New Communications final essay

In what ways are virtual worlds and the real world merging, and what potential advantages can virtual worlds provide?

Various fictional movies have focused on human beings’ fascination with cyber space and virtual worlds. In the twenty first century this fascination has evolved into what can be described as an attempt to breathe life into the fictitious “digital realm” of movies such as The Matrix, through the automated sphere (Chin, 2006/7:1303). The introduction of social networking and virtual worlds has seen an explosion in online socializing, that is, the simultaneous interaction which takes place in real time between users in simulated spaces (Gorini, Gaggioli, Vigna & Riva, 2008). These virtual worlds however, have become such an integrated part of people’s lives that aspects of the virtual world and the real world are merging. This merge is complex, and although associated with negative implications there is also a great scope for positive uses of virtual worlds by health professionals. This essay will explore the ways in which virtual worlds and the real world are merging, focusing on the virtual community of Second Life; and discuss potential advantages virtual worlds can provide for industries such as medicine, health and education.

The introduction of Web 2.0 in 2004 gave rise to a new era in virtual technology. Users could maximize the potential of the Web, allowing creativity and content sharing among multiple computers in different locations. Web 2.0 supports and sustains social networking, and promotes participation and cooperation among users. One of the most successful Web 2.0 applications is symbolized by three-dimensional virtual spaces or virtual worlds. Virtual worlds can be defined as “online immersive ‘game-like’ environments where participants engage in socialization, entertainment, education, and commerce”, and as a genre; “classified as massively multiplayer online (i.e., MMO) virtual environments” (Mennecke et. al, 2007:2). Such virtual worlds include Second Life and World of Warcraft, whereby users interact with eachother via avatars in a simulated environment online through the computer. These avatars simultaneously interact with eachother and occupy the same artificial space. Three dimensional Cyber Space’s can be considered as 3-D social networks, where besides encountering others and interacting with established phenomenon, people can work together to construct, develop and refine projects (Gorini et. al, 2008).

Virtual worlds are similar to the real world in many ways and evidence of the two merging is appreciable. Firstly, Cyber worlds are generally modeled on the real world and follow many of the same rules such as gravity, communication and real time actions. Analogous to real life, in virtual worlds such as Second Life people are able to develop relationships and social skills, and interact with eachother via avatars. Each users’ avatar is a custom designed, realistic 3D character. These avatars can participate in many activities such as; attending and partaking in lectures, conferences and other live events, holidaying and exploring new places, constructing societies and communities such as support groups and learning institutions, and visiting 3D virtual libraries to peruse document collections (Gorini et. al, 2008). As Chin (1996/7) suggests, every aspect of Second Life from the grass, mountains, rivers, seas, sun, wind, islands and countries to the paved streets and buildings is designed to produce the perception of living in the real world, as if users truly exist in this virtual reality. The effect is one of ‘feeling’ and total immersion, which “significantly provide(s) a means of embodiment for the user” (Taylor, 2002:40). Aided by the laws of physics and real life topography, Second Life introduces the closest perception of a parallel universe currently available (Chin, 1996/7).

Rather than differentiated from the real world, many virtual worlds are now seen as an expansion and continuation of reality, defying their once strict categorization as games. With over twelve million subscribers, Second Life is the largest online cyber community, with players investing great deals of time and energy on their ‘virtual self’ (State of Play 2 Conference, 2004). As Taylor (2002) asserts, a users’ avatar provides a means of establishing and creating a social identity and enabling engagement in the virtual world. Through avatars users are able to completely inhabit the cyber world, existing not just as “mind”, but instead using avatars to “construct their identities” (40). This embodiment in the virtual environment ceases to be of pure entertainment value and becomes an extension of real life, where cyber phenomenon becomes authentic.

One of the major ways that virtual worlds and the real world are merging is noticeable through business ventures. The once strictly ‘real world’ activities of business are becoming increasingly absorbed into the cyber sphere. Many virtual spaces are continuing to grow into sites of real world commerce (Balkin, 2004). In Second Life for example, a user can make a real-world living through pursuits conducted by their online avatar. An avatar can buy, sell or rent virtual real estate, build and lease stores, or provide “work for hire” labor including advertising, scripting and architecture (Mennecke et. al, 2007). Avatars can even create and produce their own clothing brand, concert or sports event. Another example comes from the online game Project Entropia, whereby one player bought a virtual space station for $100,000 in real money, hoping to earn dollars by charging other users rent and tax (Hof, 2006).

