Positive Technology Journal

Via Networked Performance

"(W)e are living a fusion of real and unreal time, an ongoing undulation of overlays and intersections...It's most like the way good old-fashioned thinking and imagining work in relation to sensing and perceiving ... It says that back before representational technologies developed, before literacy itself, people were also living in a fusion of real and unreal time because they were daydreaming while they were doing this or that. Just having a mind is to be in unreal time as well as in real time ... What that says is that representational technologies have colonized our minds ... To the extent that our thoughts no longer wander around on their own, stocked only with materials drawn from direct experience, to the extent that they follow flows of representations instead--to just that extent that we don't think our own thoughts. Literally...

When the term first arose, "real-time" implied speed, intensified velocity. The medium doing the representing was transforming reality into representation immediately. The expression was first used in connection with digital processing of information ... It was a term of praise that focused on how fast a computer could record the file transaction as compared with paper-shuffling clerks. It wasn't until the fact that computers could keep up with events was taken for granted that we noticed that security cameras in public places were real-time media too. And nothing seems slower than those! How strange. Why is that? No editing. No manipulation of what is presented.

In the same way, an innovation like videoconferencing could surprise us with a real-time capacity that the telephone had all along. Bit we only noticed that a lot of analog media were in real time after computers achieved sufficient processing speed to do it too. It was the malleability of digital transformations that made the difference. The fact that we could now manipulate what had once just been conveyed on a screen or over a wire, that's what go the juices going. That's why "interactive" became the mother of all buzz words. The idea that real time emerged when we became players on screens we had once viewed passively. The fusional loop of subject-object that is a video games expresses most cogently the thrill of real-time existence in unreal realms. You tweak the joystick and press the buttons and virtual swords flash and machine guns blaze in some tunnel on asteroid in a distant galaxy--not as a result of, but as a function of, at the same time as, your fingers on the console. You exist as agent and instrument simulateously in two places, in the meat world of fingers and consoles and the virtual world of cyborg warriors. Representational being incarnate. The primordial aim of the human imagination realized--literally "made real.

So "real time" is a compliment we pay to representations that reflect our agency either directly or in the way they conform to our designs subsequently ... Incidentally, remember when people thought that the Web was going to build bridges between communities and inspire cross-cultural understanding, etc.? ... The multiplication of niches has been so intense that the word fragmentation doesn't begin to describe it. What with these search worms and filters and custom advertising hooking you up with stuff you're already interested in ... you can spend your whole life online and never leave your own head." From Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It by Thomas De Zengotita.

Via Networked Performance

Are you Living in a Computer Simulation? by Nick Bostrom, Department of Philosophy, Oxford University.

ABSTRACT: This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a "posthuman" stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed. 

"Why the Matrix? Why did the machines do it? (Human brains may be many things, but efficient batteries they are not.) How could they justify a world whose inhabitants are systematically deceived about their fundamental reality, ignorant about the reason why they exist, and subject to all the cruelty and suffering that we witness in the world around us?" From Why Make a Matrix? And Why You Might Be In One: by Nick Bostrom.

Also see: Simulism is a concept that deals with the possibility that we are living in a simulation.

Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Jun 27;

Authors: Brefczynski-Lewis JA, Lutz A, Schaefer HS, Levinson DB, Davidson RJ

Meditation refers to a family of mental training practices that are designed to familiarize the practitioner with specific types of mental processes. One of the most basic forms of meditation is concentration meditation, in which sustained attention is focused on an object such as a small visual stimulus or the breath. In age-matched participants, using functional MRI, we found that activation in a network of brain regions typically involved in sustained attention showed an inverted u-shaped curve in which expert meditators (EMs) with an average of 19,000 h of practice had more activation than novices, but EMs with an average of 44,000 h had less activation. In response to distracter sounds used to probe the meditation, EMs vs. novices had less brain activation in regions related to discursive thoughts and emotions and more activation in regions related to response inhibition and attention. Correlation with hours of practice suggests possible plasticity in these mechanisms.

