Category Archives: New Media

Final Call For Papers for IEEE MetroXRAINE 2023 Special Session on “eXtended Reality as a gateway to the Metaverse: Practices, Theories, Technologies and Applications” extended to April 7, 2023

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I received an April 5, 2023 announcement for the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Metrology for eXtended Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Neural Engineering (IEEE MetroXRAINE 2023) via email. Understandably given that it’s an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) conference, they’re looking for submissions focused on developing the technology,

Last days to submit your contribution to our Special Session on “eXtended Reality as a gateway to the Metaverse: Practices, Theories, Technologies and Applications” – IEEE International Conference on Metrology for eXtended Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Neural Engineering (IEEE MetroXRAINE 2023) – October 25-27, 2023 – Milan – https://metroxraine.org/special-session-17.

I want to remind you that the deadline of April 7 [2023] [extended to April 14, 2023 as per April 11, 2023 notice received via email] is for the submission of a 1-2 page Abstract or a Graphical Abstract to show the idea you are proposing.
You will have time to finalise your work by the deadline of May 15 [2023].

Please see the CfP below for details and forward it to colleagues who might be interested in contributing to this special session.

I’m looking forward to meeting you, virtually or in your presence, at IEEE MetroXRAINE 2023.

Best regards,
Giuseppe Caggianese

Research Scientist
National Research Council (CNR) [Italy]
Institute for High-Performance Computing and Networking (ICAR)
Via Pietro Castellino 111, 80131, Naples, Italy

Here’s are specific for the Special Session’s Call for Papers (from the April 5, 2023 email announcement),

Call for Papers – Special Session on: “EXTENDED REALITY AS A GATEWAY TO THE METAVERSE: PRACTICES, THEORIES, TECHNOLOGIES AND APPLICATIONS” https://metroxraine.org/special-session-17

2023 IEEE International Conference on Metrology for eXtended Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Neural Engineering (IEEE MetroXRAINE 2023) https://metroxraine.org/

October 25-27, 2023 – Milan, Italy.

SPECIAL SESSION DESCRIPTION
————————-
The fast development of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) solutions over the last few years are transforming how people interact, work, and communicate. The eXtended Reality (XR) term encloses all those immersive technologies that can shift the boundaries between digital and physical worlds to realize the metaverse. According to tech companies and venture capitalists, the metaverse will be a super-platform that convenes sub-platforms: social media, online video games, and ease-of-life apps, all accessible through the same digital space and sharing the same digital economy. Inside the metaverse, virtual worlds will allow avatars to carry out all human endeavours, including creation, display, entertainment, social, and trading. Thus, the metaverse will evolve how users interact with brands, intellectual properties, health services, cultural heritage, and each other things on the Internet. A user could join friends to play a multiplayer game, watch a movie via a streaming service and then attend a university course precisely the same as in the real world.
The metaverse development will require new software architecture that will enable decentralized and collaborative virtual worlds. These self-organized virtual worlds will be permanent and will require maintenance operations. In addition, it will be necessary to design an efficient data management system and prevent privacy violations. Finally, the convergence of physical reality, virtually enhanced, and an always-on virtual space highlighted the need to rethink the actual paradigms for visualization, interaction, and sharing of digital information, moving toward more natural, intuitive, dynamically customizable, multimodal, and multi-user solutions.
This special session aims to focus on exploring how the realization of the metaverse can transform certain application domains such us: (i) healthcare, in which the metaverse solutions can, for instance, improve the communication between patients and physicians; (ii) cultural heritage, with potentially more effective solutions for tourism guidance, site maintenance, and heritage object conservation; and (iii) industry, where to enable data-driven decision making, smart maintenance, and overall asset optimisation.

More information can be found here: https://metroxraine.org/special-session-17

TOPICS

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Hardware/Software Architectures for metaverse
  • Decentralized and Collaborative Architectures for metaverse
  • Interoperability for metaverse
  • Tools to help creators to build the metaverse0
  • Operations and Maintenance in metaverse
  • Data security and privacy mechanisms for metaverse
  • Cryptocurrency, token, NFT Solutions for metaverse
  • Fraud-Detection in metaverse
  • Cyber Security for metaverse
  • Data Analytics to Identify Malicious Behaviors in metaverse
  • Blockchain/AI technologies in metaverse
  • Emerging Technologies and Applications for metaverse
  • New models to evaluate the impact of the metaverse
  • Interactive Data Exploration and Presentation in metaverse
  • Human-Computer Interaction for metaverse
  • Human factors issues related to metaverse
  • Proof-of-Concept in Metaverse: Experimental Prototyping and Testbeds

IMPORTANT DATES

Abstract Submission Deadline: April 7, 2023 (extended) NOTE: 1-2 pages abstract or a graphical abstract
Final Paper Submission Deadline: May 15, 2023 (extended)
Full Paper Acceptance Notification: June 15, 2023
Final Paper Submission Deadline: July 31, 2023

SUBMISSION AND DECISIONS
————————
Authors should prepare an Abstract (1 – 2 pages) that clearly indicates the originality of the contribution and the relevance of the work. The Abstract should include the title of the paper, names and affiliations of the authors, an abstract, keywords, an introduction describing the nature of the problem, a description of the contribution, the results achieved and their applicability.