As Second Life has recently assigned their creators the intellectual property rights for everything they produce, virtual objects can be exchanged or sold within the virtual environment. The Second life currency avatars generate from their sales is called Linden Dollars- money which has a conversion rate and can be exchanged for real money in the real world. Although everything bought, sold or traded in Second Life’s virtual environment is synthetic, players are spending an average of $130 million real dollars a year on these ‘virtual’ material objects (Avasthi, 2006). This highlights the fact that virtual worlds are not only merging with the real world on an emotional and intellectual level, but also in a business and monetary sense. Players are paying good money to fancily cloth and house their avatars in the virtual environment, and spending increasingly more time masked as these avatars interacting in the virtual world.

Although the merging of the virtual and real worlds may seem alarming, this union has provided unexpected assistance and enhancement for people in the real world. As Avasthi (2006) suggests, perhaps the virtual world’s most considerable contribution to the real world is its use as a learning tool. Industries such as health, medicine and education are taking advantage of the opportunities this new and growing environment can provide. Mennecke et. al (2007) asserts that virtual worlds have “emerged as a rich complex platform for research” (2), expanding significantly from the video game image. Cyber worlds can now be thought of as laboratories for exploring various social science research issues. They are able to do this by offering a space where people’s behavior is almost identical to their behavior in the real world. From a research perspective, online virtual environments can be constructed, manipulated and controlled in ways unable to be pursued by other research avenues.

Virtual worlds are becoming extremely useful for health professionals. For example, a computer simulated environment may help with surgical education such as preoperative organization and practice, whereby information gathered could possibly be utilized and delivered with aid from robotics (Krummel, 1998). As Gorini et. al (2008) explain, virtual worlds such as Second Life “currently feature(s) a number of medical and health education projects” (2). Examples of educational projects associated with Second Life can be found in the form of Medical and Consumer Health Libraries such as “healthinfo island”, and VNEC, which is Second Life’s Virtual Neurological Education Centre developed at the university of Plymouth in the United Kingdom (Maged, Boulos, Hetherington & Wheeler, 2007). Other Health education uses include Second Life’s Virtual Hallucinations lab, whereby users can step inside the mind of a person suffering from schizophrenia. This aims to educated people about the nature of schizophrenic hallucinations (Gorini et. al, 2008).

Overall, the virtual world and the real world are merging in many ways. Through avatars people are able to construct and operate an identity, build relationships with others and engage in many real world activities. Not only are virtual worlds moulded on the real world, they are designed and created to ‘feel’ as close to a parallel universe as humanly possible. Cyber worlds are becoming simply an extension and continuation of the real world. With the introduction of business to virtual spaces and spending of real world money, virtual worlds and the real world are blending like never before. Although this concept may seem unnerving, there are also many positive uses for virtual worlds such as Second Life in the health, education and medical field. Such uses include virtual simulations for preoperative surgery and use as a laboratory for social science research.

References

Avasthi, A. (2006). "Second Life," Other Virtual Worlds Reshaping Human Interaction, National Geographic News. Visit: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/10/061017-second-life_2.html

Balkin, J. M. (2004). Virtual Liberty: Freedom to Design and Freedom to Play in Virtual Worlds, Virginia Law Review, Vol. 90, No. 8, p. 2043, 2004
Yale Law School, Public Law Working Paper No. 74

Betsy Book. (2004). Moving Beyond the Game: Social Virtual Worlds, State of Play 2 Conference, October, Contact: http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/info/contact.shtml

Chin, B. (2006-2007). Regulating Your Second Life - Defamation in Virtual Worlds, 72 Brook. L. Rev. 1303.

Gorini, A., Gaggiolo, A., Cinzia, V., Giuseppe, R.(2008). A Second Life for eHealth: Prospects for the Use of 3-D Virtual Worlds in Clinical Psychology, J Med Internet Res. 2008 Jul–Sep; 10(3): e21.

Hof, R. D. (2006). My Virtual Life. Bloomberg L.P Visit: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982001.htm

Taylor, T. L. (2002). Chapter 3 Living Digitally: Embodiment in Virtual Worlds, From R. Schroeder (Ed.) The Social Life of Avatars: Presence and Interaction in Shared Virtual Environments. London: Springer-Verlag, 2002.

