Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and usable. Note carefully that Google says nothing about the Internet in that statement. 

In the last few eye-blinks of human history, we’ve created virtual worlds: cyberspace, virtual reality, the World Wide Web … places that exist in our devices, on our computers, in our servers, on the internet, and in our heads. But there’s also a space in which we live and walk and eat and breathe. Realspace. Meatspace. IRL. The real world, so we say, that we can touch and taste and smell.

Google’s trying to bring those worlds together, partly through the work of Niantic Labs.

Augmented reality is nothing new, of course, with marketing-focused companies like Layar building connections between physical and virtual reality and Ikea’s most-downloaded branded app of 2012 doing similar things. Other startups have explored AR capabilities as well, such as Caterina Fake’s Findery, which invites people to leave geo-tied notes that others can discover and read.

But when a company with the resources of a Google tackles the problem, and has a tool in Google Glass that seems destined for significant developer (and probably user) penetration that can actually create interconnections between the real and the virtual perhaps more efficiently than any other previous product, you’ve got something interesting. And potentially huge.

So a couple of weeks ago, I chatted with the man who’s leading that effort.

John Hanke: the missionary of mapping

John Hanke is vice president of product for Niantic Labs, the year-old Google-but-not-Google division of just a few dozen engineers that brought us Field Trip, the app to explore the world around us with a virtual docent. And, of course, the virtual/real game Ingress.

John Hanke

Before Niantic, Hanke ran Google Maps, Google Earth, and other geo areas, and before Google, he was the cofounder and CEO of Keyhole, the innovative geo-mapping and visualization company. Google bought Keyhole in 2004, which brought Hanke in the search engine’s fold to lead the its maps, earth, street view, and local divisions.

Now, he told me, rather than let him leave to scratch his entrepreneurial itch yet again and do another startup, Google gave him a semi-autonomous group to, as his LinkedIn profile suggests, experiment at the “intersection of mobility, real world, and the Internet.”

“We set up Niantic as a group that could explore new types of mobile apps with ubiquitous always-on features,” Hanke said. “And we’re set up to act like a start-up.”

Virtual + physical = field trip

Field Trip was one of Niantic’s first creations, and while on the surface it’s an app that helps you find cool stuff, ultimately it’s a tool to merge metadata and data and then present them together. While you’re in the physical world, Field Trip pulls data about that experience from digital sources, feeding you that information, and changing — deepening, enriching — your experience of place. Layering with history, perhaps, or science, or culture.

Because, after all, one rock is very much like another rock, but if this is the precise rock where Geronimo attacked Mexican soldiers armed with only a knife and his courage, that changes our experience of this particular place. And the merging/melding/layering of virtual and physical makes it more real, in a sense — hyperreal.

Google’s Field Trip app helps you explore “reality.”

Enabling that, of course, requires extensive virtual enhancement of the what-you-see-is-what-you-get world.

“One of the things that we’re trying to evangelize is the concept of geo-tagging everything,” Hanke told me. “I would have expected eight years ago that it would be ubiquitous now, but it’s still not. But I think we’ll get there.”

Geotagging everything digital is a key intersection point between virtual and real. If this blog post is written here, and not there, that adds flavor and nuance to the information. And if a particular historical fact is geotagged to a specific mapped location, that adds depth and dimension to our experience of that place.

“We’re applying some of the same techniques we currently use in standard web search, and the same kind of discipline, to pull really interesting, really good places up from everything else,” Hanke says. “The model is that you’re walking through an unfamiliar neighborhood, but with a friend who is telling you the best things around you. You enjoy it just like before, but you’re a little more informed.”

AR + MMO + IRL

Depth and dimension are definitely core components of Ingress, another Niantic Labs app/experiment/game. Ingress is a — take a deep breath — augmented reality massively multiplayer online video game.

The real world is real, but it’s fought over virtually by two shadowy groups: the Enlightened and the Resistance. Niantic has filled the Earth with virtual portals, usually coincident with actual physical landmarks or monuments, that players need to capture in order to gain territory. Capture territory with large numbers of people (aka “mind units”) and your faction gets more powerful.

Clearly, the massive integration of Google mapping technology with a sophisticated gaming engine is required. And the result is another intersection between the real and the virtual.

“Ingress is a massively multiplayer online game designed for mobile, with real location-based connections,” Hanke told me.

You play with everyone in your faction, and you might meet up with other players in real life, or you may just know them virtually as team members in another area. Along the way, Google learns an awful lot about how you use your mobile devices, about mapping physical locations, and about overlaying cyberspace on meatspace.

Ingress’ field of play is the world, layered with virtual data.

All of that knowledge is going to come in very handy with Google Glass.

Endgame: Google Glass?

Hanke is cautious when speaking about Google Glass, as is the PR handler who is copiloting our conversation. Even already public information is a question mark as we chat: Google is definitely being Apple-like in the control and distribution of Glass and its future.

But something tantalizing tidbits do come out.

“We definitely kinda had Google Glass in mind when we started work on apps at Niantic,” Hanke says. “We need mobile devices that are less intrusive than the phone is.”