As an alternative to the traditional abstract, it is possible to submit a Graphical Abstract. For further information, please see here: https://metroxraine.org/initial-author-instructions.

When the first review process has been completed, authors receive a notification of either acceptance or rejection of the submission. If the abstract has been accepted, the authors can prepare a full paper.
The format for the full paper is identical to the format for the abstract except for the number of pages: the full paper has a required minimum length of five (5) pages and a maximum of six (6) pages.
Full Papers will be reviewed by the Technical Program Committee. Authors of accepted full papers must submit the final paper version according to the deadline, register for the workshop, and attend to present their papers. The maximum length for final papers is 6 pages.
All contributions will be peer-reviewed and acceptance will be based on quality, originality and relevance. Accepted papers will be submitted for inclusion into IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

Submissions must be written in English and prepared according to the IEEE Conference Proceedings template. LaTeX and Word templates and an Overleaf sample project can be found at: https://metroxraine.org/initial-author-instructions.

The papers must be submitted in PDF format electronically via EDAS online submission and review system: https://edas.info/newPaper.php?c=30746.
To submit abstracts or draft papers to the special session, please follow the submission instructions for regular sessions, but remind to specify the special session to which the paper is directed.

The special session organizers and other external reviewers will review all submissions.

More information can be found here: https://metroxraine.org/initial-author-instructions

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
———————————–
All contributions will be peer-reviewed, and acceptance will be based on quality, originality, and relevance. Accepted papers will be submitted for inclusion into IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

Extended versions of presented papers are eligible for post-publication; more information will be provided soon.

ORGANIZERS
————-
Giuseppe Caggianese
National Research Council of Italy
giuseppe.caggianese@cnr.it

Ugo Erra
University of Basilicata
ugo.erra@unibas.it

Luigi Gallo
National Research Council of Italy
luigi.gallo@cnr.it

Good luck!

Ars Scientia talks at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in February, March, and April 2023

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The University of British Columbia (UBC; Vancouver, Canada) partnership between its Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute (Blusson QMI), its Morris & Helen Belkin Art Gallery (the Belkin), and its Department of Physics and Astronomy (UBC PHAS) is known as Ars Scientia. (See my September 6, 2021 posting for more; scroll down to the Ars Scientia subhead.)

It’s been a while since I’ve seen any notices about Ars Scientia events but the Belkin Gallery announced three in a February 15, 2023 notice (received via email),

Ars Scientia Artist Talks

Room 311, Brimacombe Building, 2355 East Mall, UBC

Join us for a series of artist talks hosted at UBC’s Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute (Blusson QMI). Our current cohort of Ars Scientia artists-in-residence have formed collaborative partnerships with scientists and engineers while embedded at Blusson QMI.

Tuesday, February 21 [2023] at 2 pm

JG Mair

Tuesday, March 28 [2023] at 1 pm

Scott Billings

Tuesday, April 2 [2023] at 2 pm

Timothy Taylor

IMAGE (ABOVE): AN ARS SCIENTIA COLLABORATION BETWEEN VISUAL ARTIST JG MAIR AND PHYSICIST ALANNAH HALLAS AT BLUSSON QMI; THE TWO WORKED TOGETHER IN HALLAS’S LAB TO TURN “INSIGHTFUL FAILURES” OF HIGH-ENTROPY OXIDES (A TYPE OF QUANTUM MATERIAL) INTO AN ARTIST’S MEDIUM – PAINT. PHOTO: RACHEL TOPHAM PHOTOGRAPHY.

I have found more details about the upcoming talk here on the Belkin Gallery’s Artist Talks: JG Mair, Scott Billings and Timothy Taylor events page,

Artist Talk with JG Mair, Tuesday, 21 February [2023] at 2 pm

Please join visual and media artist JG Mair for a discussion about his art practice and experiences as a collaborative participant in the Ars Scientia residency. As part of his talk, Mair will present one of his major works, Chroma Chamber, a web-based new media art installation that investigates human expectations of vision and machine algorithms by programmatically collating real-time Google image results to surround the viewer with the distilled colour of the words they speak. Visit Blusson QMI for more details. [Note 1: On the Blusson QMI page, the talk is titled: Algorithmic allegories by JG Mair; Note 2: You’ll find a map showing the Brimacombe building location.]

I wasn’t able to find out more about the other talks but I did get more information about the three artists, Belkin Gallery’s Artist Talks: JG Mair, Scott Billings and Timothy Taylor events page.

JG Mair is a Vancouver-based multidisciplinary artist and media designer specializing in mixed media, web and audio. He has a BFA from the University of Victoria and a BEd from the University of British Columbia. Mair has been working in the areas of both traditional and digital contemporary art and as a sound designer for various game studios developing titles for publishers including Apple, Electronic Arts, Microsoft and Netflix. Mair has had exhibitions and residencies in Canada, USA, South Korea and Japan.