Krummel, T. M., (1998). Surgical Simulation and Virtual Reality: The Coming Revolution, Annals of Surgery, Vol. 228, No. 5, 635-637, Lippincott Williams & Wilkns

Maged, N., Boulos, K., Hetherington, L. & Wheeler, S. (2007). Second Life: an overview of the potential of 3-D virtual worlds in medical and health education, Health Libraries Group

Mennecke, B. E., Roche, E. M., Bray, D. A., Konsynski, B., Lester, J., Rowe, M., & Townsend, A. M. (2007). Second Life and other Virtual Worlds: A Roadmap for Research, International Conference on Information Systems, Twenty Eighth International Conference on Information Systems, Montreal.

Final Post- Course evaluation

Overall, I enjoyed this summer semester course. The intensive mode really helped me to stay focused on the content being taught in the lectures and it was easier to contemplate the ideas when other subjects werent interfering with my thinking. I thought the lectures were well presented and Adam really knew what he was talking about. He was able to answer any questions thoroughly. The tutes were helpful in extending the ideas taught in the lectures, however there never seemed to be enough time to finish the tasks in class, which in summer course can let you fall behind quite easily. I suggest making the tutes 2 hours, with an option of staying for the second hour. This course has helped me think about new communication technologies in a different light, and brought up some interesting questions that I can discuss with others.

Tutorial 10 task

I want you to create 2 Media Tetrads per group...

For your first media tetrad I want you to create one for an old medium of communication. Radio, Television, Newspapers, etc.

For the second tetrad I want you to choose one contemporary medium of communication. Instead of choosing "the internet", be more specific - a particular form of social media, the mobile phone, and so on.

Media Tetrad

1. Old medium of communication: Television

Enhances:
Not just sound technology like Radio, also introduced visual technology. Television was more descriptive (less imagination was needed)

Retrieves:
Television is similar to radio (in retrieving information) as it is a form of entertainment e.g. – it entertains audiences with soap operas, dramas and news, similar to radio.

Reverses:
When pushed to the extreme, television becomes reality television. Television then starts to become a mirror of society instead of a means of entertainment (when pushed to the extreme, shows on television could become “just like” reality e.g. - shows which showed surveillance camera footage).

Obsolesces:
It does not make radio obsolete; however it makes other domains of radio obsolete (“video killed the radio star”).

2. New medium of communication: The Iphone

Enhances:
It enhances the older phones by combining different technologies into one (e.g.-computer and phone). The phone is not just a means of communication; it is a form of entertainment.

Retrieves:
It is still used for communication (such as calling and texting others) however, other content (being retrieved from technologies such as computers) has also been added, such as email, GPS, access to social networking sites and internet surfing.

Reverses:
When pushed to the extreme, Iphones can become a form of control of everyday devices and technologies (e.g.-controlling home appliances from your Iphone or controlling military machines). It becomes a basic devise of control, like a remote.

Obsolesces:
The Iphone can make the computer and older phones obsolete. It does this by allowing access of both technologies, in one devise- therefore cutting down time spent on these older technologies.

Lecture 10 summary

"the invisible environment"

major themes: media/technology- ecology/environment

in the lecture today we reviewed previous lectures of 'the media' and 'media'

• 'medium of communication'
• technology: the study of mechanical arts or technology
• when technology is used it becomes a medium.
• media ecology: asks us to consider the total 'media environment'
• School of thought that considers how communication technologies become part of our society, and in doing so become media of communication.
• the impact of these media on thought and language as part of our everyday culture is a primary focus, explored in areas such as morality, literacy and education.
• looking at the way the media impacts on us as people.
• Neil Postman is influential in this area.
• returned to Marshal Mcluhan: who said "media are all the human means of expression and conveying meaning".
• extension of man... media is an extension of our sensations.
• when a new medium comes through, it enhances on the previous medium, eg- youtube extends or enhances the old medium of television. eg- may make television obsolete.
• retrieves old form of monologue or poetry
• reverse or flip when pushed to its extremes.
• Neil Postman: founder of media ecology association in mid 90's
• introduced that technology used socially becomes a medium.
• he treats technology critically
• introduces ethical component eg- technology has negative impacts.
• particulary in the use of technology for educational purposes.
• Postman wrote book "teaching as a subversive activity"
• we are in a society which is ruled by technology.
• an example of this is the invention of the printing press in europe.
• Medium: a medium is a technology within which a culture grows , it gives form to a cultures politics, social organisation and habitual ways of thinking.
• contemporary media ecologist lance Strate: study of media environments.
• Robert Logan: interested in the history of the alphabet and languages, and their influence on culture.
• Invisible environment: anti-environmental event: something which makes you draw attention to it, outside of the usual environment.
• "the present is always invisible because it is environmental"
• the environment has saturated our filed of attention so that we cannot possibly perceive it all.
• an example is a fish in a water bowl, which you then take out of its environment.
• New Communication technologies: the point is to ask questions so that the invisible environment (social media etc) becomes visible to us.

