Virtual & Augmented Reality Technologies for Assisting Education Invited Talk

On the 15^th of March 2013, Dr. Fotis Liarokapis gave an invited presentation (in Greek) to the Hellenic Ministry of Education, Religion Affairs, Culture and Sports. The General Secretariat for Lifelong Learning, organized the first of a series of scientific workshops on IT in Adult Education with the title of “Introduction of innovation and the effective use of technology in Adult Education”.

The title of the talk was ‘Virtual & Augmented Reality Technologies for Assisting Education’ and two case studies were presented. The first one was for an online virtual environment for supporting lecturing at Coventry University and another one for using online augmented reality technologies for similar purposes. 

More information:

http://www.hellasedu.gr/2013/03/hmerida-gia-pliroforiki-sthn-ekpaideysi-enhlikon.html

5th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-GAMES’13)

The 5^th outing of the International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications will be hosted at Bournemouth University, UK between the 11th and the 13th of September 2013. With the conference organized in previous years at locations such as Coventry (UK), Braga (Portugal), Athens (Greece) and Genoa (Italy), it will take place, for 2013, at the state of the art Kimmeridge House building of Bournemouth University, situated at the main Talbot campus of the institution. The development and deployment of games with a purpose beyond entertainment and with considerable connotations with more serious aims is an exciting area with immense academic but also commercial potential. This potential presents both immediate opportunities but also numerous significant challenges to the interested parties involved, as a result of the relatively recent emergence and popularity of the medium. The VS Games 2013 conference aims to address this variety of relevant contemporary challenges that the increasingly cross-disciplinary communities involved in serious games are currently facing. This will be achieved by, amongst other ways, the comprehensive dissemination of successful case studies and development practices, the sharing of theories, conceptual frameworks and methodologies and, finally, the discussion of evaluation approaches and their resulting studies.

 

For VS Games 2013 we are therefore seeking contributions from researchers, developers from the industry, practitioners and decision-makers which aim to advance the state of the art in all of the technologies related to serious games. The following listed topics are particularly encouraged, though it should be mentioned that they are not the only ones of interest to VS Games 2013 and that the list below is not exhaustive by any means:

• Game design

• Virtual environments

• Game-based learning methodologies

• Mixed and augmented reality

• Computer graphics

• Gamification

• Case studies/user studies for serious games and virtual worlds

• Mobile gaming

• Interactive storytelling

• Application areas

• AI for serious games

• Educational/learning theories and their application

• Visualization

• Pervasive gaming

• Human-computer interaction

• User modeling

• Alternate reality

• Simulation

• Platforms and tools

The following are the dates of submission for the different tracks of the VS Games 2013 conference:

• Full Papers (8 pages): 25th March 2013

• Short Papers (4 pages): 25th March 2013

• Poster Papers (2 pages): 25th March 2013

• Call for Workshops (2 pages): 25th March 2013

The authors of the best papers will be invited to write an extended version for inclusion in the Elsevier Entertainment Computing journal (subject to additional review) and IGI Global's International Journal of Game-Based Learning. Authors of selected technical articles with a focus on computer graphics will be invited to submit extended versions of their works to be considered for publication in Elsevier's Computers and Graphics Journal. Further proceedings and other journal special issue details for the VS Games 2013 publications are being finalised and will be announced as soon as possible.

More information:

http://www.vsgames2013.org/

Demos to The Princess Royal for ECB formal Opening

On the 8^th February 2013, Dr. Fotis Liarokapis presented 2 interactive demonstrations to the Royal Highness the Princess Royal which came to formally open the Faculty of Engineering and Computing, Coventry University. The demos were developed by iWARG students, Andrei Ermilov and Alina Ene and focused on interaction technologies for computer games. 

Andrei presented how computer vision interactions based on Kinect can be used to play computer games whereas Alina presented how brain-computer interfaces can be used to control and navigate into serious games. Both demos lasted for approximately five minutes and The Princess Royal expressed a great interest in these technologies.

