A virtual haptic implementation technology that allows all users to experience the same tactile sensation has been developed. A research team led by Professor PARK Jang-Ung from the Center for Nanomedicine within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) and Professor JUNG Hyun Ho from Severance Hospital’s Department of Neurosurgery has developed a technology that provides consistent tactile sensations on displays.
Virtual haptic implementation technology, also known as tactile rendering technology, refers to the methods and systems that simulate the sense of touch in a virtual environment. This technology aims to create the sensation of physical contact with virtual objects, enabling users to “feel” textures, shapes, and forces as if they were interacting with real-world items, even though the objects are digital. The technology is seeing increasing uses in the realms of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), where it is used alongside visual and auditory cues to bridge the gap between the virtual and physical worlds.
Notably, electrotactile systems, which generate tactile sensations through electrical stimulation rather than physical vibrations, are emerging as promising next-generation tactile rendering technologies. The sensation of touch is mediated by mechanoreceptors, which are tactile sensory cells located in the skin that transmit tactile information to the brain in the form of electrical signals. Electrotactile systems artificially generate these electrical signals, thereby simulating the sense of touch. Precise and varied tactile experiences can be created by adjusting current density and frequency.
Despite their potential, existing electrotactile technologies face challenges, particularly in safety and consistency. Variations in skin contact pressure can lead to unstable tactile sensations, and the use of high currents raises safety concerns. To address these issues, the IBS research team developed a Transparent Pressure-Calibratable Interference Electrotactile Actuator (TPIEA).
TPIEA comprises two main components: an electrode section responsible for generating electrotactile sensations and a pressure sensor section that adjusts for finger pressure. Researchers greatly reduced the impedance of the electrode by applying platinum nanoparticles to an indium tin oxide-based electrode. This not only decreased impedance compared to conventional electrodes but also achieved a high transmittance of approximately 90%. The integrated pressure sensor ensures that users experience consistent tactile feedback regardless of how they touch the display.
Moreover, the research team conducted a Somatosensory Evoked Potential (SEP) test to quantify tactile sensations. By examining the responses of the user’s somatosensory system to variations in the current and frequency of electrotactile stimulation, they were able to quantitatively differentiate and standardize tactile sensations. The team successfully implemented over nine distinct types of electrotactile sensations, ranging from those resembling hair to those resembling glass, depending on the current density and frequency of the electrical stimulation. The team further demonstrated that the TPIEA could be integrated with smartphone displays to reliably produce complex tactile patterns.
Additionally, the research introduced interference phenomena into the realm of electrotactile technology. The interference phenomenon pertains to the alterations in frequency and amplitude that occur when two electromagnetic fields overlap. This allowed the researchers to elicit the same intensity of electrotactile sensation with a current density that is 30% lower than previously required and to achieve an approximate 32% enhancement in tactile resolution.This research demonstrates the highest level of tactile resolution among current electrotactile technologies, including the Teslasuit.
Lead researcher PARK Jang-Ung remarked, “Through this electrotactile technology, we can effectively integrate visual information from displays with tactile information,” and further expressed, “We anticipate that the findings of this research will significantly enhance the interaction between users and devices across various AR, VR, and smart device applications based on interference stimulation.”
This research has been conducted in collaboration with colleagues from Yonsei University Severance Hospital. It was published in Nature Communications on August 21, 2024.
Not sure how I stumbled across this XR (extended reality) artist-in-residence programme but it’s been in place since 2022 (albeit with some changes). Here’s the announcement for the 2024 artist-in-residence, from the August 14, 2024 Consulate of France in Vancouver press release,
French artist Pierre Friquet, also known as, PYARé, is the latest laureate of the “XR Fall” residency dedicated to XR/AR/VR [extended reality/augmented reality/virtual reality], its third edition. He will be in Vancouver from October 29 to November 28, 2024.
This residency is a collaboration between the Consulate General of France in Vancouver, the Alliance française of Vancouver, the cultural institution of the City of “Paris Forum des Images”, Emily Carr University of Art and Design and the Institut français.
A hybrid creator based in Paris, Pierre Friquet has been designing immersive experiences (VR, dome films, AR, video mapping,) such as Spaced Out, Jet Lag, Vibrations and Patterns since 2010. His intent is to make people reconnect with their body and sense of self through art and technology.
These experiments have won awards at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, the Kaléidoscope festival and the Filmgate festival. His latest VR project, SPACE OUT, an immersive diving mask, was selected for the Sundance New Frontier 2020 festival and featured in the cultural programme of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Founder of the NiGHT collective, his projects include aquatic virtual reality.
In Vancouver, he will be working around the character of Captain Nemo, the famous warrior scientist in Jules Verne’s novel “20,000 leagues under the sea”.
The residency’s objective is to create an immersive experience allowing users to embody Captain Nemo in a VR adventure, piloting a gondola or riding a whale using intuitive VR controls. His work will focus on the symbiosis between technology and nature, marine conservation and post-colonial adventure. Project by PYARé & INVR.
Find out more about his artistic vision and creations on his website.
You have to have been resident in France for at least five years and speak English to be eligible.
Preparing for the 2025 calls for applications?
There are, in fact, three programmes: two in Vancouver,(1) the XR/AR/VR [extended reality/augmented reality/virtual reality artist-in-residence and (2) Arts & Sciences Quantum Studio artist-in-residence and there’s another ‘quantum programme’ in Paris, also called the Arts & Sciences Quantum Studio artist-in-residence.
The 2025 calls haven’t been announced yet but I do have the 2024 calls for applications and they should give you some idea of what questions you’ll need to answer and what materials you’ll need to prepare. These calls are in French.
Résidence « XR Fall» à Vancouver 29 octobre au 28 novembre 2024
Initiée par l’ambassade de France au Canada / consulat général de Vancouver dans le cadre de leur programme « Résidences Ouest-Ouest », en partenariat avec le Forum des Images (Paris), Emily Carr University of Art + Design (Vancouver), l’Alliance française Vancouver, et avec le soutien de l’Institut français, la troisième édition de la résidence d’écriture et de recherche “XR Fall” à Vancouver se déroulera du 29 octobre au 28 novembre 2024 à Vancouver, en Colombie-Britannique, Canada.