PTSD symptoms, substance use, and vipassana meditation among incarcerated individuals.

J Trauma Stress. 2007 Jun 27;20(3):239-249

Authors: Simpson TL, Kaysen D, Bowen S, Macpherson LM, Chawla N, Blume A, Marlatt GA, Larimer M

The present study evaluated whether Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptom severity was associated with participation and treatment outcomes comparing a Vipassana meditation course to treatment as usual in an incarcerated sample. This study utilizes secondary data. The original study demonstrated that Vipassana meditation is associated with reductions in substance use. The present study found that PTSD symptom severity did not differ significantly between those who did and did not volunteer to take the course. Participation in the Vipassana course was associated with significantly greater reductions in substance use than treatment as usual, regardless of PTSD symptom severity levels. These results suggest that Vipassana meditation is worthy of further study for those with comorbid PTSD and substance use problems.

Cerebellar activity evoked by common tool-use execution and imagery tasks: an fMRI study.

Cortex. 2007 Apr;43(3):350-8

Authors: Higuchi S, Imamizu H, Kawato M

The purpose of this study is to identify the functional brain networks activated in relation to actual tool-use in humans. Although previous studies have identified brain activity related to tool-use gestures (Moll et al., 2000), they did not investigate the brain activity involved in such tool-use. We investigated brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while human subjects mentally imagined using sixteen common tools and while they actually used them. Brain activity for both actual and imagined tool-use was found in the posterior part of the parietal cortex, in the supplementary motor area, and in the cerebellum. Under imagined tool-use conditions, we found brain activity in the premotor and right pars opercularis. Under actual tool-use conditions, we found it in the primary motor area, in the thalamus, and in the left pars opercularis. Our precise analysis in the cerebellum indicated that activity evoked by imagery was located significantly more lateral to that evoked by actual use. We found a relationship between activity in the tool imagery and execution conditions by comparing their t-value-weighted centroid of activation coordinates. Moreover, for half of the subjects the spatial distribution pattern for each tool was similar, suggesting that neural mechanisms contributing to skillful tool-use are modularly organized in the cerebellum.

Motor imagery and action observation: cognitive tools for rehabilitation.

J Neural Transm. 2007 Jun 20;

Authors: Mulder T

Via Networked Performance

In this interesting article recently published in Technology Review, Wade Roush predicts that the line between the real world and its virtual representations will soon start blurring. Here is an excerpt from the article:

[...] The first, relatively simple step toward a Second Earth, many observers predict, will be integrating Second Life's avatars, controls, and modeling tools into the Google Earth environment. Groups of users would then be able to walk, fly, or swim across Google's simulated landscapes and explore intricate 3-D representations of the world's most famous buildings ... A second alternative would be to expand the surface area of Second Life by millions of square kilometers and model the new territory on the real earth, using the same topographical data and surface imagery contained in Google Earth ... That's a much more difficult proposition ...

[W]ithin 10 to 20 years--roughly the same time it took for the Web to become what it is now--something much bigger than either of these alternatives may emerge: a true Metaverse ... It will look like the real earth, and it will support even more users than the Snow Crash cyberworld, functioning as the agora, labo­ratory, and gateway for almost every type of information-based pursuit. It will be accessible both in its immersive, virtual-reality form and through peepholes like the screen of your cell phone as you make your way through the real world. And like the Web today, it will become "the standard way in which we think of life online..."

While Second Life and Google Earth are commonly mentioned as likely forebears of the Metaverse, no one thinks that Linden Lab and Google will be its lone rulers. Their two systems are interesting mainly because they already have many adherents, and because they exemplify two fundamentally different streams of technology that will be essential to the Metaverse's construction...

"Google Earth itself is really neat," comments Jamais Cascio, the Metaverse Roadmap coauthor. "But Google Earth coupled with millions of sensors around the world, offering you real-time visuals, real-time atmospheric data, and so on--that's transformative."