Scott Billings is a visual artist, industrial designer and engineer based in Vancouver. His sculptures and video installations have been described as existing somewhere between cinema and automata. Centering on issues of animality, mobility and spectatorship, Billings’s work examines the mimetic relationship between the physical apparatus and the virtual motion it delivers. In what ways does the apparatus itself reveal both the mechanisms of causality and its own dormant animal quality? Billings addresses this question under the pursuit of the technological conundrum and a preoccupation with precise geometry and logic. Billings holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia, a BFA from Emily Carr University and a BASc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo. He teaches at UBC and Emily Carr as a sessional instructor. Billings is represented by Wil Aballe Art Projects.

Timothy Taylor is an Associate Professor and Graduate Advisor at the School of Creative Writing. He is also a bestselling and award-winning author of eight book-length works of fiction and nonfiction, a prolific journalist, and creative nonfiction writer. In addition to his writing and teaching at UBC, Taylor travels widely, having in recent years spent time on assignment in China, Tibet, Japan, Dubai, Brazil, the Canadian arctic and other places. He lives in Point Grey Vancouver with his wife, his son, and a pair of Brittany Spaniels named Keaton and Murphy.

Hopefully, the talk is a little more accessible than its description.

Augmented reality and the future of paper books

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I’ve started to think that paper books will be on an ‘endangered species’ list in the not too distant future. Now, it seems researchers at the University of Surrey (UK) may have staved off that scenario according to an August 3, 2022 news item on ScienceDaily,

Augmented reality might allow printed books to make a comeback against the e-book trend, according to researchers from the University of Surrey.

…

An August 3, 2022 University of Surrey press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes the idea and the research in more detail,

Surrey has introduced the third generation (3G) version of its Next Generation Paper (NGP) project, allowing the reader to consume information on the printed paper and screen side by side.  

Dr Radu Sporea, Senior lecturer at the Advanced Technology Institute (ATI), comments: 

“The way we consume literature has changed over time with so many more options than just paper books. Multiple electronic solutions currently exist, including e-readers and smart devices, but no hybrid solution which is sustainable on a commercial scale.  

“Augmented books, or a-books, can be the future of many book genres, from travel and tourism to education. This technology exists to assist the reader in a deeper understanding of the written topic and get more through digital means without ruining the experience of reading a paper book.” 

Power efficiency and pre-printed conductive paper are some of the new features which allow Surrey’s augmented books to now be manufactured on a semi-industrial scale. With no wiring visible to the reader, Surrey’s augmented reality books allow users to trigger digital content with a simple gesture (such as a swipe of a finger or turn of a page), which will then be displayed on a nearby device.  

George Bairaktaris, Postgraduate researcher at the University of Surrey and part of the Next Generation Paper project team, said: 

“The original research was carried out to enrich travel experiences by creating augmented travel guides. This upgraded 3G model allows for the possibility of using augmented books for different areas such as education. In addition, the new model disturbs the reader less by automatically recognising the open page and triggering the multimedia content.” 

“What started as an augmented book project, evolved further into scalable user interfaces. The techniques and knowledge from the project led us into exploring organic materials and printing techniques to fabricate scalable sensors for interfaces beyond the a-book”.

…  

Caption: Next Generation Paper book example Credit: Courtesy of Advanced Technology Institute at the University of Surrey

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Augmented Books: Hybrid Electronics Bring Paper to Life by Georgios Bairaktaris, Brice Le Borgne, Vikram Turkani, Emily Corrigan-Kavanagh, David M. Frohlich, Radu A. Sporea. IEEE Pervasive Computing (early access) PrePrints pp. 1-8, DOI: 10.1109/MPRV.2022.3181440 Published: July 12, 2022

This paper is behind a paywall.

How AI-designed fiction reading lists and self-publishing help nurture far-right and neo-Nazi novelists

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Literary theorists Helen Young and Geoff M Boucher, both at Deakin University (Australia), have co-written a fascinating May 29, 2022 essay on The Conversation (and republished on phys.org) analyzing some of the reasons (e.g., novels) for the resurgence in neo-Nazi activity and far-right extremism, Note: Links have been removed,

Far-right extremists pose an increasing risk in Australia and around the world. In 2020, ASIO [Australian Security Intelligence Organisation] revealed that about 40% of its counter-terrorism work involved the far right.

The recent mass murder in Buffalo, U.S., and the attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019 are just two examples of many far-right extremist acts of terror.

Far-right extremists have complex and diverse methods for spreading their messages of hate. These can include through social media, video games, wellness culture, interest in medieval European history, and fiction [emphasis mine]. Novels by both extremist and non-extremist authors feature on far-right “reading lists” designed to draw people into their beliefs and normalize hate.