Lectire 9 summary

Today's lecture was presented by guest lecturer Jason Nelson about the creative uses of the Internet.

• we are starting to rethink the way we think about content eg- the natural disaster map of the world
• people don't think about how far the connection has to go when they go to website.
• google is predominately an advertising company, and searches depend on who has paid the most money for the 'top spot'
• "sketch cast" is a website which allows you to make your own animations. This would never have been possible a few years ago.
• there are 'generator' sites which are like apps.
• anyone can create an app, which looks at similarities.
• 'portable apps.com' contains all free or open source software which you can upload onto your memory stick and have with you to use on any computer.
• this is supposed to be the future of the Internet so that you don't actually need a computer, just the applications on the memory stick.
• 'key logger' can be installed in any computer and anything that you type is recorded. then someone can either take the text off the computer or they can have the information emailed to them.
• freeware genius: is a website which reviews all the free software available on the Internet and recommends the best ones to use.
• 'technorati' is like google, however it gives you more specific blogs about what your looking for.
• 'google wave' is the new thing in email, which combines email, chat and real-time file sharing and combines all of these together and saves everything that you've done.
• Jason spoke about his work and gave some insight into they came about for example his games are not intended to have specific structures, and is not supposed to all make sense, just the sense that the individual gets from it.
• 'net-art' is artwork created with net technologies.
• Artists play around with data visualisation.
• 
  

day 8 Tutorial Task

net.artTake a look at: digital poet Jason Nelson's SecretTechnology.comYou should explore AT LEAST THREE of his creations and write about your response to the works that you are viewing.

Think about the way you interact with the works: How does it make you feel?What does it makes you think about?What are the other media forms that it uses, or is similar to?If we accept that Jason's works are poetry - How do you "read" digital poetry like that?

The first one I went to was an interactive puzzle game where clues were hidden in the screen. It was interesting and different and made me feel like I wanted to know more. Although it was a little difficult to control the mouse to where it needed to be I found it frustrating yet still a little fun. It makes me think about how the things in the screen were related and what that relation could be. It uses words from what could be books etc, and is similar to an interactive book where the author allows you to choose the path that the book takes. I guess you "read" digital poetry in the same way that you explore a website, taking from it what you will.

The second one I went to was the poetry cube, where you as the viewer control how the poetry moves from side to side, up and down etc and changes as the viewer wishes. It made me slightly confused as there didn't seem to be any specific structure of the poetry, however I was also intrigued. It makes me think about interactive poetry and the future in which this new kind of poetry could take. It is similar to a poetry book, however the viewer can change the poem to their liking at any time. You read this kind of poetry with an open mind and have to be aware that it may not form any structure, or the structure may become clear.

The third one I went to was called 'evil hypnotising mascots'. It made me feel a little uneasy with the combination of strange sounds and visuals and words such as "death". It made me feel confused and I wanted it to make more sense and have more structure. It used other media forms of animal characters, music and was very interactive. To read the poetry in this you must overcome the confusion of it all, but as the veiwer is in control you are able to make sense of it if you try.