Indeed, it's important to remember that alongside the construction of the Metaverse, a complementary and equally ambitious infrastructure project is under way. It's the wiring of the entire world, without the wires: tiny ­radio-­connected sensor chips are being attached to everything worth moni­toring, including bridges, ventilation systems, light fixtures, mousetraps, shipping pallets, battlefield equipment, even the human body ... "Augmented reality and sensor nets will blend right into virtual worlds," predicts ­Linden Lab's Ondrejka. "That's when the line between the real world and its virtual representations will start blurring." 

Via Usability News

Via Vroot

A new teleimmersive technology was launched at the Telepresence World Conference, being held in San Diego, US.

From the company website: 

The patented DVE Tele-Immersive Room is the world’s most realistic group-teleconferencing experience where the conferees appear in the 3D space of the room. After analysis of total needs of corporations for their high-end communications requirements, DVE created the DVE-Tele-Immersion Room^TM that provides:

a thought-provoking video about the media revolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj8ZadKgdC0 

a little self-promotion... ;-)

last week we presented NeuroVR, an open-source virtual reality software platform for clinical and neuroscience applications, to the Congressional Modeling & Simulation Caucus , during the CyberTherapy Reception.

The Reception was held on Wednesday, June 13 from 5-7 pm in the foyer of the Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC, USA.

read the full news release

Via Neurobot 

Ulysses Bernardet from the Institute of Neuroinformatics University ETH Zurich has developed IQR, an efficient graphical environment to design large-scale multi-level neuronal systems that can control real-world devices - robots in the broader sense - in real-time.

IQR has been released as open-source under GNU General Public License (GPL)

Introduction to the special issue from the proceedings of the 2006 International Workshop on Virtual Reality in Rehabilitation.

J Neuroengineering Rehabil. 2007 Jun 6;4(1):18

Authors: Keshner EA, Weiss PT

ABSTRACT: New technologies are rapidly having a great impact on the development of novel rehabilitation interventions. One of the more popular of these technological advances is virtual reality. The wide range of applications of this technology, from immersive environments to tele-rehabilitation equipment and care, lends versatility to its use as a rehabilitation intervention. But increasing access to this technology requires that we further our understanding about its impact on a performer. The International Workshop on Virtual Reality in Rehabilitation (IWVR), now known as Virtual Rehabilitation 2007, is a conference that emerged from the need to discover how virtual reality could be applied to rehabilitation practice. Individuals from multiple disciplines concerned with the development, transmission, and evaluation of virtual reality as a technology applied to rehabilitation attend this meeting to share their work. In this special issue of the Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation we are sharing some of the papers presented at the 2006 meeting of IWVR with the objective of offering a description of the state of the art in this research field. A perusal of these papers will provide a good cross-section of the emerging work in this area as well as inform the reader about new findings relevant to research and practice in rehabilitation.

http://www.jneuroengrehab.com/content/4/1/18 

Via Networked performance

• Everyday uses: sharing our lives via the mobile (text, voice, video)
• Civic engagement, activism and mobile technologies
• Wireless services and emergency communication
• Privacy, surveillance and mobile phones
• Community Wireless Networks
• Policy: CRTC regulations and spectrum policy
• Mobility, Labour: new conditions of work
• Shifting notions of space, place and time in a mobile world
• Rhetoric and discourses on mobility and wireless worlds
• Art, design and mobile technologies
• Mobile genres and cellular convergence
• Global and international perspectives on mobile technologies

Full-length papers (@ 7000-9000 words) should be submitted electronically following the guidelines laid out on the CJC submissions website.

Via Pink Tentacle 

Researchers at Meiji University have developed a robot face called "Kansei" that is capable of a wide range of emotional expressions. The robot is part of a program that aims at creating conscious and self-aware robots.

video

Virtual reality exposure therapy for anxiety disorders: A meta-analysis.