Ouverte à l’ensemble des réalités immersives, cette résidence doit permettre à un·e créateur·rice français·e de s’immerger au sein de l’écosystème local vancouvérois afin d’enrichir son projet d’écriture-recherche et d’étoffer son réseau professionnel. Elle sera également l’occasion de renforcer les liens et de créer de nouvelles synergies entre la France et l’Ouest canadien dans le domaine des innovations numériques. Cette résidence se tiendra à Vancouver du mardi 29 octobre au jeudi 28 novembre 2024.
Pendant la Résidence d’écriture-recherche, le·a créateur·rice sélectionné·e se consacrera au développement de son projet immersif pour lequel iel est invité·e à travailler en coopération avec des professionnel·les vancouvérois.es, ainsi qu’avec des équipes techniques et des sociétés de production locales. Le programme a également pour but d’aider le·a créateur·rice sélectionné·e à renforcer son réseau et ses compétences.
1.2 – Déroulé de la résidence
Du 29 octobre au 28 novembre 2024 à Vancouver, sur le campus d’Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
1.3 – Objectifs
Impulser ou consolider un projet d’écriture-recherche.
Favoriser la découverte de l’écosystème numérique de l’Ouest canadien, ainsi que des collaborations structurantes.
Une attention privilégiée sera portée aux projets ancrés dans le contexte local.
À l’issue de la résidence, l’artiste devra proposer un compte-rendu de son expérience, de son travail et de l’évolution du projet durant cette période.
1.4 – Avantages
Ce programme garantit, notamment, à la lauréate / au lauréat :
Une bourse de résidence à hauteur de 2.000 € (correspondant aux per-diem et à la participation à trois demi-journées de conférences/classes de maître durant la résidence)
Mise en réseau et relations avec l’écosystème local
Participation à des événements en Colombie-Britannique
Autres contreparties (conditions à définir ensemble) :
présentation du projet dans le cadre de NewImages Festival 2025
accréditation pour les Journées pro de NewImages Festival 2025
Présenter le fruit de son travail en résidence (prototype, work-in-progress) dans le cadre de V-Unframed 2025 (Vancouver)
1.5 – Équipement et accompagnement
Au sein d’Emily Carr University of Art + Design, ce programme garantit, notamment, à la lauréate / au lauréat :
L’accès au Basically Good Media Lab en tant qu’espace de travail sur une base régulière. Il s’agit d’un espace collaboratif et partagé avec des chercheurs des premier et deuxième cycles et des assistants de recherche.
L’accès à un ordinateur de pointe : un Dell Precision 3660 ; 32 Go de RAM ; i9-12900K (16 cœurs) ; NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080.
Appui technique : support technique ponctuel pour aider l’artiste à réaliser son projet.
Mentorat d’Emily Carr University of Art + Design pour fournir un retour sur le projet et les approches de l’artiste, aider à faciliter l’utilisation des ressources et fournir des opportunités potentielles de mise en réseau avec la communauté.
L’accès à d’autres installations sur le campus, en fonction de leur disponibilité, y compris l’Integrated Motion Studio pour une utilisation en tant qu’atelier ou espace boîte noire. Le Basically Good Media Lab dispose de casques de réalité augmentée et virtuelle, avec des caméras 360 grand public et prosumers.
L’artiste sera également accompagné durant la résidence par les équipes de l’ambassade de France au Canada présentes à Vancouver et par celles de l’Alliance française Vancouver.
2- Conditions d’éligibilité
2.1 – Profil des candidat.e.s
Ce programme est ouvert à tout·e artiste, créateur.rice ou porteur.euse d’un projet XR en écriture-recherche.
Âgé.e d’au moins 18 ans
Résidant en France depuis au moins 5 ans
Parlant anglais
Professionnel.le confirmé.e, justifiant de premières expériences dans le domaine des réalités immersive
2.2 – Projets acceptés
Ce programme est ouvert aux réalités immersives dans toute leur diversité (réalité virtuelle 360° ou interactive, augmentée, mixte, installation incluant des technologies immersives, en lien avec la création sonore ou la technologie 4D, etc.).
Les projets devront être reliés à au moins l’un des grands thèmes suivants :
Durabilité environnementale
Justice écologique et action climatique
Justice sociale, santé et bien-être de la communauté
Recherches portant sur le territoire et les lieux
3- Processus d’inscription
3.1 – À propos de l’appel à candidatures
L’inscription du projet :
Doit être faite en anglais
Doit être faite en ligne à https://zhx2xeql.paperform.com jusqu’au dimanche 30 juin 2024 (23:59, GMT)
Doit être envoyée en un seul PDF
Est gratuite pour l’ensemble des postulant·es
À noter également :
Les inscriptions incomplètes ne seront pas prises en considération
Vos informations sont automatiquement sauvegardées en local ; vous pouvez donc fermer et/ou revenir ultérieurement au formulaire depuis le même appareil et le même navigateur (hors fenêtres de navigation privée)
Nous vous conseillons vivement de ne pas attendre les derniers jours de l’appel à candidatures pour soumettre votre projet, afin d’éviter tout problème technique.
En inscrivant un projet, vous reconnaissez détenir les droits afférents à celui-ci ou être habilité·e par tou·te·s les autres ayants droit. Le Forum des images, l’ambassade de France au Canada / consulat général de Vancouver, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, l’Alliance française Vancouver et l’Institut français ne peuvent en aucun cas être tenus pour responsables en cas de réclamation, conflit ou poursuite en lien avec l’inscription du projet.