A model demonstrates Google’s new Project Glass technology.

And we need devices with different input/output modalities, he says. After all, it’s not easy to play Ingress running around holding an expensive and fragile device in front of you like a window ripped from its frame. And yet you need that portal from the physical to the virtual. For instance, while Field Trip is great to open the doors on human context for the world around us, it threatens to detract from our experience of the world by redirecting our eyes from the ultimate big screen of reality to the small screen of our mobile device.

Google Glass, on the other hand, sits unobtrusively on our foreheads, leaving our hands free and providing data as an overlay on top of the physical world rather than an alternative to the physical world. That model of layering, mixing, and intersecting is top-of-mind for Hanke.

“It just can’t be the case that people are walking around heads down tapping on a screen,” he says. “That just can’t be the future of the human race.”

Cyborg me now

Which, of course, is exactly what’s at issue: the future of the human race. Or, at least how we ingest, consume, and reconstitute digital data. And analog data. And meld the two into one harmonious whole of knowing.

That’s perhaps a little metaphysical for a small division of Google that focuses on maps and games and apps.

But the web has rewired our brains in a decade or so of virtually ubiquitous Internet access, and the smartphone has rewired our behavior in five years, taking us from creatures who look up to to see others to beings that look down at any opportunity to see small bits of plastic and glass and metal in our hands.

So is it really too much to expect from a transformation that brings us from clear divisions between what is real and what is virtual to an elegant blend of the two?

“This is not psychosis or some cognitive break, but an actual takeover of the mind,” Google’s introductory video for the Ingress game says ominously.

Art imitates life, I suppose, and life, in turn, imitates art.

Written by: John Koetsier, VentureBeat (via Presence)
Posted by: Situated Research

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Conference founder, Zack Lynch, summarized neurogaming to those of us in attendance as the interface, “where the mind and body meet to play games.”

Driven by explosive growth in computer processing, affordable sensors, and new haptic sensation technology, neurogame designers have entirely new toolkits to craft an immersive experience  that simulates our waking life. Lucid journeys into the dreamscapes depicted in films like Inception may soon become possible.

Recently developed platforms like Xbox Kinect and Nintendo Wii don’t require the motor skill to use complex gamepads, so it’s common to see three year olds and even seventy-three year olds showing those teenagers a thing or two about Nintendo Wii tennis. The next step for game designers is to introduce psycho-emotional inputs measuring anything from heart rate, facial analysis, voice measurement, skin conductance, eye tracking, pupil dilation, brain activity, and your ever-changing emotional profile. These games will know the user at a subconscious level and deliver an experience that could forever blur the line between virtual and reality.

The future of neurogaming depends heavily on continued development of reliable augmented and virtual reality technologies. Chatter about Google Glass was everywhere, and I especially enjoyed sampling the Oculus Rift, a crowd favorite. I was stunned by the high degree of realism in navigating the game map inside one developer’s world where I experienced shooting a virtual basketball in an open court. Experiencing a game as a total first person observer is a somewhat psychedelic and mind-bending experience. Wearing an Oculus, that Wii tennis match may seem a bit more interesting when you’re competing at Wimbledon with a lifelike crowd on hand to cheer you on.

With the Oculus Rift, Stanford virtual reality expert Walter Greenleaf pointed out that, “Virtual Reality could finally be at a turning point. It’s available at an accessible price point, with unparalleled levels of connectivity, visual and auditory immersion, and the latency to enable more natural body movement.”

Neurogames also pull together technologies that deliver feedback to immerse players in ways never before possible. One such output technology included a recently developed device at the University of Utah, which uses sliding bars inside handle controllers to recreate the sensation of holding a real object.  Imagine a next generation Wii controller that simulates an actual tennis racket during that Wimbledon final.

Here’s a video of the tech in action:

Neurogames are sure to entertain, but they’re also amplifying gaming’s reach into other sectors as well.

Games are leaving those teenage living rooms behind, a point endorsed by the crowd demographics. Conference attendees ranged from healthcare providers, educators, defense experts, and sport scientists; all of whom are hoping to apply neurogaming to their industry. “Gaming could make us as humans, better in every way,” says game designer Noah Falstein.  Football players are using lifelike virtual reality to simulate real game scenarios complete with crowd noise, and football avatars going through actual plays. Two-a-days could now happen from the comfort of a computer lab, instead of the August sun.

Healthcare providers are increasingly working with game designers to create therapeutic neurogames to treat PTSD, ADHD, and other behavioral and emotional disorders. Already, brain-controlled interface companies like InterAxon offer meditation assistance apps. Many experts talked of a day when games are prescribed in place of today’s pharmaceuticals for disorders like depression and anxiety.

Lumos Labs was on hand to present Lumosity, an online brain fitness platform created by Stanford neuroscientists that battle memory loss, boost attention, and treat emotional disorders. With over 40 million users worldwide, Lumosity is an indication that brain fitness should be a growing industry segment.