…

Here’s more about how the books get published and distributed, from the May 29, 2022 essay, Note: Links have been removed,

…

Publishing houses once refused to print such books, but changes in technology have made traditional publishers less important. With self-publishing and e-books, it is easy for extremists to produce and distribute their fiction.

In this article, we have only given the titles and authors of those books that are already notorious, to avoid publicizing other dangerous hate-filled fictions.

…

Why would far-right extremists write novels?

Reading fiction is different to reading non-fiction. Fiction offers readers imaginative scenarios that can seem to be truthful, even though they are not fact-based. It can encourage readers to empathize with the emotions, thoughts and ethics of characters, particularly when they recognize those characters as being “like” them.

A novel featuring characters who become radicalized to far-right extremism, or who undertake violent terrorist acts, can help make those things seem justified and normal.

Novels that promote political violence, such as The Turner Diaries, are also ways for extremists to share plans and give readers who hold extreme views ideas about how to commit terrorist acts. …

…

In the late 20th century, far-right extremists without Pierce’s notoriety [American neo-Nazi William L. Pierce published The Turner Diaries (1978)] found it impossible to get their books published. One complained about this on his blog in 1999, blaming feminists and Jewish people. Just a few years later, print-on-demand and digital self-publishing made it possible to circumvent this difficulty.

The same neo-Nazi self-published what he termed “a lifetime of writing” in the space of a few years in the early 2000s. The company he paid to produce his books—iUniverse.com—helped get them onto the sales lists of major booksellers Barnes and Noble and Amazon in the early 2000s, making a huge difference to how easily they circulated outside extremist circles.

It still produces print-on-demand hard copies, even though the author has died. The same author’s books also circulate in digital versions, including on Google Play and Kindle, making them easily accessible.

…

Distributing extremist novels digitally

Far-right extremists use social media to spread their beliefs, but other digital platforms are also useful for them.

Seemingly innocent sites that host a wide range of mainstream material, such as Google Books, Project Gutenberg, and the Internet Archive, are open to exploitation. Extremists use them to share, for example, material denying the Holocaust alongside historical Nazi newspapers.

…

Amazon’s Kindle self-publishing service has been called “a haven for white supremacists” because of how easy it is for them to circulate political tracts there. The far-right extremist who committed the Oslo terrorist attacks in 2011 recommended in his manifesto that his followers use Kindle to to spread his message.

Our research has shown that novels by known far-right extremists have been published and circulated through Kindle as well as other digital self-publishing services.

…

Ai and its algorithms also play a role, from the May 29, 2022 essay,

Radicalising recommendations

As we researched how novels by known violent extremists circulate, we noticed that the sales algorithms of mainstream platforms were suggesting others that we might also be interested in. Sales algorithms work by recommending items that customers who purchased one book have also viewed or bought.

Those recommendations directed us to an array of novels that, when we investigated them, proved to resonate with far-right ideologies.

A significant number of them were by authors with far-right political views. Some had ties to US militia movements and the gun-obsessed “prepper” subculture. Almost all of the books were self-published as e-books and print-on-demand editions.

Without the marketing and distribution channels of established publishing houses, these books rely on digital circulation for sales, including sale recommendation algorithms.

The trail of sales recommendations led us, with just two clicks, to the novels of mainstream authors. They also led us back again, from mainstream authors’ books to extremist novels. This is deeply troubling. It risks unsuspecting readers being introduced to the ideologies, world-views and sometimes powerful emotional narratives of far-right extremist novels designed to radicalise.

…

It’s not always easy to tell right away if you’re reading fiction promoting far-right ideologies, from the May 29, 2022 essay,

Recognising far-right messages

Some extremist novels follow the lead of The Turner Diaries and represent the start of a racist, openly genocidal war alongside a call to bring one about. Others are less obvious about their violent messages.

Some are not easily distinguished from mainstream novels – for example, from political thrillers and dystopian adventure stories like those of Tom Clancy or Matthew Reilly – so what is different about them? Openly neo-Nazi authors, like Pierce, often use racist, homophobic and misogynist slurs, but many do not. This may be to help make their books more palatable to general readers, or to avoid digital moderation based on specific words.

Knowing more about far-right extremism can help. Researchers generally say that there are three main things that connect the spectrum of far-right extremist politics: acceptance of social inequality, authoritarianism, and embracing violence as a tool for political change. Willingness to commit or endorse violence is a key factor separating extremism from other radical politics.

…

It is very unlikely that anyone would become radicalised to violent extremism just by reading novels. Novels can, however, reinforce political messages heard elsewhere (such as on social media) and help make those messages and acts of hate feel justified.

With the growing threat of far-right extremism and deliberate recruitment strategies of extremists targeting unexpected places, it is well worth being informed enough to recognise the hate-filled stories they tell.

I recommend reading the essay as my excerpts don’t do justice to the ideas being presented. As Young and Boucher note, it’s “… unlikely that anyone would become radicalised to violent extremism …” by reading novels but far-right extremists and neo-Nazis write fiction because the tactic works at some level.