3.2 – Informations requises
Avant votre inscription, nous vous invitons à prendre connaissance des informations et pièces demandées dans le dossier de présentation devant être joint à votre inscription (dans le même ordre que ci-dessous) :
Le plan de travail envisagé pour la résidence (prévisionnel)
Des visuels du projet (le cas échéant)
Une lettre de recommandation et/ou une lettre d’une institution culturelle française accompagnant le projet en vue d’une future exposition ou production de l’œuvre (facultative)
L’ambassade de France au Canada, en partenariat avec le Quantum Information Center Sorbonne (Sorbonne Université), le CENTQUATRE-PARIS (Paris) et le programme des résidences internationales Ville de Paris aux Récollets, lance le volet français de la résidence arts-sciences “Quantum Studio”. Cette résidence d’artiste aura lieu du 9 au 30 septembre 2024à Paris, France. Elle s’adresse à un ou une artiste canadien.ne résidant en Colombie-Britannique explorant les croisements entre arts et sciences.
Ouverte à l’ensemble des pratiques artistiques, la résidence cherche à construire des échanges entre arts et sciences quantiques (physique quantique, informatique quantique, physique de l’infiniment petit, sciences des matériaux, physique fondamentale).
Le Quantum Information Center Sorbonne (Sorbonne Université) et le CENTQUATRE-PARIS offriront à l’artiste sélectionné.e un espace de réflexion dans lequel artistes et chercheurs pourront se réunir, échanger sur leurs pratiques, apprendre les uns des autres et réfléchir ensemble à un projet créatif à la croisée des arts et des sciences. En amont de la résidence à Paris, plusieurs rencontres en ligne seront organisées, afin d’établir et d’entretenir un premier contact entre l’artiste lauréat.e au Canada et l’équipe hôte (institutions et scientifiques) de Paris.
1.2 – Déroulé de la résidence
Du 9 au 30 septembre 2024à Paris (hébergement au couvent des Récollets).
1.3 – Objectifs
Impulser ou consolider un projet créatif.
Le ou la lauréat.e a une obligation de restitution de recherche ou de rendu artistique (projet écrit, esquisses et croquis, œuvre, etc.) pendant leur séjour.
Partager son travail lors de séminaires arts et sciences co-organisés avec le Quantum Information Center Sorbonne et le CENTQUATRE-PARIS.
Favoriser la découverte de l’écosystème scientifique et artistique parisien, ainsi que des collaborations structurantes. Une attention privilégiée sera portée aux projets ancrés dans le contexte local.
1.4 – Avantages
Ce programme garantit, notamment, à la lauréate ou au lauréat :
3 semaines de résidence à Paris.
Un hébergement au sein du Couvent des Récollets (Ville de Paris), un bureau de travail au Quantum Information Center Sorbonne et un bureau de production au CENTQUATRE-PARIS.
Prise en charge complète (vols Vancouver-Paris, logement).
Un cachet de résidence à hauteur de 1.635 € (correspondant aux per-diem et à la participation à trois demi-journées de conférences/classes de maître durant la résidence).
Mise en réseau et relations avec l’écosystème local.
Participation, durant la résidence, à des rencontres avec les équipes de la 104factory, à des ouvertures de résidences au CENTQUATRE-PARIS et à des événements se déroulant au CENTQUATRE-PARIS.
Possibilité de participation, en post-résidence, à des événements en lien avec Némo-Biennale internationale des arts numériques de la Région Île-de-France, produite par le CENTQUATRE-PARIS.
2- Conditions d’éligibilité
2.1 – Profil des candidat.e.s
Artiste porteuse ou porteur d’un projet artistique en écriture ou en développement,
Âgé.e d’au moins 18 ans,
De nationalité canadienne ou titulaire d’une carte de résident permanent au Canada
Résidant en Colombie-Britannique,
Justifiant idéalement de premières expériences de création mêlant arts et sciences (les candidatures d’artistes ayant déjà travaillé ou travaillant en lien avec les sciences physiques seront appréciées).
2.2 – Projets acceptés
Ce programme est ouvert aux pratiques artistiques dans toute leur diversité (écriture, arts visuels et plastiques, arts numériques, design, danse, performance, réalités immersives, création sonore, etc.).
I have more information about the Quantum Studio artist-in-residence in Vancouver programme in an October 7, 2024 posting, scroll down t the ‘Quantum Studio’ subhead.
If you thought your kids were away from harm playing multi-player games through VR headsets while in their own bedrooms, you may want to sit down to read this.
Griffith University’s Dr Ausma Bernot teamed up with researchers from Monash University, Charles Sturt University and University of Technology Sydney to investigate what has been termed as ‘metacrime’ – attacks, crimes or inappropriate activities that occur within virtual reality environments.
The ‘metaverse’ refers to the virtual world, where users of VR headsets can choose an avatar to represent themselves as they interact with other users’ avatars or move through other 3D digital spaces.
While the metaverse can be used for anything from meetings (where it will feel as though you are in the same room as avatars of other people instead of just seeing them on a screen) to wandering through national parks around the world without leaving your living room, gaming is by far its most popular use.
Dr Bernot said the technology had evolved incredibly quickly.
“Using this technology is super fun and it’s really immersive,” she said.
“You can really lose yourself in those environments.
“Unfortunately, while those new environments are very exciting, they also have the potential to enable new crimes.
“While the headsets that enable us to have these experiences aren’t a commonly owned item yet, they’re growing in popularity and we’ve seen reports of sexual harassment or assault against both adults and kids.”
In a December 2023 report, the Australian eSafety Commissioner estimated around 680,000 adults in Australia are engaged in the metaverse.
This followed a survey conducted in November and December 2022 by researchers from the UK’s Center for Countering Digital Hate, who conducted 11 hours and 30 minutes of recorded user interactions on Meta’s Oculus headset in the popular VRChat.
The researchers found most users had been faced with at least one negative experience in the virtual environment, including being called offensive names, receiving repeated unwanted messages or contact, being provoked to respond to something or to start an argument, being challenged about cultural identity or being sent unwanted inappropriate content.
Eleven per cent had been exposed to a sexually graphic virtual space and nine per cent had been touched (virtually) in a way they didn’t like.
Of these respondents, 49 per cent said the experience had a moderate to extreme impact on their mental or emotional wellbeing.
With the two largest user groups being minors and men, Dr Bernot said it was important for parents to monitor their children’s activity or consider limiting their access to multi-player games.