J Anxiety Disord. 2007 Apr 27;

Authors: Powers MB, Emmelkamp PM

There is now a substantial literature investigating virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) as a viable treatment option for anxiety disorders. In this meta-analysis we provide effect size estimates for virtual reality treatment in comparison to in vivo exposure and control conditions (waitlist, attention control, etc.). A comprehensive search of the literature identified 13 studies (n=397) that were included in the final analyses. Consistent with prediction the primary random effects analysis showed a large mean effect size for VRET compared to control conditions, Cohen's d=1.11 (S.E.=0.15, 95% CI: 0.82-1.39). This finding was consistent across secondary outcome categories as well (domain-specific, general subjective distress, cognition, behavior, and psychophysiology). Also as expected in vivo treatment was not significantly more effective than VRET. In fact, there was a small effect size favoring VRET over in vivo conditions, Cohen's d=0.35 (S.E.=0.15, 95% CI: 0.05-0.65). There was a trend for a dose-response relationship with more VRET sessions showing larger effects (p=0.06). Outcome was not related to publication year or sample size. Implications are discussed.

Via Networked Performance

The 13th International Conference Virtual Systems and Multimedia 2007 :: September 23 - 26, 2007 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia :: Theme: Exchange and Experience in Space and Place :: Papers - Long and Short Papers: June 17, 2007 :: Notification July 15 - Camera-ready August 10 :: Posters due July 15, 2007 :: Notification August 10 - Camera-ready due September 15 :: Long Papers will be published by Springer in their LCNS. Others will be published locally.

Keynotes currently include: Dr Mark Billinghurst, Director, Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand, based at Canterbury University; Professor Mark Burry, Professor of Innovation (Spatial Information Architecture), at RMIT University; Dr Jonathan Fulcher, Head of Native Title Practice, Minter Ellison; Aden Ridgeway, Executive Chairman, Indigenous Tourism Australia (ITA); Ms Minja Yang, Director and UNESCO Representative to Bhutan, India, Maldives and Sri Lanka. The conference is endorsed by the Australian National Commission for UNESCO.

Bursaries for postgraduate students

Five student bursaries of USD$250 each will be offered. To be considered you must be a full-time postgraduate student and have a letter endorsing your full-time enrolment status from your supervisor and which also states that you do not hold an academic staff position. Full details are shown on the web site.

Brisbane information

Brisbane is an alive and bustling city of 1.6million people with all the requisite offerings of the nation's fastest growing capital and remarkable recreational experiences. Go to http://www.brisbanemarketing.com.au/aboutbrisbane/.

You will be just a short plane trip from Sydney with its stunning Harbour and world-famous Opera House, or you can visit the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park and Uluru in the Northern Territory. Attending VSMM 2007 and also visiting some of Australia's truly great places is highly recommended!

Theme - Exchange And Experience In Space And Place including:

- Virtual Heritage and Virtual Cultures for details see http://australia.vsmm.org/cfp-theme1.htm
- Virtual Environments and Virtual Experiences for details see http://australia.vsmm.org/cfp-theme2.htm
- Applied technologies and systems for details see http://australia.vsmm.org/cfp-theme3.htm

In addition to traditional conference paper and workshop proposals, VSMM07 encourages innovative submissions including movies, interactive or immersive designs and simulations, theatre, and installations. Non-academic submissions are very welcome.

Multimedia and Virtual Environment technologies are increasingly appearing in an array of applications that foster deeper understandings of the environments around us. In the spirit of international exchange, cooperation and development, the focus of VSMM in 2007 will be on the application of these technologies in `Bridging Space and Place through digital exchange and experience'.