Electrotactile rendering device virtualizes the sense of touch

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I stumbled across this November 15, 2022 news item on Nanowerk highlighting work on the sense of touch in the virual originally announced in October 2022,

A collaborative research team co-led by City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has developed a wearable tactile rendering system, which can mimic the sensation of touch with high spatial resolution and a rapid response rate. The team demonstrated its application potential in a braille display, adding the sense of touch in the metaverse for functions such as virtual reality shopping and gaming, and potentially facilitating the work of astronauts, deep-sea divers and others who need to wear thick gloves.

…

Here’s what you’ll need to wear for this virtual tactile experience,

Caption: The new wearable tactile rendering system can mimic touch sensations with high spatial resolution and a rapid response rate. Credit: Robotics X Lab and City University of Hong Kong

An October 20, 2022 City University of Hong Kong (CityU) press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, delves further into the research,

“We can hear and see our families over a long distance via phones and cameras, but we still cannot feel or hug them. We are physically isolated by space and time, especially during this long-lasting pandemic,” said Dr Yang Zhengbao,Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of CityU, who co-led the study. “Although there has been great progress in developing sensors that digitally capture tactile features with high resolution and high sensitivity, we still lack a system that can effectively virtualize the sense of touch that can record and playback tactile sensations over space and time.”

In collaboration with Chinese tech giant Tencent’s Robotics X Laboratory, the team developed a novel electrotactile rendering system for displaying various tactile sensations with high spatial resolution and a rapid response rate. Their findings were published in the scientific journal Science Advances under the title “Super-resolution Wearable Electro-tactile Rendering System”.

Limitations in existing techniques

Existing techniques to reproduce tactile stimuli can be broadly classified into two categories: mechanical and electrical stimulation. By applying a localised mechanical force or vibration on the skin, mechanical actuators can elicit stable and continuous tactile sensations. However, they tend to be bulky, limiting the spatial resolution when integrated into a portable or wearable device. Electrotactile stimulators, in contrast, which evoke touch sensations in the skin at the location of the electrode by passing a local electric current though the skin, can be light and flexible while offering higher resolution and a faster response. But most of them rely on high voltage direct-current (DC) pulses (up to hundreds of volts) to penetrate the stratum corneum, the outermost layer of the skin, to stimulate the receptors and nerves, which poses a safety concern. Also, the tactile rendering resolution needed to be improved.

The latest electro-tactile actuator developed by the team is very thin and flexible and can be easily integrated into a finger cot. This fingertip wearable device can display different tactile sensations, such as pressure, vibration, and texture roughness in high fidelity. Instead of using DC pulses, the team developed a high-frequency alternating stimulation strategy and succeeded in lowering the operating voltage under 30 V, ensuring the tactile rendering is safe and comfortable.

They also proposed a novel super-resolution strategy that can render tactile sensation at locations between physical electrodes, instead of only at the electrode locations. This increases the spatial resolution of their stimulators by more than three times (from 25 to 105 points), so the user can feel more realistic tactile perception.

Tactile stimuli with high spatial resolution

“Our new system can elicit tactile stimuli with both high spatial resolution (76 dots/cm2), similar to the density of related receptors in the human skin, and a rapid response rate (4 kHz),” said Mr Lin Weikang, a PhD student at CityU, who made and tested the device.

The team ran different tests to show various application possibilities of this new wearable electrotactile rendering system. For example, they proposed a new Braille strategy that is much easier for people with a visual impairment to learn.

The proposed strategy breaks down the alphabet and numerical digits into individual strokes and order in the same way they are written. By wearing the new electrotactile rendering system on a fingertip, the user can recognise the alphabet presented by feeling the direction and the sequence of the strokes with the fingertip sensor. “This would be particularly useful for people who lose their eye sight later in life, allowing them to continue to read and write using the same alphabetic system they are used to, without the need to learn the whole Braille dot system,” said Dr Yang.

Enabling touch in the metaverse

Second, the new system is well suited for VR/AR [virtual reality/augmented reality] applications and games, adding the sense of touch to the metaverse. The electrodes can be made highly flexible and scalable to cover larger areas, such as the palm. The team demonstrated that a user can virtually sense the texture of clothes in a virtual fashion shop. The user also experiences an itchy sensation in the fingertips when being licked by a VR cat. When stroking a virtual cat’s fur, the user can feel a variance in the roughness as the strokes change direction and speed.

The system can also be useful in transmitting fine tactile details through thick gloves. The team successfully integrated the thin, light electrodes of the electrotactile rendering system into flexible tactile sensors on a safety glove. The tactile sensor array captures the pressure distribution on the exterior of the glove and relays the information to the user in real time through tactile stimulation. In the experiment, the user could quickly and accurately locate a tiny steel washer just 1 mm in radius and 0.44mm thick based on the tactile feedback from the glove with sensors and stimulators. This shows the system’s potential in enabling high-fidelity tactile perception, which is currently unavailable to astronauts, firefighters, deep-sea divers and others who need wear thick protective suits or gloves.