The possibilities for these technologies to aid the defense community were showcased throughout the conference. Former DARPA program manager Dr. Amy Kuse says, “These tools are helping us augment human performance in incredible ways,” With aid from tools like EEG monitoring, tDCS (foc.us was on hand to show off their commercial product), and brain-controlled interfaces, DARPA was able to increase sniper marksmanship performance by a factor of 2. Enhanced training coupled with brain monitoring tools could give soldiers simulated combat experience while alerting superiors of PTSD symptoms in real time.

Recreational home use of these devices will see dramatic evolution. As neurogaming content development matures, casual gamers will see entirely new modalities of storytelling and immersion. Even the music and imagery will be driven by the users emotional state.

Imagine if gaming looked like this:

The rise of neurogaming won’t occur without hiccups. Hardware designers must cope with “consumer vanity” issues that come with wearables like EEG, and other display headsets. Only time will tell if Google Glass users are welcomed as style innovators or shunned as wandering cyborgs.

Deeper questions surrounding the morality of neurogames will be sure to stir debate. As virtual reality technology inches closer to lifelike resolution, should gamers simulate themselves as characters engaged in acts of violence or criminal activity?

It’s unpredictable what these games could uncover about the user as neurogames gain insight into a users’ psyche and how they respond to stimuli at a subconscious level. For instance, a game could uncover how its user particularly enjoys shooting at civilians in gameplay. Games might even become expert at diagnosing psychiatric disorders.

As computers become exponentially more powerful, game resolution could fully mimic our ever-present reality. At that point, it may be quite impossible to distinguish real life from our virtual worlds. The days of artificial second life as real as our own isn’t quite here, but what energizes the prospects of neurogaming today, are that many of the underlying technologies that make it possible already exist. As these technologies begin to converge in the next few years, we will begin to understand the scope of how these technologies will be used.

The neurogames on hand now are just beginning to scratch the surface of what’s possible, but it’s clear that we are forever eliminating the barrier between our games and our brains.

[images: futuristic glasses, courtesy Shutterstock]

Written by: Singularity Hub (via Presence); for more information, see Neurogadget.com
Posted by: Situated Research

The post The Future of Gaming – It May All Be in Your Head appeared first on Situated Research.

The ability to forget that key point wasn’t just a matter of clever storytelling. New research shows that, at least in a small sample of people tested, the same neural patterns that occur when we feel empathy for a human onscreen are present in our brains when we see a robot onscreen.

A robot is shaken and beat up during the videos viewed as part of the experiment. Image via Rosenthal-von der Pütten et al

A group of researchers from the University of Duisburg Essen in Germany used fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to come to the finding, tracking blood flow in the brains of 14 study participants when they were shown videos of humans, robots and inanimate objects being treated either affectionately or harshly. The researchers, who will present their findings at the June International Communication Association conference in London, found that when participants were shown videos of a robot (a product called Pleo, which resembles a dinosaur) petted, tickled and fed, areas in their limbic structures—a region of the brain believed to be involved in emotional responses—activated. When they were shown videos of a human getting a massage, the same sorts of neural activity occurred.

The same pattern also occurred when the participants were shown videos of the robots and humans being treated harshly—shaken, dropped or suffocated with a plastic bag—but with a twist. Interestingly, their fMRI results showed levels of limbic activity much greater when they saw humans treated poorly than when they saw the robots. This correlated with the responses on surveys that the participants took after watching the videos, on which they reported some empathy for the robots, but more for the humans.

The results suggest that the reason we feel empathy for robots like WALL-E is that, when we see them treated a certain manner, it triggers the same sort of neural activity as seeing a human treated that way. In a sense, our mind interprets the robot to be human-like in a way that it doesn’t for, say, a rock. On the other hand, one possible explanation for why, despite this pattern, they still arouse less empathy than humans when being treated harshly is that we interpret them as something slightly less than human—something more like a pet.

Of course, this explanation comes with an important caveat: correlation vs. causation. We don’t know for sure that these neurological patterns cause empathy, per se, just that they reliably occur at the same time. (Further, we can’t say for sure that this effect is unique to robots—stuffed animals and dolls might engender the same feelings of empathy.)

Even if the patterns only correlate with empathy, though, they could be an effective objective measure of how much empathy people feel when observing various types of robots—and research into that area has practical implications that go far beyond Hollywood. One of the main areas, the scientists say, is in the engineering of robots that engage with humans on a frequent and long-term basis.

“One goal of current robotics research is to develop robotic companions that establish a long-term relationship with a human user, because robot companions can be useful and beneficial tools. They could assist elderly people in daily tasks and enable them to live longer autonomously in their homes, help disabled people in their environments, or keep patients engaged during the rehabilitation process,”Astrid Rosenthal-von der Pütten, the study’s lead author, said in a press statement. “A common problem is that a new technology is exciting at the beginning, but this effect wears off especially when it comes to tasks like boring and repetitive exercise in rehabilitation. The development and implementation of uniquely humanlike abilities in robots like theory of mind, emotion and empathy is considered to have the potential to solve this dilemma.”