“Minors are more vulnerable to grooming and other abuse,” she said.
“They may not know how to deal with these situations, and while there are some features like a ‘safety bubble’ within some games, or of course the simple ability to just take the headset off, once immersed in these environments it does feel very real.
“It’s somewhere in between a physical attack and for example, a social media harassment message – you’ll still feel that distress and it can take a significant toll on a user’s wellbeing.
“It is a real and palpable risk.”
Monash University’s You Zhou said there had already been many reports of virtual rape, including one in the United Kingdom where police have launched a case for a 16-year-old girl whose avatar was attacked, causing psychological and emotional trauma similar to an attack in the physical world.
“Before the emergence of the metaverse we could not have imagined how rape could be virtual,” Mr Zhou said.
“When immersed in this world of virtual reality, and particularly when using higher quality VR headsets, users will not necessarily stop to consider whether the experience is reality or virtuality.
“While there may not be physical contact, victims – mostly young girls – strongly claim the feeling of victimisation was real.
“Without physical signs on a body, and unless the interaction was recorded, it can be almost impossible to show evidence of these experiences.”
With use of the metaverse expected to grow exponentially in coming years, the research team’s findings highlight a need for metaverse companies to instil clear regulatory frameworks for their virtual environments to make them safe for everyone to inhabit.
Just when I thought I was almost caught up, I found this. The study I will be highlighting is from August 2023 but there are interesting developments all the way into October 2023 and beyond. First, the latest in AI (artificial intelligence) devices from an October 5, 2023 article by Lucas Arender for the Daily Hive, which describes the devices as AI wearables (you could also them wearable technology), Note: Links have been removed,
Rewind.ai launched Pendant, a necklace that records your conversations and transfers them to your smartphone, creating an audio database (of sorts) for your life.
Meta unveiled a pair of Ray-Ban smart glasses that include an AI chatbot that users can communicate with (which might make you look like you’re talking to yourself).
Sam Altman-backed startup Humane teased its new AI pin at Paris Fashion Week— a screenless lapel device that projects a smartphone-like interface onto users’ hands.
Microsoft filed a patent for an AI backpack that features GPS, voice command, and cameras that could… help us walk in the right direction?
The second item in the list ‘Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses’ is further described in an October 17, 2023 article by Sarah Bartnicka for the Daily Hive, Note: A link has been removed,
It’s a glorious day for tech dads everywhere: Meta and Ray-Ban smart glasses are officially for sale in Canada.
Driving the news: Meta has become the latest billion-dollar company to officially enter the smart glasses market with the second iteration [emphasis mine] of its design with Ray-Bans, now including a built-in Meta AI assistant, hands-free live streaming features, and a personal audio system.
…
This time around, the technology is better, and both Meta and Snap are pitching their smart glasses as a tool for creators to stay connected with their audiences rather than just a sleek piece of hardware that can blend your digital and physical realities [augmented or extended reality?].
…
Yes, but: As smart glasses creep back into the limelight, people are wary about wearing cameras on their faces. Concerns about always-on cameras and microphones that allow users to record their surroundings without the consent of others will likely stick around. [emphasis mine]
So, are these AI or smart or augmented reality (AR) glasses? In my October 22, 2021 post, I explored a number of realities in the context of the metaverse. Yes, it gets confusing. At any rate, i found these definitions,
Happily, I have found a good summarized description of VR/AR/MR/XR in a March 20, 2018 essay by North of 41 on medium.com,
“Summary: VR is immersing people into a completely virtual environment; AR is creating an overlay of virtual content, but can’t interact with the environment; MR is a mixed of virtual reality and the reality, it creates virtual objects that can interact with the actual environment. XR brings all three Reality (AR, VR, MR) together under one term.”
If you have the interest and approximately five spare minutes, read the entire March 20, 2018 essay, which has embedded images illustrating the various realities.
…
This may change over time but for now, answering the question, “AI or smart or augmented reality (AR) glasses?” you can say any or all three.
Someone wearing augmented reality (AR) or “smart” glasses could be Googling your face, turning you into a cat or recording your conversation – and that creates a major power imbalance, said Cornell researchers.
Currently, most work on AR glasses focuses primarily on the experience of the wearer. Researchers from the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science and Brown University teamed up to explore how this technology affects interactions between the wearer and another person. Their explorations showed that, while the device generally made the wearer less anxious, things weren’t so rosy on the other side of the glasses.
Jenny Fu, a doctoral student in the field of information science, presented the findings in a new study, “Negotiating Dyadic Interactions through the Lens of Augmented Reality Glasses,” at the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference in July.
AR glasses superimpose virtual objects and text over the field of view to create a mixed-reality world for the user. Some designs are big and bulky, but as AR technology advances, smart glasses are becoming indistinguishable from regular glasses, raising concerns that a wearer could be secretly recording someone or even generating deepfakes with their likeness.
For the new study, Fu and co-author Malte Jung, associate professor of information science and the Nancy H. ’62 and Philip M. ’62 Young Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow, worked with Ji Won Chung, a doctoral student, and Jeff Huang, associate professor of computer science, both at Brown, and Zachary Deocadiz-Smith, an independent extended reality designer.
They observed five pairs of individuals – a wearer and a non-wearer – as each pair discussed a desert survival activity. The wearer received Spectacles, an AR glasses prototype on loan from Snap Inc., the company behind Snapchat. The Spectacles look like avant-garde sunglasses and, for the study, came equipped with a video camera and five custom filters that transformed the non-wearer into a deer, cat, bear, clown or pig-bunny.
Following the activity, the pairs engaged in a participatory design session where they discussed how AR glasses could be improved, both for the wearer and the non-wearer. The participants were also interviewed and asked to reflect on their experiences.
According to the wearers, the fun filters reduced their anxiety and put them at ease during the exercise. The non-wearers, however, reported feeling disempowered because they didn’t know what was happening on the other side of the lenses. They were also upset that the filters robbed them of control over their own appearance. The possibility that the wearer could be secretly recording them without consent – especially when they didn’t know what they looked like – also put the non-wearers at a disadvantage.