Detailed conference themes include, but are not restricted to:

Virtual Heritage and Virtual Cultures:

Addressing the Digital Divide
Applied Cultural Theory
Applied Virtual Heritage
Cultural heritage legislation in a digital domain
Cultural Heritage Management
Cyber anthropology
Ethics of the design and use of VR
Experience Design
Finance and Legal
Funding for cultural heritage projects
Guidelines and International Charters
Heritage legislation, IP and digital rights management
Historical perspectives
Indigenous Knowledge & Knowledge Systems
Indigenous Knowledge and Virtual Environments
Legal issues, challenges and solutions
Narratives and Knowledge
Policy development and the role of technology
Professional Guidelines and Ethics
Social dimensions of Virtual Heritage
Space and place
Theoretical Virtual Heritage
Virtual Heritage and Museum Environments
Virtual property
Virtual Reality in Archaeology and Historical Research

Virtual Environments and Virtual Experiences:

Application of Serious Gaming technologies
Artificial life and dynamic worlds
Digital Arts and Politics
Digital performance
Digital storytelling
Engagement research
Generative VR
Human-Centred design issues
Immersion and emotion
Immersion research
Immersive Audio for presence and immersion
Media Arts & Creative Expression
Mobile Futures and devices and their application
Playfulness and experience design
Presence Research
Simulation and engagement
Spatial narratives
Virtual systems and real worlds
Visualisation and perception

Applied technologies and systems:

3D GIS: modelling and interpretation
3D scanner and remote sensing devices and their application
Augmented VR
Capture Technologies and Delivery Platforms
Convergent devices
Delivery and Distribution
Immersive Systems
Installations
Mobile Devices and their application
Modelling and rendering
On-site Delivery
Participatory 3D GIS
Projection Spaces
Standards and metadata
Stereoscopy and Panoramas

Important Dates:

Long and Short Papers: June 17, 2007
Notification: July 15, 2007
Camera-ready: August 10, 2007

Posters due - July 15, 2007
Notification - August 10, 2007
Camera-ready due - September 15, 2007

Long papers: 12 pages (approx 3000-4000 words)
Short papers: 5 pages (approx 1200-1800 words)
Posters: single A2 (or other format by negotiation)

Earlybird Registration: August 10, 2007

Five student bursaries of USD$250 each will be offered (see official website for details).

Contact us: Any queries, email aus_reviewers[at]vsmm.org or phone +61 7 3337 7821.

Note: VSMM07 SYDNEY WORKSHOP 21ST SEPTEMBER 2007 - In addition to the conference, VSMM invites all participants to attend a one day seminar on the 21st September 2007 in Sydney that focuses attention on new virtual heritage and electronic art research applied to the Advanced Visualisation Interactive Environment (AVIE), at the iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research, University of New South Wales http://australia.vsmm.org/sydworkshop/seminar.pdf.

Mindfulness meditation for the treatment of chronic low back pain in older adults: A randomized controlled pilot study.

Pain. 2007 May 31;

Authors: Morone NE, Greco CM, Weiner DK

The objectives of this pilot study were to assess the feasibility of recruitment and adherence to an eight-session mindfulness meditation program for community-dwelling older adults with chronic low back pain (CLBP) and to develop initial estimates of treatment effects. It was designed as a randomized, controlled clinical trial. Participants were 37 community-dwelling older adults aged 65 years and older with CLBP of moderate intensity occurring daily or almost every day. Participants were randomized to an 8-week mindfulness-based meditation program or to a wait-list control group. Baseline, 8-week and 3-month follow-up measures of pain, physical function, and quality of life were assessed. Eighty-nine older adults were screened and 37 found to be eligible and randomized within a 6-month period. The mean age of the sample was 74.9 years, 21/37 (57%) of participants were female and 33/37 (89%) were white. At the end of the intervention 30/37 (81%) participants completed 8-week assessments. Average class attendance of the intervention arm was 6.7 out of 8. They meditated an average of 4.3 days a week and the average minutes per day was 31.6. Compared to the control group, the intervention group displayed significant improvement in the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire Total Score and Activities Engagement subscale (P=.008, P=.004) and SF-36 Physical Function (P=.03). An 8-week mindfulness-based meditation program is feasible for older adults with CLBP. The program may lead to improvement in pain acceptance and physical function.

cool stuff from the 80's... have a look at this old TV program on psychokinesis - "mind over matter"