Lecture 8 summary

Today's lecture focussed on "internet Censorship", "politics" and "Content File Sharing"

• Politics: refers to the power relationships between people, "lower case p" politics
• politics matters to us on a level other than the government.
• hackers are people who explore what is possible
• what our personal rights and responsiblities are, towards other people and institutions.
• politica can be race, gender, age, social economic status, and money.
• politics is who is going to use power over you.
• citizen hacker: what are our rigths in the internet age?
• In europe you get '3 strikes and your out' polocy in regard to downloading 'illegal' material, where after these 3 strikes the government will shut off your internet.
• what are our rights as citizens in regard to new communication technologies.
• Sweden/ Uk has strong internet censorship
• However, you as the citizen have the choice as to whether to turn this on or not. "opt-in system"
• Australia in 2007 the government wanted to introduce mandatory internet filter.
• this came from interests outside of Australia
• Liberal government wanted to introduce a mandatory internet filter.
• this was a technical solution to a social problem
• however, issues with poilicing the list (from being linked), and giving someone a blacklist of all the censored information.
• issues with more expensive broadband
• moral issues: criminals using dodgy websites which are organised and underground, censorship will not work as the site names can be easily changed etc.
• Filesharing: the law lags behind expecially with the internet.
• Content industry offer services on behalf of the creators.
• the internet's main purpose is to copy.
• Content Oublisher->$->creator->creative commons (cutting out the middle man)->PD
• the problem comes down to revenue
• Film we watched: at the foundation of existence is communication and the spreading and copying of knowledge.
• Early in history copying and print was seen as the work of the devil, however copying of information is inevitable and had become more and more widespread.
• advances in technology lead to the invention of networking computers and the INTERNET.
• the Internets primary function was the reproduction and distribution of knowledge.

Lecture 7 summary

today's lecture focused on the relationship between Politics and new Media;

• politics and new communication technologies interact together
• Cyber politics: means the politics of the Internet that exists predominately on the Internet
• Edemocracy: the Internet's intervention in and contribution to real world politics that exists predominately off the Internet. Eg, political campaigning on the Internet and the governments use of the Internet to raise awareness and debate on issues to the people's use of new communication technologies to criticize the government and reveal their mistakes. In Edemocracy people use the Internet to intervene in standard politics. People can write a letter to their local members and their local members can respond. An example of this can be seen in the political sphere in regard to climate change, and the party changing their vote on the emissions trading scheme due to mass internet (emails) from people who oppose it.
• Example of this relationship is the Facebook "friends" connection and "Secondlife"which are examples of political structure in person to person relationships.
• the use of the Internet in politics was first used in the Obama campaign.
• As voting is not compulsory in the USA, new communication technologies is used to get the message out and get people to vote.
• an example of this is a CNN program that supposedly lists the person as the single defining vote that led Obama to not be in power and for Gorge Bush to remain for another 4 years. This is portrayed as being the case because that person did not vote.
• An example of this can be seen in the Kevin'07 and John Howard campaigns where Kevin Rudd used Facebook etc and stayed in touch with new communications technologies, whereas Howard put a video up on Youtube which looked outdated.
• Example of contemporary use of new communication technologies in politics is "Obama girl" video
• video's made on YouTube attacking the opposition with satire can become embraced by that attacked party as a funny joke, defeating the purpose.
• participatory or direct democracy: based on the ancient Greek model where all citizens have a right and a duty to be involved in all decisions made.
• the Internet could provide a return to the participatory approach where everyone can be involved in political processes.
• there is an issue with people not having the technology to do this.
• eg can be seen where politicians are "twittering" from inside the party meetings, which is a change from previously where mobiles were banned from use in the party meetings.
• introduced "transparency" into the party room, whereas before this sort of information would have been kept secret to stop the opposition from briefing the media on their take on the party's minutes.
• the Internet will show a new form of politics emerging , it is the future of politics.
• new technology allows people to work later, at home and at night if needed and wanted.
• "cyberpunk" is a form of science fiction based genre based on the possibilities inherent in computers, genetics, body modifications and corporate developments in the near future.
• Cyberpunk developed as a reaction against the safe spaces of movies such as Starwars.

day 7 Tutorial Task

Task 1- sign an e-petition

E-PETITIONS CONFIRMATION
Thank you Ms Kellerman
Your name has been added to the Supporting the decriminalisation of altruistic surrogacy in Queensland E-Petition as specified below
TO: The Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland
Queensland residents draws to the attention of the House that under current legislation Queenslanders are at risk of fines and imprisonment for undertaking altruistic surrogacy arrangements. This is despite the fact that altruistic surrogacy is a long held tradition of some Queensland cultural groups and is not a criminal act in the majority of Australian States and Territories. The current laws do not allow Queenslanders with medical and fertility issues to make their own decisions about accessing current medical methods to have a family. It discriminates against those women who, for medical reasons, are unable to carry a child to term and therefore cannot use other legal methods of assisted reproduction (eg. IVF and AI). The current Queensland laws send surrogacy practices underground, force families to move interstate to access the treatments legally, and place children born of these arrangements in precarious legal and guardianship situations. The laws also restrict the rights of women who wish to be a surrogate, for no monetary gain or personal benefit. Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to implement the unanimous recommendations of the investigation into altruistic surrogacy committee tabled on 23 April 2009.

http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/EPetitions_QLD/CurrentEPetition.aspx?PetNum=1290

Task 2.