The non-wearers weren’t completely powerless, however. A few demanded to know what the wearer was seeing, and moved their faces or bodies to evade the filters – giving them some control in negotiating their presence in the invisible mixed-reality world. “I think that’s the biggest takeaway I have from this study: I’m more powerful than I thought I was,” Fu said.
Another issue is that, like many AR glasses, Spectacles have darkened lenses so the wearer can see the projected virtual images. This lack of transparency also degraded the quality of the social interaction, the researchers reported.
“There is no direct eye contact, which makes people very confused, because they don’t know where the person is looking,” Fu said. “That makes their experiences of this conversation less pleasant, because the glasses blocked out all these nonverbal interactions.”
To create more positive experiences for people on both sides of the lenses, the study participants proposed that smart glasses designers add a projection display and a recording indicator light, so people nearby will know what the wearer is seeing and recording.
Fu also suggests designers test out their glasses in a social environment and hold a participatory design process like the one in their study. Additionally, they should consider these video interactions as a data source, she said.
That way, non-wearers can have a voice in the creation of the impending mixed-reality world.
Rina Diane Caballar’s September 25, 2023 article for IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Spectrum magazine provides a few more insights about the research, Note: Links have been removed,
…
“This AR filter interaction is likely to happen in the future with the commercial emergence of AR glasses,” says Jenny Fu, a doctoral student at Cornell University’s Bowers College of Computing and Information Science and one of the two lead authors of the study. “How will that look like, and what are the social and emotional consequences of interacting and communicating through AR glasses?”
…
“When we think about design in HCI [human-computer interface], there is often a tendency to focus on the primary user and design just for them,” Jung says. “Because these technologies are so deeply embedded in social interactions and are used with others and around others, we often forget these ‘onlookers’ and we’re not designing with them in mind.”
…
Moreover, involving nonusers is especially key in developing more equitable tech products and creating more inclusive experiences. “That’s one of the points why previous AR iterations may not have worked—they designed it for the individual and not for the people surrounding them,” says Chung. She adds that a mindset shift is needed to actively make tech that doesn’t exclude people, which could lead to social systems that promote engagement and foster a sense of belonging for everyone.
…
Caballar’s September 25, 2023 article also appears in the January 2024 print version of the IEEE Spectrum with the title ““AR Glasses Upset the Social Dynamic.”
I wonder if Vancouver’s Mayor Ken Sim will be joining the folks at the giant culture/tech event known as South by Southwest® (SxSW) later in 2024. Our peripatetic mayor seems to enjoy traveling to sports events (FIFA 2023 in Qatar), to Los Angeles to convince producers of a hit television series, “The Last of Us,” that they film the second season in Vancouver, and, to Austin, Texas for SxSW 2023. Note: FIFA is Fédération internationale de football association or ‘International Association Football Federation’.
It’s not entirely clear why Mayor Sim’s presence was necessary at any of these events. In October 2023, he finished his first year in office; a business owner and accountant, Sim is best known for his home care business, “Nurse Next Door” and his bagel business, “Rosemary Rocksalt,” meaning he wouldn’t seem to have much relevant experience with sports and film events.
I gather Mayor Sim’s presence was part of the 2023 hype (for those who don’t know, it’s from ‘hyperbole’) where SxSW was concerned, from the Vancouver Day at SxSW 2023 event page,
Vancouver Day
Past(03/12/2023) 12:00PM – 6:00PM
FREE W/ RSVP | ALL AGES
Swan Dive
The momentum and vibrancy of Vancouver’s innovation industry can’t be stopped!
The full day event will see the Canadian city’s premier technology innovators, creative tech industries, and musical artists show why Vancouver is consistently voted one of the most desirable places to live in the world.
We will have talks/panels with the biggest names in VR/AR/Metaverse, AI, Web3, premier technology innovators, top startups, investors and global thought-leaders. We will keep Canada House buzzing throughout the day with activations/demos from top companies from Vancouver and based on our unique culture of wellness and adventure will keep guests entertained, and giveaways will take place across the afternoon.
The Canadian city is showing why Vancouver has become the second largest AR/VR/Metaverse ecosystem globally (with the highest concentration of 3D talent than anywhere in the world), a leader in Web3 with companies like Dapper Labs leading the way and becoming a hotbed in technology like artificial intelligence.
The Frontier Collective’s Vancouver’s Takeover of SXSW is a signature event that will enhance Vancouver as the Innovation and Creative Tech leader on the world stage.It is an opportunity for the global community to encounter cutting-edge ideas, network with other professionals who share a similar appetite for a forward focused experience and define their next steps.
Some of our special guests include City of Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim [emphasis mine], Innovation Commissioner of the Government of BC- Gerri Sinclair, Amy Peck of Endeavor XR, Tony Parisi of Lamina1 and many more.
In the evening, guests can expect a special VIP event with first-class musical acts, installations, wellness activations and drinks, and the chance to mingle with investors, top brands, and top business leaders from around the world.
To round out the event, a hand-picked roster of Vancouver musicians will keep guests dancing late into the night.
This is from Mayor Sim’s Twitter (now X) feed, Note: The photographs have not been included,
Mayor Ken Sim@KenSimCity Another successful day at #SXSW2023 showcasing Vancouver and British Columbia while connecting with creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs from around the world! #vanpoli#SXSW
2024 hype at SxSW and Vancouver’s Frontier Collective
New year and same hype but no Mayor Sim? From a January 22, 2024 article by Daniel Chai for the Daily Hive, Note: A link has been removed,
Frontier Collective, a coalition of Vancouver business leaders, culture entrepreneurs, and community builders, is returning to the South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference next month to showcase the city’s tech innovation on the global stage.
The first organization to formally represent and promote the region’s fastest-growing tech industries, Frontier Collective is hosting the Vancouver Takeover: Frontiers of Innovation from March 8 to 12 [2024].
According to Dan Burgar, CEO and co-founder of Frontier Collective, the showcase is not just about presenting new advancements but is also an invitation to the world to be part of a boundary-transcending journey.
