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 :        http://www.mixedreality.nus.edu.sg/media/articles/ACE 2009 Report NimeshaRanasinghe.pdf
                  http://www.mixedreality.nus.edu.sg/media/articles/ACE09 Ken.pdf
Photos:     http://share.ovi.com/album/mxrlab.ACEConference20

Additional Information, Group Discount available :
1) Up to 3 participants or more - 10%
2) Up to 5 or more - 15%

For more information please see : http://workshop.mixedrealitylab.org

NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation, http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/) recently conducted a filming of the Huggy Pajama project for a new program called Gatchan. This TV program is an educational program to introduce some of the famous universities in the world, and especially research works conducted by unique research labs in these universities.

Photo Link : http://share.ovi.com/album/mxrlab.HuggyPajamafilm

 Title: AmbiKraf at Digital Content Expo 2009 and Interactive Tokyo Symposium

Description:
AmbiKraf was demonstrated at the recent Digital Content Expo 2009 in Tokyo Japan. The event was held at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan). The exhibition was held as a part of the Content Technology Exhibits (ConTEX) 2009 through 22nd to 25th October 2009. The project received great comments and complements from the public. The attendees were fascinated by the animated form of the fabric and the technology utilized. Many industrial players including Samsung Mobile were interested in the technology for use in their future products.

In addition, AmbiKraf was presented at the Interactive Tokyo Symposium in the "Real World" session. The panel discussion following the presentation discussed about the future applications and research directions of such technologies.
 

On 7 September 2009, Mr S Iswaran Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry, and Ministry of Education, visited Mixed Reality Lab.The lab members showed impressive work of their projects

Link : http://share.ovi.com/album/mxrlab.SeniorMinistero

NRF Chairman and board visit Mixed Reality Lab on 2-9-2009 and various demonstration are present for their knowledge.

 Link : http://share.ovi.com/album/mxrlab.NRFboardMiniste

Korean student from Honglk University visit Mixed Reality Lab for preview and enjoyed themselves for the demostration performed by the labmembers

Link : http://share.ovi.com/album/mxrlab.HonglkUniversit

Petimo is demonstrated in the demo session in this year’s IDC (Interaction Design and Children) conference in Como, Italy. There are totally 14 demos ranging from serious learning to fun and game. During the demo, Italy TV channel was invited to shoot the video of Petimo. Many visiting researchers were attracted by the cute design of both Petimo robot and Petimo world, and gave many desirable comments. Dr Maria Harrington from University of Pittsburgh said that Parent will definitely like this project. People also appreciated the rich interaction of Petimo robot, such as touching and communicating with virtual world in real time, which differentiates Petimo with other similar projects. There are also many children visitors showing much interest to Petimo. They assumed the face-to-face touching interaction as the metaphor of kissing and had great fun while playing with the cute robot.

"Adrian David Cheok  Young Global Leaders meeting with South Korea Prime Minister Han Seung-soo, Green Growth discussed"

Report from Hooman about HUMAN-ROBOT PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS conference 2009

http://www.mixedreality.nus.edu.sg/media/articles/HRPR 09 Report

CUTE Center and MXR Lab Director Adrian David Cheok was interviewed on May 5th in a half hour live interview on Radio 938LIVE.The topic was about the Babbage Cabbage project

Link :  http://www.mixedreality.nus.edu.sg/media/radio/Babbage Cabbage 5-5-2009.mp3

Summary for 5th April

I went to the Age Matters: bridging the generation gap through technologymediated workshop. The workshop started at 9am, ended at 5pm. Theres 10 presenters. We each have about 5 mins to present based on the posters and followed by questions and answer for another 5 mins. Most of the works presented are either social networks or messaging systems. There’s one work by Philips Research, which uses ambient technology (LED photo frame) for intergeneration awareness communication, visualizing the elderly health data through the ambient technology. The workshop participants are excited about the way we allow cultural transfer through new media. I did not have the opportunity to run the live demo (though I have brought the keyboard and setup the system) as the schedule for the day was very pack. I managed to show the Confucius concept video to all in the afternoon session where we are looking at various intergenerational systems. I have also passed around the Confucius + babbage cabbage postcards.

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

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.

MXR lab organised the SAKE party, for the opening of Keio-NUS Cute Center. It started at 8.30pm and ended around 11pm.

http://share.ovi.com/channel/mxrlab.KeioSakeParty

Two PhD students from the Mixed Reality Lab were invited to present their research at the prestigious Young Investigators' Forum in Culture Technology at the Graduate School of Culture Technology,KAIST, Korea.  The forums invites graduate students aiming to share innovative ideas about the future of Culture Technology.  The title of this year's forum was, "The Atlas of Culture Space". This inspiring forum brought together researchers from 9 countries to discuss their cutting-edge research and to exchange intellectually ideas in all areas of the field.  Full funding of our students was provided as anaward for being selected and our students greatly appreciate the opportunity and had an enriching experience.

The Forum was opened by Professor Jihyun Lee, followed by short congratulatory speeches by Professor Kwangyun Wohn, Dean of Graduate School of Culture Technology, and Professor Ramesh Krishnamurti of Carnegie Mellon University as the invited Keynote Speaker.

This year the presenters were grouped into the following sessions:

  1.  Sonic Terrain
  2.  Space! Space!! Space!!!
  3.  Internet Moves
  4.  Beyond the Real
  5.  Tactile Interface

James Teh presented Huggy Pajama (under Tactile Interface session) which focused on the novel communication system that is built to explore the possibilities of touch communication in remote situations.He highlighted the works that have been done to develop a prototype for parent-child communication via a hugging interface.

Tim Merritt presented research on Cute Engineering (under Beyond the Real session), which focused on some current prototypes in development that will be used as tools to study user behavior and to understand the role of "cuteness" in the design of elements in interactive systems.

Overall, both presentations received very good feedback from forum participants. Many Korean student hosts also mentioned that they enjoyed the presentations of the works from Mixed Reality Lab very much. After each of the presentations, forum participants discussed excitedly, with some commenting about how they liked the projects, while others gave constructive advice on future areas of exploration.

Photo Link : http://share.ovi.com/channel/mxrlab.KAIS

Keio-NUS CUTE Center Announced by Minister Lui Tuck Yew

Singapore’s Interactive Digital Media or IDM sector gets a shot in the arm with Keio University, jointly setting up an IDM research centre with the National University of Singapore. The research centre, called Keio-NUS CUTE (Connective Ubiquitous Technology for Embodiments) Centre will have a presence in both Singapore and Japan. It will focus on connected lifestyle media and embodied interactive technologies. This was announced by Senior Minister of State for Education Lui Tuck Yew. He was speaking at the 14th International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA 2008). The CUTE Centre is KEIO University's first full-scale international research centre located outside of Japan. It is expected to be operational soon and will involve some of Japan's top researchers who are also world-leading experts in their fields. Among the top researchers expected are Prof Masa Inakage, an internationally-renowned digital artist and creative director & producer for digital entertainment such as Hollywood blockbuster Spawn; and Prof Keiko Okawa, best known for the School on the Internet, which connects Southeast Asian Universities for research and education. Singapore researchers will include Associate Professor Adrian Cheok, Deputy Director of Research at NUS' Interactive and Digital Media Institute and a world renowned local researcher who specializes in mixed reality and embodied media. In all, the Keio-NUS CUTE Centre will involve more than 50 researchers from Japan and Singapore.

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dgeJTpU2OQ