In one previous long-term study, two out of six elderly participants appeared to develop emotional attachments with a companion robot—giving it a name, speaking to it and at times even smiling at it—while the other four did not. Further exploring our empathy for robots and figuring out just which of their characteristics (whether physical, such as having a human-like face, or behavioral, such as smiling or walking on two legs) lead more people to feel for them could help engineers design robotic devices that elicit more empathy over the long-term—and devices that people can readily connect with on an emotional level might make more effective rehab coaches and home companions over the long-term.

Written by: Joseph Stromberg, the Smithsonian’s Surprising Science blog (via Presence); a short video from the experiment is available at LiveScience; Image via Flickr user Rob Boudon
Posted by: Situated Research

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Experience Media Studios’ 3DPOV^® system enables the capture of a three-dimensional visual and auditory experience from the first-person perspective. 3DPOV^® media delivers a higher level of sensory engagement than virtual reality that replicates a true-to-life binocular and peripheral visual field and a stereophonic auditory experience. The system also captures GPS coordinates and altitude information to further augment reality.

“Modern audiences demand more of their media experiences,” said Michael-Ryan Fletchall, CEO of Experience Media Studios. “With more control over how and when they consume media, audiences want new and individualized experiences offering deeper levels of engagement. 3DPOV delivers an experience that goes far beyond just watching.”

Immersive media quickly absorbs the viewer into the experience, providing implications for critical skills training, simulations, and experiential learning environments. Experience Media Studios formally launched 3DPOV^® in conjunction with the Military and Government Summit at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show. Today’s announcement underscores the value of 3DPOV^® in these key segments where small details not available in virtual reality are integrated to assess and teach armed forces critical life-saving, decision-under-pressure skills through rapid processing and reaction according to policies and protocols.

“In developing this media for military and government blended learning simulations, we immediately recognized the opportunity to apply the technology to our wheelhouse of entertainment and advertising,” said Fletchall.

Experience Media Studios is currently in pre-production with Possessed Soul, its upcoming feature length horror “experience” shot entirely using 3DPOV^®technology. The project is partially financed through pre-sales to the horror-genre fan community using the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform. In 2012, Experience Media Studios released the Josh Hutcherson drama, The Forger.

The 3DPOV^® system also features a cloud-based digital delivery platform, connecting affiliated media production companies with 3DPOV^® technology to build a high quality digital asset inventory for worldwide distribution to private and public end users via 2D and 3D televisions, personal computers, and mobile devices.

“Our goal was to build a complete front-to-backend solution for creating and directly distributing unique 3DPOV^® content,” said Fletchall. “We have an exclusive content platform for creating, cataloging, managing and distributing experience-driven 3DPOV^® assets through an industry-leading pipeline with a user-friendly interface.”

Experience Media Studios will roll out the consumer subscription service component of 3DPOV.com with limited content later in 2013.

Written by: PR Newswire (via Presence); more images available at the Experience Media Studies website
Posted by: Situated Research

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When you watch this video, see if you think this character has reached the other side of what’s commonly called the “uncanny valley,” a term first uttered by early robotics guru Masahiro Mori in 1970. It describes the range of sophistication of animated graphics, from one side of the valley where human figures simply look unrealistic, to the middle of the valley — where they look just realistic enough to be creepy — to our side of the valley, where animation is indistinguishable from reality.

Whenever the uncanny valley is mentioned, the animation techniques from the November, 2004 movie Polar Express come to mind. Most viewers noticed the characters weren’t quite photorealistic enough to keep them out of the creepy zone. But that was nearly 8 years ago, and graphics technology has made spectacular progress since then.

This newest character edges ever-so-closely to our own side of the uncanny valley, where art is indistinguishable from reality. That’s thanks to what game developer Activision calls “next-generation character rendering.” This character is part of a presentation Activision’s real-time graphics R&D expert Jorge Jimenez gave on Wednesday at GDC 2013, the annual Game Development Conference.

According to Jimenez, this face and others like it represent “the culmination of many years of work in photorealistic characters.” At the presentation, Jimenez showed “how each detail is the secret for achieving reality.”

The trick for these gaming developers is not only to create photorealistic animated characters, but to ensure that such animations can play in real time on video cards and computers that ordinary people actually own. And that’s what Activision has done, using standard bone animation, facial scanning, performance capture and lots of intricate artwork to make skin look real.

Jimenez wrote in his blog about how this type of animation has made tremendous progress. “We believe this technology will bring current-generation characters into next-generation life.” Like baseball great Babe Ruth pointing at the center-field fence, before his presentation Jimenez declared this animation would be rendered live, and “we will show it running on our two-year-old laptop.”

I think this is impressive, but not perfect yet. For instance, look at the guy’s teeth. And what about hair (not that there’s anything wrong with that clean-headed look)?

Do you think this character looks real enough to fool people if it were used in a motion picture or video game? Or is it still creepy enough to be considered a resident of the uncanny valley? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Written by: Mashable (via Presence); more info & screenshots are available at Jorge Jimenez’s blog
Posted by: Situated Research

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The SXSW Gaming Expo is preposterously loud. At one side of the room, aStarcraft tournament is reaching its climax, but on the other side, one group of guys is yelling louder. They sound like a basement full of adolescents discussing the newest Electronic Gaming Monthly cover story, or like the NINTENDO SIXTY-FOUR kid unwrapping his Christmas present.