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“This year’s Vancouver Takeover is more than an event; it’s a beacon for the brightest minds and a celebration of the limitless possibilities that emerge when we dare to innovate together.”
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Speakers lined up for the SXSW Vancouver Takeover in Austin, Texas, include executives from Google, Warner Bros, Amazon, JP Morgan, Amazon, LG, NTT, Newlab, and the Wall Street Journal.
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“The Frontier Collective is excited to showcase a new era of technological innovation at SXSW 2024, building on the success of last year’s Takeover,” added Natasha Jaswal, VP of operations and events of Frontier Collective, in a statement. “Beyond creating a captivating event; its intentional and curated programming provides a great opportunity for local companies to gain exposure on an international stage, positioning Vancouver as a global powerhouse in frontier tech innovation.
Join us for a curated experience of music, art, frontier technologies and provocative panel discussions. We are organizing three major events, designed to ignite conversation and turn ideas into action.
We’re excited to bring together leaders from Vancouver and around the world to generate creative thinking at the biggest tech festival.
Let’s create the future together!
You have a choice of two parties and a day long event. Enjoy!
Who is the Frontier Collective?
The group announced itself in 2022, from a February 17, 2022 article in techcouver, Note: Links have been removed,
The Frontier Collective is the first organization to formally represent and advance the interests of the region’s fastest-growing industries, including Web3, the metaverse, VR/AR [virtual reality/augmented reality], AI [artificial intelligence], climate tech, and creative industries such as eSports [electronic sports], NFTs [non-fungible tokens], VFX [visual effects], and animation.
Did you know the Vancouver area currently boasts the world’s second largest virtual and augmented reality sector and hosts the globe’s biggest cluster of top VFX, video games and animation studios, as well as the highest concentration of 3D talent?
Did you know NFT technology was created in Vancouver and the city remains a top destination for blockchain and Web3 development?
Frontier Collective’s coalition of young entrepreneurs and business leaders wants to raise awareness of Vancouver’s greatness by promoting the region’s innovative tech industry on the world stage, growing investment and infrastructure for early-stage companies, and attracting diverse talent to Vancouver.
“These technologies move at an exponential pace. With the right investment and support, Vancouver has an immense opportunity to lead the world in frontier tech, ushering in a new wave of transformation, economic prosperity and high-paying jobs. Without backing from governments and leaders, these companies may look elsewhere for more welcoming environments.” said Dan Burgar, Co-founder and Head of the Frontier Collective. Burgar heads the local chapter of the VR/AR Association.
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Their plan includes the creation of a 100,000-square-foot innovation hub in Vancouver to help incubate startups in Web3, VR/AR, and AI, and to establish the region as a centre for metaverse technology.
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Frontier Collective’s team includes industry leaders at the Vancouver Economic Commission [emphasis mine; Under Mayor Sim and his majority City Council, the commission has been dissolved; see September 21, 2023 Vancouver Sun article “Vancouver scraps economic commission” by Tiffany Crawford], Collision Conference, Canadian incubator Launch, Invest Vancouver, and the BDC Deep Tech Fund. These leaders continue to develop and support frontier technology in their own organizations and as part of the Collective.
Interestingly, a February 7, 2023 article by the editors of BC Business magazine seems to presage the Vancouver Economic Commission’s demise. Note: Links have been removed,
Last year, tech coalition Frontier Collective announced plans to position Vancouver as Canada’s tech capital by 2030. Specializing in subjects like Web3, the metaverse, VR/AR, AI and animation, it seems to be following through on its ambition, as the group is about to place Vancouver in front of a global audience at SXSW 2023, a major conference and festival celebrating tech, innovation and entertainment.
Taking place in Austin, Texas from March 10-14 [2023], Vancouver Takeover is going to feature speakers, stories and activations, as well as opportunities for companies to connect with industry leaders and investors. Supported by local businesses like YVR Airport, Destination Vancouver, Low Tide Properties and others, Frontier is also working with partners from Trade and Invest BC, Telefilm and the Canadian Consulate. Attendees will spot familiar faces onstage, including the likes of Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation Brenda Bailey, Vancouver mayor Ken Sim [emphasis mine] and B.C. Innovation Commissioner Gerri Sinclair.
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That’s right, no mention of the Vancouver Economic Commission.
As for the Frontier Collective Team (accessed January 29, 2024), the list of ‘industry leaders’ (18 people with a gender breakdown that appears to be 10 male and 8 female) and staff members (a Senior VP who appears to be male and the other seven staff members who appear to be female) can be found here. (Should there be a more correct way to do the gender breakdown, please let me know in the Comments.)
i find the group’s name a bit odd, ‘frontier’ is something I associate with the US. Americans talk about frontiers, Canadians not so much.
If you are interested in attending the daylong (11 am – 9 pm) Vancouver Takeover at SxSW 2024 event on March 10, 2024, just click here.
Aside: swagger at Vancouver City Hall, economic prosperity, & more?
What follows is not germane to the VR/AR community, SxSW of any year, or the Frontier Collective but it may help to understand why the City of Vancouver’s current mayor is going to events where he would seem to have no useful role to play.
Matt O’Grady’s October 4, 2023 article for Vancouver Magazine offers an eyeopening review of Mayor Ken Sim’s first year in office.
Ken Sim swept to power a year ago promising to reduce waste, make our streets safer and bring Vancouver’s “swagger” back. But can his open-book style win over the critics?
I’m sitting on a couch in the mayor’s third-floor offices, and Ken Sim is walking over to his turntable to put on another record. “How about the Police? I love this album.”
With the opening strains of “Every Breath You Take” crackling to life, Sim is explaining his approach to conflict resolution, and how he takes inspiration from the classic management tome Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In.