“We expect our technology to benefit a broad spectrum of applications, such as information transmission, surgical training, teleoperation, and multimedia entertainment,” added Dr Yang.

…

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Super-resolution wearable electrotactile rendering system by Weikang Lin, Dongsheng Zhang, Wang Wei Lee, Xuelong Li, Ying Hong, Qiqi Pan, Ruirui Zhang, Guoxiang Peng, Hong Z. Tan, Zhengyou Zhang, Lei Wei, and Zhengbao Yang. Science Advances 9 Sep 2022 Vol 8, Issue 36 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abp8738

This paper is open access.

ArtSci Salon hosts Basic Necessities—connectivity and cultural creativity in Cuba, a talk on Oct 3, 4:30-6:00 pm ET at York University

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It’s like the flood gates have opened and I am being inundated with event notices. The latest is from Toronto’s (Canada) ArtSci Salon (again). From a September 21, 2022 notice (received via email),

Basic Necessities
Connectivity and cultural creativity in Cuba

A public lecture by Nestor Siré
With online participation by Steffen Köhn

Join me in welcoming Nestor Siré.
Nestor Siré is a multimedia artist based in Cuba. His projects and collaborations explore unofficial methods for circulating information and goods, such as alternative forms of economic production, and phenomena resulting from social creativity and recycling, piracy, as well as a-legal activities benefitting from loopholes. Siré will discuss some of his recent creative works in the Cuban context.
His “Paquete Semanal” is an offline digital media circulation system based on in person file sharing to provide a solution to connectivity and infrastructure failure in Cuba. “Basic Necessities”, a recent collaboration with Steffen Köhln, portraits the dynamics of the informal economy in Cuba as it unfolds in Telegram groups and analyses the eclectic and creative uses of product photography within this digital context.
Köhln will join him in conversation via zoom.

October 3, 2022
4:30-6:00 pm [ET]
Room YH 245
Glendon Campus [York University]
2275 Bayview Ave
North York,
ON M4N 3M6
Directions

Nestor Siré
(*1988), lives and works in Havana, Cuba.
www.nestorsire.com
Nestor Siré’s artistic practice intervenes directly in social contexts in order to analyze specific cultural phenomena, often engaging with the particular idiosyncrasies of digital culture in the Cuban context.
His works have been shown in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Havana), Queens Museum (New York), Rhizome (New York), New Museum (New York), Hong-Gah Museum (Taipei), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Santa Fe (Argentina), The Photographers’ Gallery (London), among other places. He has participated in events such as the Manifesta 13 Biennial (France), Gwangju Biennale (South Korea), Curitiba Biennial (Brazil), the Havana Biennial (Cuba) and the Asunción International Biennale (Paraguay), the Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Cuba and the Oberhausen International Festival of Short Film (Germany).

Steffen Köhn
(*1980), lives and works in Berlin.
www.steffenkoehn.com

Steffen Köhn is a filmmaker, anthropologist and video artist who uses ethnography to understand contemporary sociotechnical landscapes. For his video and installation works he engages in local collaborations with gig workers, software developers, or science fiction writers to explore viable alternatives to current distributions of technological access and arrangements of power.
His works have been shown at the Academy of the Arts Berlin, Kunsthaus Graz, Vienna Art Week, Hong Gah Museum Taipei, Lulea Biennial, The Photographers’ Gallery and the ethnographic museums of Copenhagen and Dresden. His films have been screened (among others) at the Berlinale, Rotterdam International Film Festival, and the Word Film Festival Montreal.

I tried to find out if this event will be webcast or streamed but was unsuccessful. You can check the ArtSci Salon website, perhaps they’ll post something closer to the event date.

IHEX and a call for papers

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IHEX has nothing to do with high tech witches (sigh … mildly disappointing), it is the abbreviation for “Intelligent interfaces and Human factors in EXtended environments” and I got a June 29, 2022 announcement or call for papers via email,

International Workshop on Intelligent interfaces and Human factors in EXtended environments (IHEX) – SITIS 2022 16th international conference on Signal Image Technology & Internet based Systems, Dijon, France, October 19-21, 2022

Dear Colleagues,
It is with great pleasure that we would like to invite you to send a contribution to the International Workshop on Intelligent interfaces and Human factors in EXtended environments (IHEX) at SITIS 2022 16th international conference on Signal Image Technology & Internet based Systems (Conference website: https://www.sitis-conference.org).

The workshop is about new approaches for designing and implementing intelligent eXtended Reality systems. Please find the call for papers below and forward it to colleagues who might be interested in contributing to the workshop.
For any questions and information, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Best Regards,
Giuseppe Caggianese

CFP [Call for papers]
———-
eXtended Reality is becoming more and more widespread; going beyond entertainment and cultural heritage fruition purposes, these technologies offer new challenges and opportunities also in educational, industrial and healthcare domains. The research community in this field deals with technological and human factors issues, presenting theoretical and methodological proposals for perception, tracking, interaction and visualization. Increasing attention is observed towards the use of machine learning and AI methodologies to perform data analysis and reasoning, manage a multimodal interaction, and ensure an adaptation to users’ needs and preferences. The workshop is aimed at investigating new approaches for the design and implementation of intelligent eXtended Reality systems. It intends to provide a forum to share and discuss not only technological and design advances but also ethical concerns about the implications of these technologies on changing social interactions, information access and experiences.