Task 3. What is Barack Obama up to today?
http://blogs.america.gov/obama/

Changes to Afghanistan strategy in store
— By Michelle Austein Brooks, 30 November 2009
President Obama plans to speak to Americans via a prime-time address December 1 about new plans for the war in Afghanistan, which has now lasted about eight years.
His top political advisors and military commanders are aware of the upcoming changes, as President Obama met with them Sunday evening in the oval office. This comes after months of reviews of current Afghanistan policies and meetings with top officials.
The new strategy will likely include an increase in troops and plans to further strengthen the Afghan and Pakistani governments’ involvement. Before announcing it to the American people, the president plans to talk to leaders of some of its greatest allies, including Great Britain and France.
For more on the upcoming speech, see “Obama Addresses Afghanistan Strategy December 1.” What role should the United States continue to play in Afghanistan?

Task 4.
Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are.

Federal:
May, Mrs Margaret
MP



+ adam asks: What do you think of the Australian Government's plans to censor the internet (the so-called "Clean Feed")???

I think that that the QLD government's plans to censor the internet is outragous. It seems that this is just another blatent attempt to monitor people's use of the internet and remove any negative remarks about the government. It is taking away people's right to free speech!

Tutorial 6 task- Essay Research

Write out the question that you would like to answer for your essay, find at least 5 references and write 50 words on each.

The question that I chose to research was "In what ways is the virtual world and the real world merging?".

Mixed Reality: Future Dreams Seen at the Border between Real and Virtual Worlds
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, November/December 2001 (vol. 21 no. 6)
pp. 64-70
Hideyuki Tamura, Hiroyuki Yamamoto, Akihiro Katayama


Mixed reality (MR) is a kind of virtual reality (VR), but a broader concept than augmented reality (AR), which augments the real world with synthetic electronic data. On the opposite side, augmented virtuality (AV) enhances or augments virtual environment with data from real world. MR covers a continuum from AR to AV.

Virualized Reality: Constructing Virtual Worlds from Real Scenes.
1997
T Kanade, P Rander, PJ Narayanan
IEEE Multimedia

A new visual medium, Virtualized Reality, immerses viewers in a virtual reconstruction of real-world events.The Virtualized Reality world model consists of real images and depth information computed from these images. Stereoscopic reconstructions provide a sense of complete immersion, and users can selecttheir own viewpoints at view time, independent of the actual camera positions used to capture the event.

Augmented reality: linking real and virtual worlds: a new paradigm for interacting with computers
AVI archive
Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces
Wendy E. Mackay
Publisher: ACM New York, NY, USA
Pages: 13 - 21
Year of Publication: 1998

A revolution in computer interface design is changing the way we think about computers. Rather than typing on a keyboard and watching a television monitor, Augmented Reality lets people use familiar, everyday objects in ordinary ways. The difference is that these objects also provide a link into a computer network. Doctors can examine patients while viewing superimposed medical images; children can program their own LEGO constructions; construction engineers can use ordinary paper engineering drawings to communicate with distant colleagues. Rather than immersing people in an artificially-created virtual world, the goal is to augment objects in the physical world by enhancing them with a wealth of digital information and communication capabilities.

P Milgram, H Colquhoun - Mixed reality-merging real and virtual worlds, 1999
Chapter 1- A taxonomy of Real and Virtual World Display Integration.

The primary objective in this paper od this paper is to present a number of fundamental display integration and orientation issues related to the nascent eld of Mixed Reality. The approach is motivated rst by the need for a more encompassing term to supplement the existing denition of Augmented Reality (AR), which leads us to propose definitions of the associated concepts of Augmented Virtuality (AV) and then Mixed Reality (MR). Following our discussion of the breadth of Mixed Reality displays in Section 1.1, we discuss the associated issues of viewpoint centricity and control- display mapping in Section 1.2. Finally, in Section 1.3, we present a taxonomy which we hope will be useful for dierentiating between several of the issues raised with regard to the dierent classes of Mixed Reality display systems.