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Odd choice for a song to set the tone for an interview. Here’s more about the song and its origins according to the song’s Wikipedia entry,
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To escape the public eye, Sting retreated to the Caribbean. He started writing the song at Ian Fleming’s writing desk on the Goldeneye estate in Oracabessa, Jamaica.[14] The lyrics are the words of a possessive lover who is watching “every breath you take; every move you make”. Sting recalled:
“I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head, sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour. The tune itself is generic, an aggregate of hundreds of others, but the words are interesting. It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn’t realise at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control.”[15][emphasis mine]
Suddenly, the office door swings open and Sim’s chief of staff, Trevor Ford, pokes his head in (for the third time in the past 10 minutes). “We have to go. Now.”
“Okay, okay,” says Sim, turning back to address me. “Do you mind if I change while we’re talking?” And so the door closes again—and, without further ado, the Mayor of Vancouver drops trou [emphasis mine] and goes in search of a pair of shorts, continuing with a story about how some of his west-side friends are vocally against the massive Jericho Lands development promising to reshape their 4th and Alma neighbourhood.
“And I’m like, ‘Let me be very clear: I 100-percent support it, this is why—and we’ll have to agree to disagree,’” he says, trading his baby-blue polo for a fitted charcoal grey T-shirt. Meanwhile, as Sim does his wardrobe change, I’m doing everything I can to keep my eyes on my keyboard—and hoping the mayor finds his missing shorts.
It’s fair to assume that previous mayors weren’t in the habit of getting naked in front of journalists. At least, I can’t quite picture Kennedy Stewart doing so, or Larry or Gordon Campbell either.
But it also fits a pattern that’s developing with Ken Sim as a leader entirely comfortable in his own skin. He’s in a hurry to accomplish big things—no matter who’s watching and what they might say (or write). And he eagerly embraces the idea of bringing Vancouver’s “swagger” back—outlined in his inaugural State of the City address, and underlined when he shotgunned a beer at July’s [2023] Khatsahlano Street Party.
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O’Grady’s October 4, 2023 article goes on to mention some of the more practical initiatives undertaken by Mayor Sim and his supermajority of ABC (Sim’s party, A Better City) city councillors in their efforts to deal with some of the city’s longstanding and intractable problems,
For a reminder of Sim’s key priorities, you need only look at the whiteboard in the mayor’s office. At the top, there’s a row labelled “Daily Focus (Top 4)”—which are, in order, 3-3-3-1 (ABC’s housing program); Chinatown; Business Advocacy; and Mental Health/Safety.
On some files, like Chinatown, there have been clear advances: council unanimously approved the Uplifting Chinatown Action Plan in January, which devotes more resources to cleaning and sanitation services, graffiti removal, beautification and other community supports. The plan also includes a new flat rate of $2 per hour for parking meters throughout Chinatown (to encourage more people to visit and shop in the area) and a new satellite City Hall office, to improve representation. And on mental health and public safety, the ABC council moved quickly in November to take action on its promise to fund 100 new police officers and 100 new mental health professionals [emphasis mine]—though the actual hiring will take time.
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O’Grady likely wrote his article a few months before its October 2023 publication date (a standard practice for magazine articles), which may explain why he didn’t mention this, from an October 10, 2023 article by Michelle Gamage and Jen St. Denis for The Tyee,
100 Cops, Not Even 10 Nurses
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One year after Mayor Ken Sim and the ABC party swept into power on a promise to hire 100 cops and 100 mental health nurses to address fears about crime and safety in Vancouver, only part of that campaign pledge has been fulfilled.
At a police board meeting in September, Chief Adam Palmer announced that 100 new police officers have now joined the Vancouver Police Department.
But just 9.5 full-time equivalent positions have been filled to support the mental health [emphasis mine] side of the promise.
In fact, Vancouver Coastal Health says it’s no longer aiming [emphasis mine] to hire 100 nurses. Instead, it’s aiming for 58 staff and specialists [emphasis mine], including social workers, community liaison workers and peers, as well as other disciplines alongside nurses to deliver care.
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At the police board meeting on Sept. 21 [2023], Palmer said the VPD has had no trouble recruiting new police officers and has now hired 70 new recruits who are first-time officers, as well as at least 24 experienced officers from other police services.
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In contrast, it’s been a struggle for VCH to recruit nurses specializing in mental health.
BC Nurses’ Union president Adriane Gear said she remembers wondering where Sim was planning on finding 100 nurses [emphasis mine] when he first made the campaign pledge. In B.C. there are around 5,000 full-time nursing vacancies, she said. Specialized nurses are an even more “finite resource,” she added.
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I haven’t seen any information as to why the number was reduced from 100 mental health positions to 58. I’m also curious as to how Mayor Ken Sim whose business is called ‘Nurse Next Door’ doesn’t seem to know there’s a shortage of nurses in the province and elsewhere.
Last year, the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Quartz published a January 28, 2022 article by Aurora Almendral about the worldwide nursing shortage and the effects of COVID pandemic,
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The report’s [from the International Council of Nurses (ICN)] survey of nurse associations around the world painted a grim picture of strained workforce. In Spain, nurses reported a chronic lack of PPE, and 30% caught covid. In Canada, 52% of nurses reported inadequate staffing, and 47% met the diagnostic cut-off for potential PTSD [emphasis mine].
Burnout plagued nurses around the world: 40% in Uganda, 60% in Belgium, and 63% in the US. In Oman, 38% nurses said they were depressed, and 73% had trouble sleeping. Fifty-seven percent of UK nurses planned to leave their jobs in 2021, up from 36% in 2020. Thirty-eight percent of nurses in Lebanon did not want to be nurses anymore, but stayed in their jobs because their families needed the money.
In Australia, 17% of nurses had sought mental health support. In China, 6.5% of nurses reported suicidal thoughts.
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Moving on from Mayor Sim’s odd display of ignorance (or was it cynical calculation from a candidate determined to win over a more centrist voting population?), O’Grady’s October 4, 2023 article ends on this note,
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When Sim runs for reelection in 2026, as he promises to do, he’ll have a great backdrop for his campaign—the city having just hosted several games for the FIFA World Cup, which is expected to bring in $1 billion and 900,000 visitors over five years.
The renewed swagger of Sim’s city will be on full display for the world to see. So too—if left unresolved—will some of Vancouver’s most glaring and intractable social problems.