Topics for the workshop include, but are not limited to:

 – Intelligent User Interfaces in eXtended environments
 – Computational Interaction for XR
 – Quality and User Experience in XR
 – Cognitive Models for XR
 – Semantic Computing in environments
 – XR-based serious games
 – Virtual Agents in eXtended environments
 – Adaptive Interfaces
 – Visual Reasoning
 – Content Modelling
 – Responsible Design of eXtended Environments
 – XR systems for Human Augmentation
 – AI methodologies applied to XR
 – ML approaches in XR
 – Ethical concerns in XR

VENUE
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University of Burgundy main campus, Dijon, France, October 19-21, 2022

WORKSHOP CO-CHAIRS
———————————–
Agnese Augello, Institute for high performance computing and networking, National Research Council, Italy
Giuseppe Caggianese, Institute for high performance computing and networking, National Research Council, Italy
Boriana Koleva, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

PROGRAM COMMITTEE
———————————-
Agnese Augello, Institute for high performance computing and networking, National Research Council, Italy
Giuseppe Caggianese, Institute for high performance computing and networking, National Research Council, Italy
Giuseppe Chiazzese, Institute for Educational Technology, National Research Council, Italy
Dimitri Darzentas, Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland
Martin Flintham, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
Ignazio Infantino, Institute for high performance computing and networking, National Research Council, Italy
Boriana Koleva, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
Emel Küpçü, Xtinge Technology Inc., Turkey
Effie Lai-Chong Law, Durham University, United Kingdom
Pietro Neroni, Institute for high performance computing and networking, National Research Council, Italy

SUBMISSION AND DECISIONS
——————————————-
Each submission should be at most 8 pages in total including bibliography and well-marked appendices and must follow the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] double columns publication format.

You can download the IEEE conference templates – Latex and MS Word A4 – at the following URL: https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html
Paper submission will only be online via SITIS 2022 submission site:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sitis2022

Submissions will be peer-reviewed by at least two peer reviewers. Papers will be evaluated based on relevance, significance, impact, originality, technical soundness, and quality of presentation.
At least one author should attend the conference to present an accepted paper.

IMPORTANT DATES
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Paper Submission      July 15, 2022
Acceptance/Reject Notification.     September 9, 2022
Camera-ready       September 16, 2022
Author Registration    September 16, 2022

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
——————————————–
All papers accepted for presentation at the main tracks and workshops will be included in the conference proceedings, which will be published by IEEE Computer Society and referenced in IEEE Xplore Digital Library, Scopus, DBLP and major indexes.

REGISTRATION
———————–
At least one author of each accepted paper must register for the conference and present the work. A single registration allows attending both track and workshop sessions.

CONTACTS
—————-
For any questions, please contact us via email.

Agnese Augello agnese.augello@icar.cnr.it
Giuseppe Caggianese giuseppe.caggianese@icar.cnr.it
Boriana Koleva  B.Koleva@nottingham.ac.uk

Good luck!

Art/Sci exhibit in Toronto, Canada: “These are a Few of Our Favourite Bees” June 22 – July 16, 2022

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A “These are a few of Our Favourite Bees” upcoming exhibitions notice on the Campbell House Museum website (also received via email as a June 4, 2022 ArtSci Salon announcement) features a month long exhibit being co-presented with the Canadian Music Centre in Toronto,

Exhibition
Campbell House Museum
June 22 – July 16, 2022
160 Queen Street W.

Opening event
Campbell House,
Saturday July 2,
2 – 4 p.m. [ET]

Artists’ Talk & Webcast
The Canadian Music Centre,
20 St. Joseph Street Toronto
Thursday, July 7
7:30 – 9 p.m. [ET]
(doors open 7 pm)

These are a Few of Our Favourite Bees investigates wild, native bees and their ecology through playful dioramas, video, audio, relief print and poetry. Inspired by lambe lambe – South American miniature puppet stages for a single viewer – four distinct dioramas convey surreal yet enlightening worlds where bees lounge in cozy environs, animals watch educational films [emphasis mine] and ethereal sounds animate bowls of berries (having been pollinated by their diverse bee visitors). Displays reminiscent of natural history museums invite close inspection, revealing minutiae of these tiny, diverse animals, our native bees. From thumb-sized to extremely tiny, fuzzy to hairless, black, yellow, red or emerald green, each native bee tells a story while her actions create the fruits of pollination, reflecting the perpetual dance of animals, plants and planet. With a special appearance by Toronto’s official bee, the jewelled green sweat bee, Agapostemon virescens!