Roomware: Toward the Next Generation of Human-Computer Interaction Based on an Integrated Design of Real and Virtual Worlds, chapter 25, 2001
Norbert A. Streitz, Peter Tandler, Christian Müller-Tomfelde, Shin’ichi Konomi
pp. 511-602

The next generation of human-computer interaction (HCI) is determined by a number
of new contexts and challenges that have evolved during the last five to ten years and will be evolving more rapidly in the next five to ten years. They are rooted in new, emerging technologies as well as in new application areas asking for new approaches and visions of the future beyond the year 2000.

Webblog Part 2- Week 2 lecture 6 summary

This lecture focused on 'the academic study of video games'.

• video games were around before the internet, and began approxamatly 50 years ago.
• Steven Pool wrote the book "trigger happy", exploring the field of video games and their appeal. This was released on creative commons, and made into a documentary as well.
• Video games are evolving at a rapid rate.
• video games are extraordinary because you are interacting, changing and emersing yourself within the game.
• Video games are different from any other cultural untertaking because unlike books and films ect, you as the player can experiment and 'see what happens when I do this'.
• computer/ console game use is widespread and is the equivalent of back in the times when it was common to own a television.
• the BAFTA awards show how video games are becoming mass.
• it is a struggle for games to compete with other films/books narratively.
• games such as the 'sims' allow for some emotion to be brought into the gaming characters.
• people use real money to buy 'imagenary' objects for thier online game's character.
• are the real world and the cyber world merging?
• video games include the following;
• arcade games, consoles, mobile handheld consoles, computer games, MMD's (text based games), MMOG's (Eg- Everquest, world of warcraft).
• in the 1960's, spacewar was an early video game..
• However, it has been recorded that video games were around as early as 1954. These games however, were hidden so as to not be in the spotlight.
• Video games have been intertwined with the development of computing technology since this game (Spacewar).
• military interest in video games have been in the form of simulations ect.
• Theoretical Considerations:
• media effects and games- the impact of the game on the audience)
• the persistence of effect- games can have lingering effects on how people experience reality
• Games and utopia- in video games we can create a perfect society.
• new form of cultural practice? - what does this allow us to express that we cannot anywhere else?

• Narratology: is the study of video games from the perspective of them being stories of literary works eg- Janet Murray, Lev Manovich
• Ludology: in contrast, is concerned with the game play element.
• Platform studies: tracing a history of video games according to their hardware platform.

lecure 5 Summary

This lecture focused on 'Virtual Philosophy'

• virtual philosophy poses the quesion 'what is reality'
• virtual has come to mean 'almost the same' so that virtual reality is 'almost the same' as reality
• Plato from 2000 years ago came up with the idea that there are things in life that can be considered essential to somethings nature (or an ideal form- which is something in nature that has this)
• this idea came along before people new what the atom was
• it is a 'perfect' form of this subject
• which is subject to everyone's personal subjectivity

• Plato's essences were played out through 'the cave'
• the main idea of this (as a metaphoror concept) was that if everyone was sitting and looking at a cave, behind everyone are the 'essences' which people cannot see. The essences are replicated as the 'fire of life'. The fires shadow is our reality. We dont always experience the full essence of our reality

• Guy Debord thought of the 'society as spectacles' and the mediation of society.
• he thought that this was (as reality tv) to entertain us.
• we as people dont like reality because we ahve become so bored with it.
• we have been trained by everyday media just like classical conditioning.

• Umberto Eco created 'hyper reality'
• this means that reality is not just real, it is hyper-real
• our reality is media oriented
• thanks to extensions of our body, we can suddenly experience reality like never before

• J Baudrillard wrote of the similar or 'simulacrum'
• meanging that everything that we experience is a copy of that thing (philosophical)
• we approach computers as the 'mediators of reality'

• two french philosophers came up with the theory in thier book 'what is philosophy' (below)
  

ACTUAL (1 direction) VIRTUAL (many directions)
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---------> ------------->
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PRESENT MOMENT
(Plato's essences)