Virtual reality and mixed reality for virtual learning environments

OBJECTIVE: The authors discuss empirical studies of human-automation interaction and their implications for automation design. BACKGROUND: Automation is prevalent in safety-critical systems and increasingly in everyday life. Many studies of human performance in automated systems have been conducted over the past 30 years. METHODS: Developments in three areas are examined: levels and stages of automation, reliance on and compliance with automation, and adaptive automation. RESULTS: Automation applied to information analysis or decision-making functions leads to differential system performance benefits and costs that must be considered in choosing appropriate levels and stages of automation. Human user dependence on automated alerts and advisories reflects two components of operator trust, reliance and compliance, which are in turn determined by the threshold designers use to balance automation misses and false alarms. Finally, adaptive automation can provide additional benefits in balancing workload and maintaining the user's situation awareness, although more research is required to identify when adaptation should be user controlled or system driven. CONCLUSIONS: The past three decades of empirical research on humans and automation has provided a strong science base that can be used to guide the design of automated systems. APPLICATION: This research can be applied to most current and future automated systems. Language: en

Humans : Still Vital After All These Years of Automation

This article gives an introduction and overview of the field of pervasive gaming, an emerging genre in which traditional, real-world games are augmented with computing functionality, or, depending on the perspective, purely virtual computer entertainment is brought back to the real world.The field of pervasive games is diverse in the approaches and technologies used to create new and exciting gaming experiences that profit by the blend of real and virtual game elements. We explicitly look at the pervasive gaming sub-genres of smart toys, affective games, tabletop games, location-aware games, and augmented reality games, and discuss them in terms of their benefits and critical issues, as well as the relevant technology base.

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Pervasive games: bringing computer entertainment back to the real world

The idea of interactional trajectories through interfaces has emerged as a sensitizing concept from recent studies of tangible interfaces and interaction in museums and galleries. We put this concept to work as a lens to reflect on published studies of complex user experiences that extend over space and time and involve multiple roles and interfaces. We develop a conceptual framework in which trajectories explain these user experiences as journeys through hybrid structures, punctuated by transitions, and in which interactivity and collaboration are orchestrated. Our framework is intended to sensitize future studies, help distill craft knowledge into design guidelines and patterns, identify technology requirements, and provide a boundary object to connect HCI with Performance Studies.

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From interaction to trajectories: designing coherent journeys through user experiences

The boom in the capabilities and features of mobile devices, like smartphones, tablets, and wearables, combined with the ubiquitous and affordable Internet access and the advances in the areas of cooperative networking, computer vision, and mobile cloud computing transformed mobile augmented reality (MAR) from science fiction to a reality. Although mobile devices are more constrained computationalwise from traditional computers, they have a multitude of sensors that can be used to the development of more sophisticated MAR applications and can be assisted from remote servers for the execution of their intensive parts. In this paper, after introducing the reader to the basics of MAR, we present a categorization of the application fields together with some representative examples. Next, we introduce the reader to the user interface and experience in MAR applications and continue with the core system components of the MAR systems. After that, we discuss advances in tracking and registration, since their functionality is crucial to any MAR application and the network connectivity of the devices that run MAR applications together with its importance to the performance of the application. We continue with the importance of data management in MAR systems and the systems performance and sustainability, and before we conclude this survey, we present existing challenging problems.

Mobile Augmented Reality Survey: From Where We Are to Where We Go

Human Pacman is a novel interactive entertainment system that ventures to embed the natural physical world seamlessly with a fantasy virtual playground by capitalizing on mobile computing, wireless LAN, ubiquitous computing, and motion-tracking technologies. Our human Pacman research is a physical role-playing augmented-reality computer fantasy together with real human–social and mobile gaming. It emphasizes collaboration and competition between players in a wide outdoor physical area which allows natural wide-area human–physical movements. Pacmen and Ghosts are now real human players in the real world, experiencing mixed computer graphics fantasy–reality provided by using the wearable computers. Virtual cookies and actual tangible physical objects are incorporated into the game play to provide novel experiences of seamless transitions between real and virtual worlds. We believe human Pacman is pioneering a new form of gaming that anchors on physicality, mobility, social interaction, and ubiquitous computing.