More information:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGtt0VPXh7Q&hd=1

Science and Technology Festival 2012 Debate

On the 15^th of December 2012, Dr. Fotis Liarokapis was invited to a debate about the impact of robotics and artificial intelligence in our lives as part of the Festival of Science and Technology 2012. This was organised in collaboration with the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF), Dimokritos National Centre for Science Research and EPISEY (Institute of Communication & Computer Systems).

 

The debate involved six academics from various Universities and backgrounds including engineering, computer science, philosophy and theology.  Three of them supported the argument and the other three were against. About 100 participants voted twice, once before the debate and another one afterwards, and the outcome was that the impact is positive to everyday life.

More information:

http://www.britishcouncil.org/greece-science-science-and-technology-festival-2012.htm

The 3rd Phoenix Partner Annual Conference Exhibition 2012

The third Phoenix Partner Annual Conference was held on Monday 10 December between 4pm and 6pm in the Engineering & Computing Building at Coventry University, UK. A live demonstration of the RomaNova project was performed by Dr. Fotis Liarokapis and Alina Ene, to about fifty visitors and staff. RomaNova is a prototype system for cultural heritage based on brain computer interfaces for navigating and interacting with serious games. 

 

The interactive game is built upon Rome Reborn one of the most realistic 3D representations of Ancient Rome currently in existence. This 3D representation provides high fidelity 3D digital models which can be explored in real-time. The aim of the game is to control an avatar inside virtual Rome and interact with intelligent agents while learning at the same time. Both navigation and interaction is performed using brain-wave technology.

More information:

http://www.coventry-univisits.com/content/register.php?event=partnersconference2012

'The Future of Gaming' IET Birmingham’s Christmas Lecture

On the 12^th of December 2012, Dr. Fotis Liarokapis and Dr Eike Falk Anderson gave an invited lecture for the IET Birmingham’s Christmas Lecture on ‘The Future of Gaming’. They outlined the evolution of games from their first emergence to the variety of modern games, ranging from casual games on mobile devices to the rich virtual environments found in desktop PC and console games. 

Discussion was focused on the different types of games, how game players play and interact with their games and what impact new developments in technology and game mechanics, such as gesture based user interfaces and brain computer interfaces, and emerging trends and changes in player behaviour, such as social gaming and cloud gaming, are likely to have in the future.

More information:

http://www.theiet.org/events/local/the-future-of-gaming_20121212_169191.cfm

Archeovirtual 2012 Demonstration

Recently, I have demonstrated a prototype brain-controlled serious game for cultural heritage, called RomaNova at Archeovirtual 2012 which took place at Paestum, Italy, 15-18 November 2012. The system was demonstrated for 2 consecutive days at a number of visitors and initial evaluation results were recorded. RomaNova project is a prototype system for cultural heritage based on brain computer interfaces for navigating and interacting with serious games. By analysing traditional human-computer interaction methods and paradigms with brain-controlled games, it is possible to investigate novel methods for interacting and perceiving virtual heritage worlds. An interactive serious cultural heritage game was developed based on commercial BCI headsets controlling virtual agents in the ancient city of Rome.

 

The interactive game is built upon Rome Reborn one of the most realistic 3D representations of Ancient Rome currently in existence. This 3D representation provides a high fidelity 3D digital model which can be explored in real-time. The aim of this game is to navigate an avatar inside virtual Rome and interact with intelligent agents while learning at the same time. Both navigation and interaction is performed using brain-wave technology. The Roma Nova project builds on previous work at Coventry University and aims at teaching history to young children but can also be applied for a wider audience. It allows for exploratory learning by immersing the learner/player inside a virtual heritage environment where they learn different aspects of history through their interactions with a crowd of virtual authentic Roman avatars.

More information:

http://www.vhlab.itabc.cnr.it/archeovirtual/romanova.htm