“Is the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality 3D headset, the future of gaming?” they ask. “Or, is it something bigger — the future of life on planet Earth?”

At a panel entitled “Virtual Reality: The Holy Grail of Gaming,” Gears of Wardesigner Cliff Bleszinski joined Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts, Words with Friends co-creator Paul Bettner, and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey to answer these very questions. Bleszinski kicked it off with a bang. “There are two types of people when it comes to the Oculus Rift,” said Bleszinski. “There are those haven’t seen it, and those who have seen it and believe.”

Oculus dev

“I’ve been dreaming about this since I read Neuromancer,” said Words With Friends creator and Verse Inc CEO Paul Bettner. “We’re not going to be building games. We’ll be building dreams and creating worlds.” One such world is the world of upcoming PC MMO Star Citizen created by Chris Roberts, who plans to release the game with Rift support included. “When you’re wearing the Rift, you get a real sense of scale and distance,” he said. “When I fired up my cockpit and the HUD popped up things in 3D like in Iron Man, I was like ‘oh my God.’” The Rift’s 1280 x 800 screen is just inches from your eyes and displays images in 3D, creating an illusion than you’re actually in the game.

“My favorite thing to do is walk up to someone testing the Rift up to a ledge, then use my keyboard to push them off it. They freak out!” said Bettner. “Those are the native experiences you didn’t have access to as a game developer before this.” Bleszinski hinted at the types of games he’d want to create using the Rift, which could make its players feel a new kind of fear. “I’m hoping what this gives us is the same experience as when you’re a teenager in a haunted house with your friends,” he said. But perhaps some experiences might be too jarring for first-time Rift wearers. Bleszinski says he’d never want to play Slender Man solo using the Rift. “You are going to finally have a portal to a million other new worlds that you can breathe and experience, like a dream,” he said. “It sounds like back-of-the box shit, but it’s true.”

Peripheral vision

The Oculus Rift headset gives you peripheral vision inside game worlds, but could also herald an era of unique gaming peripherals like 360-degree treadmills and precise motion trackers. “If you’re in a spaceship, you’re going to want to be sitting down with a joystick,” Roberts said, “or we could detect your hands using Leap.” After the panel, Oculus VP Nate Mitchell told me about a time Roberts assigned different game controls to different objects on his desk, and used motion trackers to engage with each object. “The next stage of peripherals will be tracking your position in 3D space,” Roberts said. But what about tracking the space inside your brain? “The first thing that came to my mind was neural interfaces,” Bleszinski said. “One of my fantasy scenarios is a flight game where your altitude changes depending on how relaxed you are.”

“It doesn’t make sense to use a gamepad or mouse when creating a realistic experience [with VR],” founder Palmer Luckey said. “A keyboard and mouse are superhuman interfaces that let you do things you could never do in real life.” He alluded to the fact that in first-person shooters, it’s easy to assign weapons and macros to keyboard keys, whereas in real life switching weapons isn’t so simple. One particularly unrealistic aspect of using Rift is moving or strafing — “In a first-person-shooter, you’re really moving around at 35 miles per hour and that makes you sick [while wearing the Rift]… We’ll have to rethink that,” said Bettner.

One possible solution is an omnidirectional treadmill that moves under your feet and predicts your movements. “With a little bit of prediction and misdirection you can make people feel like they’re in an infinite space,” Luckey said. “It feels like they’re walking forever.” Gamer fatigue is very clearly another obstacle to such an approach, but when ultra-realism is the goal, it might not be such a bad thing. “We might see paintball games where you play three to five minute rounds,” Bleszinski said, “or Myst-like games where you’re slowly exploring a mysterious island.” The key, according to Bleszinski, is pacing — which differs from platform to platform. He imagines a future where arcades see a resurgence as places where you’ll pay to explore new kinds of peripherals, like treadmills, or even rooms (holodecks?) you can inhabit both physically and virtually. “Maybe we’ll see laser tag where you have people running around in a virtual space [with walls, rooms, and obstacles],” Luckey said. “You’ll wire yourself in for a few bucks an hour.”

Collective rift

A very clear theme emerged at the panel: these guys, some of the most talented game designers in the world, see Rift not just as a gateway to new games, but as a means of living new, digital lives. “I didn’t create the Rift because I wanted to build a VR company,” Luckey said. “I created it because I wanted VR to be a thing that actually happened.” To Luckey, the Rift hardware is merely a tool to catalyze and enable the next generation of human communication — through some kind of physical internet we can all inhabit together. Yes, like the kind you’ve read about inNeuromancer and Ready Player One.

“What keeps people playing MMOs is not the gameplay or the graphics,” he said. “It’s because it’s a shared experience. It’s the human relationship — all these people in the same space experiencing the same thing.” Bleszinski shared a similar sentiment. “The social experience of playing Guild Wars 2 is fun,” he said, “but when you go from seeing a 5-pixel-tall character and then [all of a sudden] I’m seeing you in front of me, and and a dragon swoops down and bites your head off, I think ‘holy shit, Paul!’ That level of impact is that much more real. People are going to wind up becoming best friends in this thing.” After trying out the Rift myself, Bleszinski’s prophecies seem not just obvious but inevitable. So what is “the Holy Grail of gaming,” after all?