These are a Few of Our Favourite Bees Collective are: Sarah Peebles, Ele Willoughby, Rob Cruickshank & Stephen Humphrey

 The Works

These are a Few of Our Favourite Bees

Sarah Peebles, Ele Willoughby, Rob Cruickshank & Stephen Humphrey

Single-viewer box theatres, dioramas, sculpture, textile art, macro video, audio transducers, poetry, insect specimens, relief print, objects, electronics, colour-coded DNA barcodes.

Bees represented: rusty-patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis); jewelled green sweat bee (Agapostemon virescens); masked sweat bee (Hylaeus annulatus); leafcutter bee (Megachile relativa)

In the Landscape

Ele Willoughby & Sarah Peebles

paper, relief print, video projection, audio, audio cable, mixed media

Bee specimens & bee barcodes generously provided by Laurence Packer – Packer Lab, York University; Scott MacIvor – BUGS Lab, U-T [University of Toronto] Scarborough; Sam Droege – USGS [US Geological Survey]; Barcode of Life Data Systems; Antonia Guidotti, Department of Natural History, Royal Ontario Museum

In addition to watching television, animals have been known to interact with touchscreen computers as mentioned in my June 24, 2016 posting, “Animal technology: a touchscreen for your dog, sonar lunch orders for dolphins, and more.”

The “These are a few of Our Favourite Bees” upcoming exhibitions notice features this artist statement for a third piece, “Without A Bee, It Would Not Be” by Tracey Lawko,

In May, my crabapple tree blooms. In August, I pick the ripe crabapples. In September, I make jelly. Then I have breakfast. This would not be without a bee.

It could not be without a bee. The fruit and vegetables I enjoy eating, as well as the roses I admire as centrepieces, all depend on pollination.

Our native pollinators and their habitat are threatened.  Insect populations are declining due to habitat loss, pesticide use, disease and climate change. 75% of flowering plants rely on pollinators to set seed and we humans get one-third of our food from flowering plants.

I invite you to enter this beautiful dining room and consider the importance of pollinators to the enjoyment of your next meal.

Bio

Tracey Lawko employs contemporary textile techniques to showcase changes in our environment. Building on a base of traditional hand-embroidery, free-motion longarm stitching and a love of drawing, her representational work is detailed and “drawn with thread”. Her nature studies draw attention to our native pollinators as she observes them around her studio in the Niagara Escarpment. Many are stitched using a centuries-old, three-dimensional technique called “Stumpwork”.

Tracey’s extensive exhibition history includes solo exhibitions at leading commercial galleries and public museums. Her work has been selected for major North American and International exhibitions, including the Concours International des Mini-Textiles, Musée Jean Lurçat, France, and is held in the permanent collection of the US National Quilt Museum and in private collections in North America and Europe.

Bzzz!

Tree music

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Hidden Life Radio livestreams music generated from trees (their biodata, that is). Kristin Toussaint in her August 3, 2021 article for Fast Company describes the ‘radio station’, Note: Links have been removed,

Outside of a library in Cambridge, Massachusetts, an over-80-year-old copper beech tree is making music.

As the tree photosynthesizes and absorbs and evaporates water, a solar-powered sensor attached to a leaf measures the micro voltage of all that invisible activity. Sound designer and musician Skooby Laposky assigned a key and note range to those changes in this electric activity, turning the tree’s everyday biological processes into an ethereal song.

That music is available on Hidden Life Radio, an art project by Laposky, with assistance from the Cambridge Department of Public Works Urban Forestry, and funded in part by a grant from the Cambridge Arts Council. Hidden Life Radio also features the musical sounds of two other Cambridge trees: a honey locust and a red oak, both located outside of other Cambridge library branches. The sensors on these trees are solar-powered biodata sonification kits, a technology that has allowed people to turn all sorts of plant activity into music.

…

… Laposky has created a musical voice for these disappearing trees, and he hopes people tune into Hidden Life Radio and spend time listening to them over time. The music they produce occurs in real time, affected by the weather and whatever the tree is currently doing. Some days they might be silent, especially when there’s been several days without rain, and they’re dehydrated; Laposky is working on adding an archive that includes weather information, so people can go back and hear what the trees sound like on different days, under different conditions. The radio will play 24 hours a day until November, when the leaves will drop—a “natural cycle for the project to end,” Laposky says, “when there aren’t any leaves to connect to anymore.”

The 2021 season is over but you can find an archive of Hidden Life Radio livestreams here. Or, if you happen to be reading this page sometime after January 2022, you can try your luck and click here at Hidden Life Radio livestreams but remember, even if the project has started up again, the tree may not be making music when you check in. So, if you don’t hear anything the first time, try again.

Want to create your own biodata sonification project?

Toussaint’s article sent me on a search for more and I found a website where you can get biodata sonification kits. Sam Cusumano’s electricity for progress website offers lessons, as well as, kits and more.

Sophie Haigney’s February 21, 2020 article for NPR ([US] National Public Radio) highlights other plant music and more ways to tune in to and create it. (h/t Kristin Toussaint)