Positive Technology Journal

Via Networked Performance

NADA affords both the technical novice and expert an unified platform for prototyping physical interfaces and digital content - from handheld product concepts to reactive environments that can be connected across the Internet.

Working models that require less work... NADA is designed for maximum versatility and efficiency. It is a true cross-platform application, and it connects to a variety of commercially available hardware for bringing digital information into and out of standard PC's and Macs. Supported hardware is automatically detected and auto-configured, minimizing complexity for the user. Project authoring with NADA can be done in either Macromedia Flash MX2004 (or later) or Java™. Even beginners without programming experience can design and prototype with sensors, actuators, lights, switches and animation using an intuitive graphical environment. Graduate to finer levels of control by developing projects using the NADA API for ActionScript and Java™. Below is the look of the NADA interface

Commedia Virtuale: from theatre to avatars

Digital Creativity Journal, Volume 16, Number 3 / 2005

Ben Salem 

We are investigating face, hand and body expressions to be applied to avatars of a virtual environment to improve their communication capabilities and enrich and facilitate their perception by users of the environment. We report on our work based on obtaining inspiration from the world of theatre. In this perspective Commedia dell'Arte and Noh theatre have been the focus of our attention. We explore key features of Commedia dell'Arte, namely improvisation, exaggerated gestures and expressive postures, and investigate how their adoption in the design of avatars can be useful for collaborative virtual environments. With the same objectives we look at another theatre style, the Noh theatre. We investigate the variety of masks and the choreography. The outcome is a visual language for avatars made up of postures, gestures and appearances. We have concluded this investigation with the production of an experimental theatre play involving real and virtual actors.

Via the Presence L-Listserv 

(From Top Tech News) 

By Sixto Ortiz Jr.
March 10, 2006 7:02AM

The possibilities are endless, from fully immersive virtual- reality environments that faithfully reproduce real motion to, perhaps, a way to control unruly crowds without tear gas, rubber bullets, and riot police.

The idea of controlling people by manipulating brain activity long has been a staple of science fiction and dystopian fantasy. Hypnotism, implanted devices, brainwashing, even the Jedi mind trick -- all are methods that have appeared in fictional works as effective ways to subvert the will of human beings.

Today, however, the possibility of being controlled by an outside force is more science than fiction, thanks to researchers at Nippon Telegraph and Telephone in Japan.

A team at NTT's Communication Science Laboratories has invented a headset that can, when linked to a remote control equipped with a pair of joysticks, force the wearer to move against his or her will.

The device originally was designed to add realism to video games and other virtual environments. But while technically impressive, the invention is viewed by some as ethically troubling -- viewed, quite literally, as a new form of mind control. The apparatus has raised questions about the possibilities and perils of a world in which humans can be moved around like chess pieces.

Shock Value

NTT is using a technology called galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) to influence the delicate machinery in the inner ear that controls balance and movement in humans.
Subjects slip on the headset, which looks like a pair of bulky headphones, and researchers zap electrical impulses into their ears to control their movements remotely.

"At low currents, GVS selectively activates nerve cells in the peripheral vestibular system (the balance receptors in the inner ear) and such activation results in sensations and movements of the eyes and limbs, just as natural stimulation of balance receptors results in such movements," said Dr. Ian Curthoys, professor of vestibular function at the University of Sydney's Vestibular Research Laboratory.

In other words, GVS artificially induces the same natural sensations caused whenever the inner ear's balancing mechanism is stimulated with real movement. For example, Curthoys said, a subject undergoing this type of stimulation could feel like she is turning even though she is sitting still. The technology could be used both to trick a person into "feeling" motion and to move in a predetermined direction.

The possibilities are endless, from fully immersive virtual- reality environments that faithfully reproduce real motion to, perhaps, a way to control unruly crowds without tear gas, rubber bullets, and riot police.

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