“What happens when tech gets so good that spending time in an MMO is better than actually being with someone in real life?” Luckey asked. “I think we’re actually gonna hit that point really fast.”

Written by: Ellis Hamburger (The Verge, via Presence)
Posted by: Situated Research

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Option 1 is that they will tirelessly apply all their time and brainpower to trying to figure out your thing. The problem with this option is that the thing they are trying to figure out is probably trying to sell them something, and no one will work extra-hard just to be sold something. (I make the assumption that it’s trying to sell something because we are a marketing firm, and the things we make are generally supposed to sell stuff.) If the thing is entertaining or fun, you might have a chance for Option 1, but otherwise you can cross it off the list.

Option 2 is they will quickly give up and walk away. Of all the options, this is the one you should hope for, because Option 3 is not what you want.

Option 3 is that your thing will make them feel frustrated or stupid, and they may even get mad. Then their anger may be taken out on your brand, because people need to vent and blame someone for their bad user experience. This is just human nature. They might even be so frustrated that they post something negative on one or more of their social media networks. Then all of their friends, and even their friends’ friends, will know that your thing doesn’t work right. One Tweet turns into 3 million views (hey, it has happened). Ouch. We all know that social media is word-of-mouth on steroids, and bad comments or reviews have the power to make or break brands. This is why you don’t want Option 3 to happen.

The simple remedy

The good news is that Option 3 can easily be prevented. There is a simple fix for all of this, and I mentioned it at the beginning of this post. You simply test the thing before it’s produced, before it goes “out there” all broken for people to use as ammunition in online rants against your brand. This course of action sounds incredibly simple and obvious, which in fact it is, but it’s hardly ever actually undertaken by smaller brands, agencies or development firms that don’t have the deep pockets of Fortune 500s. Mega-brands like Amazon that make usability testing a continuous part of their routine (and their success stories) are the exception, rather than the rule. It seems that for Any Specialty Brand, Inc., usability testing either is not on the radar, is thought of as an unaffordable luxury, or, worst of all, is considered a waste of time and money. This couldn’t be further from the truth, because an ounce of usability testing is worth a pound of cure.

At Callahan Creek, I’m happy to say that usability testing that’s conducted with in-house UXD expertise is now SOP for all digital deliverables. As a UXD expert once told me after conducting hundreds and hundreds of usability tests, the process never once failed to uncover things that needed to be fixed or could be improved upon. That’s certainly been my experience as well. And more often than not the problems that we uncovered with usability testing were completely unanticipated – often with potentially serious consequences if left unaddressed. That’s because the people making the thing can’t get out of their own heads and think like the people who will be using the thing. Fortunately, there’s a simple fix: usability testing.

In usability testing, a UX specialist asks a testing participant to go through a series of tasks while the development team observes from another room. These rooms must be far enough apart so the inevitable shouts of “It’s right there, just click the button!” from the development team are not heard by the participant.

Written by John Kuefler, Callahan Creek
Posted by: Situated Research

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GlassLab is working with commercial game companies, assessment experts, and those versed in digital classrooms to build SimCityEDU, a downloadable game designed for sixth graders. Scheduled to be be released in the fall of 2013, it builds on SimCity’s city management theme, but provides specific challenges to players in the subject of STEM.

“The big pain point we’ve heard from teachers is that they cannot entertain their kids to the level that they are being entertained outside of the classroom,” said Jessica Lindl, general manager of GlassLab. “They want to be able to create meaningful learning experiences and they just can’t compete with the digital tools their kids are accessing all the time.”

“None of the other games are trying to do formative assessment to the level we are. They aren’t validating whether they are assessing what they should be assessing.”

Teachers have been using the commercial version of SimCity as a classroom tool for a long time, but with the newest version recently released and the EDU version soon to follow, GlassLab is trying to convene an online community of educators already working in the space, asking them to think creatively about what the game could do, offering lesson plans, and helping teachers to collaborate and share ideas.

SimCityEDU grew out of research conducted by the MacArthur foundation on how gaming can mirror formative assessments [PDF] – measuring understanding regularly along the learning path, rather than occasionally or at the end of a unit, as is most common. Their research found that games gather data about the player as he or she makes choices within the game, affecting the outcome. In games, players “level-up,” moving on to higher levels when they’ve mastered the necessary skills; similarly teachers scaffold lessons to deepen understanding as a student grasps the easier concepts.

SimCityEDU, funded by the Gates and Macarthur foundations, will provide assessments that are aligned with Common Core State Standards. The EDU version uses the same code as the commercial game, but with the addition of using students’ choices during challenges as a method of assessment. GlassLab is still working to develop all the challenges based on focus-group feedback on student interests, but the one challenge they know they’ll include focuses on the environment, based on positive feedback from the focus groups.