Human Pacman: a mobile, wide-area entertainment system based on physical, social, and ubiquitous computing

Human Pacman is a novel mixed reality interactive entertainment system that ventures to embed the natural physical world seamlessly with a fantasy virtual playground by capitalizing on infrastructure provided by wearable computer, mixed reality, and ubiquitous computing research. We have progressed from the old days of 2D arcade Pacman on screens, with incremental development, to the popular 3D game home console Pacman, and the recent mobile online Pacman. Finally with our research system Human Pacman, we have a physical role-playing computer fantasy together with real human-social and mobile-gaming that emphasizes on collaboration and competition between players in a wide outdoor area that allows natural wide-area human-physical movements. Pacmen and Ghosts are now human players in the real world experiencing computer graphics fantasy-reality by using the wearable computers on them. Virtual cookies and actual tangible physical objects are incorporated into the game play to provide unique experiences of seamless transitions between real and virtual worlds. We believe Human Pacman is pioneering a new form of gaming that anchors on physicality, mobility, social interaction, and ubiquitous computing.

/pdf/human-pacman-a-mobile-wide-area-entertainment-system-based-4vxernup1a.pdf

Human Pacman: a mobile wide-area entertainment system based on physical, social, and ubiquitous computing

Human Pacman is an interactive ubiquitous and mobile entertainment system that is built upon position and perspective sensing via Global Positioning System and inertia sensors; and tangible human-computer interfacing with the use of Bluetooth and capacitive sensors. Although these sensing-based subsystems are weaved into the fabric of the game and are therefore translucent to players, they are nevertheless the technical enabling forces behind Human Pacman. The game strives to bring the computer gaming experience to a new level of emotional and sensory gratification by embedding the natural physical world ubiquitously and seamlessly with a fantasy virtual playground. We have progressed from the old days of 2D arcade Pacman on screens, with incremental development, to the popular 3D game console Pacman, and the recent mobile online Pacman. With our novel Human Pacman, we have a physical role-playing computer fantasy together with real human-social and mobile-gaming that emphasizes on collaboration and competition between players in a wide outdoor physical area that allows natural wide-area human-physical movements. Pacmen and Ghosts are now real human players in the real world experiencing mixed computer graphics fantasy-reality provided by using wearable computers that are equipped with GPS and inertia sensors for players' position and perspective tracking. Virtual cookies and actual tangible physical objects with Bluetooth devices and capacitive sensors are incorporated into the game play to provide novel experiences of seamless transitions between real and virtual worlds. In short, we believe Human Pacman is pioneering a new form of gaming that is based on sensing technology and anchored on physicality, mobility, social interaction, and ubiquitous computing.

Human Pacman: a sensing-based mobile entertainment system with ubiquitous computing and tangible interaction

Human Pacman is an interactive role-playing game that envisions to bring the computer gaming experience to a new level of emotional and sensory gratification by setting the real world as a playground. This is a physical fantasy game integrated with human-social and mobile-gaming that emphasizes on collaboration and competition between players. By setting the game in a wide outdoor area, natural human-physical movements have become an integral part of the game. Pacmen and Ghosts are now human players in the real world experiencing mixed reality visualization from the wearable computers on them. Virtual cookies and actual physical objects are incorporated to provide novel experiences of seamless transitions between real and virtual worlds and tangible human computer interface respectively. We believe Human Pacman is pioneering a new form of gaming that anchors on physicality, mobility, social interaction, and ubiquitous computing.

/pdf/human-pacman-a-mobile-entertainment-system-with-ubiquitous-4snocjvtag.pdf

Human Pacman: A Mobile Entertainment System with Ubiquitous Computing and Tangible Interaction over a Wide Outdoor Area

Human Pacman is a novel mixed reality interactive entertainment system that ventures to embed the natural physical world seamlessly with a fantasy virtual playground by capitalizing on infrastructure provided by wearable computer, mixed reality, and ubiquitous computing research. We have progressed from the old days of 2D arcade Pacman on screens, with incremental development, to the popular 3D game home console Pacman, and the recent mobile online Pacman. Finally with our research system Human Pacman, we have a physical role-playing computer fantasy together with real human-social and mobile-gaming that emphasizes on collaboration and competition between players in a wide outdoor area that allows natural wide-area human-physical movements. Pacmen and Ghosts are now human players in the real world experiencing computer graphics fantasy-reality by using the wearable computers on them. Virtual cookies and actual tangible physical objects are incorporated into the game play to provide unique experiences of seamless transitions between real and virtual worlds. We believe Human Pacman is pioneering a new form of gaming that anchors on physicality, mobility, social interaction,and ubiquitous computing.

Siew Wan Fong

Papers

Human Pacman: a mobile, wide-area entertainment system based on physical, social, and ubiquitous computing

Human Pacman: a mobile wide-area entertainment system based on physical, social, and ubiquitous computing

Human Pacman: a sensing-based mobile entertainment system with ubiquitous computing and tangible interaction

Human Pacman: A Mobile Entertainment System with Ubiquitous Computing and Tangible Interaction over a Wide Outdoor Area

Human pacman: a wide area socio-physical interactive entertainment system in mixed reality