  • Simplicity
  • Situativity
  • Smart Gadgets and Toys
  • Social Impact
  • Social Networking
  • Sound and Music
  • Synesthetic Entertainment
  • Tangible Interfaces
  • User Interfaces
  • Visual Effects
  • Virtual Reality

To encourage presentation of such multi-disciplinary work, we invite submissions that fall into the following tracks:

Papers Track:

o Full Papers: Original unpublished technical, design, and theory/social impact. Submissions to this track
should not exceed 8 pages in ACM format.

o Short Papers: Original unpublished technical, design, and theory/social impact. Submissions to this
track should not exceed 4 pages in ACM format. The program committee may also
suggest submitted long papers be resubmitted as short papers.

o Posters: Breakthroughs in technical research, content design, industry applications, and entertainment
theories/social impact researches are invited. Submissions to this track should not exceed 2 pages in
ACM format. Format instructions are posted on the website noted below. All accepted submissions
will be published in conference proceedings.

Creative Showcases (show cased within three types of spaces: exhibition space, art gallery and gaming exhibit)

o Technical demos : prototype demos of advanced entertainment technology

o Games, including, but not limited to, experimental games, independent games, games for change,
video games, commercial games, casual games, mobile games

o Interactive narrative, interactive drama, alternate reality games, and interactive fiction

o interactive art installations

o web-based computer entertainment

o digital audio, visual and other sensory art

o Design showcase

One page abstracts of all accepted submissions will be published in conference proceedings.

For further information please visit: http://www.ace2009.org

Important Dates:
Deadline for Full and Short Papers: June 19, 2009
Deadline for Posters and Creative Showcases: June 19, 2009
Notifications of Acceptance: August 21, 2009
Camera Ready Copy: September 18, 2009

Submissions of papers will be online on our conference website (http://www.ace2009.org) using Easy Chair and should follow the ACM Submission Format. See ACM SIG Proceedings Template for more instructions.

Selected papers will be asked to extend their papers for a Journal Publication:
Selected papers will be published in Special Issue of ACM Computers in Entertainment and International Journal on Arts and Technology (IJART)
Awards
Best papers and creative showcases will be selected based on a jury of well respected pioneers in the field attending the conference. We honor the authors of these publications by presenting awards including:

Paper award categories: Gold, Silver, and Bronze.

Creative showcase award categories: Gold, Silver, and Bronze.

Organization Committee

Honorary General Chair
Ryohei Nakatsu
General Co-Chairs
Hirokazu Kato
Michael Haller
Athanasios V. Vasilakos
Program Co-chairs
Bruce Thomas
Yoshifumi Kitamura
Magy Seif El-Nasr
(Local) Organizing Co-chairs
John N. Karigiannis
Konstantinos Giannakis
Adrian David Cheok
Financial Co-Chairs
Ivan Boo

WWW Administrator

Miyuru Dayarathna
Demo Co-Chair
Maki Sugimoto
Art Exhibition Chair
Philippe Pasquier
Publicity Chair
Owen Noel Newton Fernando

Asia Malls Company Visit

On 18th October, Asia-Malls company visited our MXR lab to see our demo. This meeting was arranged as they are exploring ideas on working with our lab to create an Interactive Media set up in the atirum of a new shopping mall in Singapore. Read more for pictures.

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