“These kids are fascinated by the environment,” Lindl said.

Students will be asked to conduct interviews and look at research to determine what kind of power plant to build in the town. As they play, taking photo documentation, interpreting the information they’ve gathered, drawing conclusions, graphing the data and finally making a decision, the game assesses each choice. Teachers will have a tool to see how each child’s play matches up against Common Core standards.

And game developers hope that the incremental data will help teachers know when to step in and offer more help. For example, if an interview contradicts scientific evidence, the student will have to discern bias, figure out how to weight the various pieces of evidence differently, and back up conclusions with data and text.

SimCityEDU will not go to market until third-party assessor, SRI International, has validated by testing students who’ve played the game using a completely different assessment tool to ensure the game works.

FOCUSED LEARNING VS. EXPLORATION

GlassLab plans to offer the downloadable game at little to no cost for schools and teachers, Lindl said. However, the clear narrative and objectives within SimCityEDU depart from other commercial games that have been appropriated by teachers — like Minecraft. That game offers a free-form experience that teachers can easily manipulate to serve their lessons, a quality many teachers like.

“We want teachers to be able to choose between a free exploration or something more focused,” Lindl said. But there’s a catch. If educators want to use the broader SimCity world for free-form exploration they’ll have to buy the commercial license – a cost of about $60. Getting both the focused and free-form experience could cost more than many educators are willing to pay.

Not all education experts agree that assessment should be built into games. “The game should be a place of play and experimentation,” said Henry Jenkins, a USC professor on the forefront of game-based learning. “Meta-gaming is where the learning could be without disrupting the ecology of the game.” The “meta-game” is the world outside the game often composed of fans who discuss what they are making in the game with one another, write fan fiction and in other ways continue to create material even when not playing.

Written by: Katrina Schwartz, MindShift (KQED)
Posted by: Situated Research

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It’s important to note beforehand that the VR headset I tried on absolutely does not reflect a potential consumer version – rather it’s the latest prototype of a forthcoming developer kit. Now, with that out of the way …

First of all, the goggles are surprisingly comfortable, especially given their bulky appearance. Most of the tech has been built into a regular pair of ski goggles with two viewfinders protruding slightly in front of each eye to completely encompass your field of view. Once fitted over your head, the padding around the goggles and strap ensures the Rift remains snug against your face. Combine that with the lightweight components and wearing the Oculus VR headset is no less cumbersome than any ordinary pair of goggles.

The one negative toward the comfort is that the Rift’s lenses put some extra pressure on people wearing glasses, such as myself, making it feel like your face is being squeezed a little too much. It wasn’t excruciating, but it diminished the experience a bit. The Oculus reps stated the team is still working on adapting their model to accommodate glasses-wearing users and lessen the weight of the goggles even further.

Once I’d settled in, my eyes took a moment to adjust to the game world, during which time the separate images in each eye didn’t appear to overlap as smoothly, (this may have been due to my glasses, as mentioned before). After about 30 seconds though, I barely noticed it and eventually totally forgot I was looking at a video screen.

My demo began inside a chamber of a medieval castle, lit only by torchlight. From that starting point, I was able to look around the cramped space using just my head movements, while walking around was handled by an Xbox 360 controller with standard first-person controls (right analog stick to move forward and back, left stick to turn, A to jump, etc.). Walking through a nearby door led me to the streets of a snow-covered town that gave me flashbacks to Skyrim (I even found myself craning my head to the skies to watch out for dragons).

VP of Product at Oculus, Nate Mitchell, invited me to look in all directions: up to the top of a nearby tree, down a road off to the side, even behind me to the door I had just exited. Aside from some slight motion blur, the low latency made the head tracking feel incredibly accurate and having an individual image for each eye also created a sharp 3D effect. It was a strange feeling knowing I was surrounded by people in a crowded convention hall but only seeing empty streets and mountains that stretched on for miles.

Of course, having the entire game screen filling my field of view kept me engrossed, but it was the tiniest details that really drove the immersion home. At one point, I approached a shop with a sign over the door advertising swords and armor, which I read simply by looking up at it, just as I’ve done countless times on any street in real life. It all felt surprisingly natural to simply walk around like any other game, but taking in the scenery with a casual turn of my head, as if I were a tourist in a new location.

Pulling the right trigger on the controller also shot green energy blasts, which didn’t affect anything in this game world but illustrated how an action-packed shooter might work with the technology. Aiming involved simply picking a target and looking straight at it, which proved to be much more accurate than using a controller.

I must’ve said the word “amazing” at least a dozen times during my brief session. I only had them on for about five minutes but could have easily spent an hour just exploring the demo world, even with no objectives. One word of caution though: taking the Rift off can be a bit disorienting for a moment as your eyes take a while to readjust to the real world – not unlike stepping outside after watching a 3D movie in a darkened theater.

The Oculus reps repeatedly stressed that this was “day zero” for the VR system – in other words, the device on show still has plenty of development ahead of it. When asked about a possible consumer version, they said that the main focus at the moment is on delivering dev kits to their Kickstarter backers and pre-order customers by March of this year. Right now, they have no info on when a consumer model will be ready, or even what specs or price it might have.

I confess, I’ve remained cautiously optimistic about the Rift since it was first revealed, having been burned by promises of “lifelike” virtual reality in the past. But Oculus could be onto something completely different here. Comparing any other consumer-grade VR setup to the Oculus Rift is like comparing a silent film from the 1920s to Star Wars. The difference is just that startling. It truly provides the kind of virtual reality experience that we’ve only seen in movies and television shows up to this point.

If Oculus gains the proper support, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see virtual reality become a staple of the video game industry in the near future, much like motion controls have with the Wii and Kinect.

We’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on the Oculus Rift’s development in the months and years to come. If you can’t wait that long though, and have $300 to spend, you can pre-order your own developer kit through Oculus’ website.

Written by: Jonathan Fincher, Oculus (from Gizmag, where more images are available; via Presence)
Posted by: Situated Research

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You can predict what that entertainment might be like just by extrapolating from technology that already exists.

Start by imagining CGI on steroids, a future version of the computer-generated imaging that today enables battalions of post-production wizards working for movie-makers like James Cameron and Peter Jackson to put up on the screen real-seeming 3D renderings of anything that anyone can dream up.

Add to that the successor to the virtual reality technology now used in Google goggles, which relocates those digital fantasies from the screen into the real space all around us, but swap the goggles for contact lenses or neural implants.

Combine that with the power to convincingly simulate the feel of touching objects that don’t exist, which haptic gloves can currently approximate, and extend that capacity to your whole body, whose entire anatomy will become an exquisitely sensitive, interactive input device, the nth gen of game controllers like Wii and Kinect.

Throw in superb 360-degree sound, plus a way to trigger micro-spurts of the molecules that cause the sensations of smell and taste.

Miniaturize everything down to the atomic scale, which is where computing is already going, so that the gizmos that do all this are featherweight and forgettable.

Store the content — the entertaining stories and experiences that this technology delivers — in the cloud, which is where more and more software is heading now, so that it’s ubiquitous, available (for a price) to anyone in any place at any time.

And just as advances in processing power have turned laptops into animation and recording studios, imagine that this new entertainment content will be produced not only by the Comcasts and NewsCorps and Activisions, but also by scrappy startups, and kids in dorm rooms.

Think of the porn that will make possible.

And the first-person shooters.

And the trips to the rain forest, the Sistine Chapel, the moon, the gates of heaven and of hell.

It’s not a question of whether the technology to confect and convey this digital dream, or nightmare, will one day exist; it’s only a matter of when.

In 1975, as molecular biologists were recognizing the potential dangers of the recombinant DNA technology then becoming widespread, Paul Berg, a future Nobel Prize-winner, organized a conference at Asilomar State Beach in California, where some 140 researchers, doctors and lawyers drew up voluntary principles of self-regulation, in order to prevent labs — both at academic institutions and in industry — from unleashing untold horrors on humanity. Today, it’s next to impossible to conceive of a comparable convening of itself by the entertainment industry and the innovation labs that supply them with new wonders.

It’s easy to brush off the National Rifle Association’s response to the Newtown massacre: Violent video games have created a culture of violence that has spawned deranged killers. It’s easy because, for starters, there’s no scientific evidence connecting the dots between exposure to video game violence and actual violent behavior.

But there’s plenty of research supporting what we all intuit: Entertainment really does influence us. It affects what we know, how we feel and how we behave. If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be an advertising industry, or propaganda films or Sesame Street, and DJs wouldn’t be pied pipers, Putin wouldn’t have prosecuted Pussy Riot, Plato wouldn’t have banned poets, Romans wouldn’t have run circuses, Uncle Tom’s Cabin would have just been a best-seller and Sheherazade couldn’t have saved her life by withholding the endings of the stories she told.

There’s a debate raging now about whether the movie Zero Dark Thirty depicts torture as an effective way to get intelligence. Critics are passionate because the stakes seem so high — for politics, history, public opinion and public policy. We’ve been here before. In one of the best-known storylines on the series 24, Jack Bauer used torture to get useful information from terrorists. The scenes were so powerful that, as Jane Mayer reported, the dean of West Point flew to Hollywood to meet with 24‘s writers and producers to explain that real U.S. soldiers — instead of paying attention to their teachers and their textbooks; instead of learning that torture is wrong, counterproductive, inefficient and produces false intelligence — were instead trusting the instruction about interrogation methods that they were tacitly getting from a fictional, made up TV show.

The NRA is obscenely wrong about the relation between gun regulation and gun violence. But before we dismiss its case about popular culture out of hand, we might want to take seriously the way that entertainment thrills, enthralls, enrages, instructs and inspires us, all of us, no matter how sophisticated and media-savvy we may think we are. One fine day, awesome technology will enable the pleasure industry to pretty much erase the line between simulation and reality. I wonder whether we’ll arrive at that point without first having wrestled with the consequences that might follow from that fun.

Written by: Marty Kaplan, Director, Norman Lear Center and Professor at the USC Annenberg School (from The Huffington Post via Presence)
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