I was born in Vancouver and don’t recall the city as having swagger, at any time. As for the economic prosperity that’s always promised with big events like the FIFA world cup, I’d like to see how much the 2010 Olympic Games held in Vancouver cost taxpayers and whether or not there were long lasting economic benefits. From a July 9, 2022 posting on Bob Mackin’s thebreaker.news,
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The all-in cost to build and operate the Vancouver 2010 Games was as much as $8 billion, but the B.C. Auditor General never conducted a final report. The organizing committee, VANOC, was not covered by the freedom of information law and its records were transferred to the Vancouver Archives after the Games with restrictions not to open the board minutes and financial ledgers before fall 2025.
Mayor Sim will have two more big opportunities to show off his swagger in 2025 . (1) The Invictus Games come to Vancouver and Whistler in February 2025 and will likely bring Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle to the area (see the April 22, 2022 Associated Press article by Gemma Karstens-Smith on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation website) and (2) The 2025 Junos (the Canadian equivalent to the Grammys) from March 26 – 30, 2025 with the awards show being held on March 30, 2025 (see the January 25, 2024 article by Daniel Chai for the Daily Hive website).
While he waits, Sim may have a ‘swagger’ opportunity later this month (February 2024) when Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex (Meghan Markle) visit the Vancouver and Whistler for a “a three-day Invictus Games’ One Year to Go event in Vancouver and Whistler,” see Daniel Chai’s February 2, 2024 article for more details.
Don’t forget, should you be in Austin, Texas for the 2024 SxSW, the daylong (11 am – 9 pm) Vancouver Takeover at SxSW 2024 event is on March 10, 2024, just click here to register. Who knows? You might get to meet Vancouver’s, Mayor Ken Sim. Or, if you can’t make it to Austin, Texas, O’Grady’s October 4, 2023 article offers* an unusual political profile.
I’m primarily interested in the VR and the ‘atoms’ of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint but first there are the NFT (non-fungible tokens). From an October 28, 2022 article by Louis Jebb for The Art Newspaper,
More than a century after she completed her chef d’oeuvre—193 abstract canvases known collectively as Paintings for the Temple (1906-15)—Hilma af Klint has emerged this year as a multimedia power player. Her work—graphic, colourful and deeply idiosyncratic—has demonstrated a Van Gogh-like power to generate footfall and has given rise to projects across multiple formats, from books and films to experiences in virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR).
Now, from 14 November [2022], digital versions of all 193 of her Paintings for the Temple, created by Acute Art, will be offered as NFTs in one edition, for sale on Goda (Gallery of Digital Assets), the platform launched earlier this year by the multi-Grammy award-winning philanthropist and recording artist Pharrell Williams. A second edition of the NFTs will remain with Bokförlaget Stolpe, the publishers of the Af Klint catalogue raisonée. The originals belong to the not-for-profit Hilma af Klint Foundation in Sweden.
“Hilma af Klint was an incredible pioneer!” says Pharrell Williams. “It took us a century to fully understand. Now that we do, we need to rewrite art history! Beautiful and meaningful art truly transcends time, and Hilma af Klint’s work is a perfect example of that. We’re honoured to show her work on this platform and to truly celebrate a remarkable woman.” For KAWS, who acts as an art adviser on the Goda platform, Af Klint was a visionary. “I find it great that she finally gets the attention she deserves,” KAWS says. “During her lifetime the audience wasn’t ready but today we are. She painted for the future. She painted for us!”
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VR
Hilma af Klint dreamt of a spiral shaped building to house her most important work, but the idea never materialised. More than a century later, af Klint’s vision has been translated into a VR experience where some of her most important paintings come alive. Hilma af Klint – The Temple is produced in collaboration with [Bokförlaget Stolpe and] Acute Art and premiered at Koko Camden during the Frieze Art Fair 2022. The virtual reality work Hilma af Klint – The Temple is a 12-minute VR experience which includes 193 of Hilma af Klint’s paintings in a format that transcends time and space and makes a significant portion of her artistic output available to the public.
Hilma af Klint – The Temple VR was on tour since it first debuted in 2022 and Elissaveta M. Brandon wrote up her experience in New York City in a October 25, 2023 article for Fast Company, Note: Links have been removed,
It is noon on a Tuesday, and I am sitting in a cocktail bar. But instead of a Negroni on my table, there is a VR headset.
The reason for this anomaly dates back to 1915, when the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint completed a series of paintings titled, Paintings for the Temple. The artist died in 1944, but from the 124 notebooks she left behind, we know that she dreamed of housing these paintings in a spiral-shaped building known as the Temple.
That building never materialized in real life, but it has now—in virtual reality.
Af Klint, which The Art Newspaper has described as “the mystic Swedish mother of early-modern abstraction,” is having a bit of a moment. A museum dedicated solely to her work remains to be built, but over the past few years, the artist has been the subject of a sprawling exhibition at the Guggenheim, a biopic, a new biography, a catalogue raisonné (a comprehensive, annotated list of all known works by the artist), an augmented reality “art walk” in London’s Regent’s Park, and now, a virtual reality temple.
The VR experience—I lack the words to describe it in any other way—is titled, Hilma af Klint: The Temple and lasts 12 minutes. It was conceived by the London-based extended-reality studio Acute Art in collaboration with [Bokförlaget] Stolpe Publishing. After various stints at the Tate Modern in London, the Institut Suédois in Paris, and Bozar in Brussels, it has now arrived at the Fotografiska Museum in New York City, where it is on view until November 19 [2023], inside a cocktail bar, which is tucked away behind a door in the museum’s lobby, and fittingly called Chapel Bar.
The artist left behind a large body of abstract work inspired by her spiritual encounters. Her series, Paintings for the Temple, was, in fact, born out of a séance, during which she was asked to take on a more extensive project than her previous work. Paintings for the Temple took 9 years to complete; it took me 12 minutes to explore.
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Atoms
While the focus is usually on af Klint’s spirituality and her absence from art history, there’s also her interest in science, from Brandon’s October 25, 2023 article,
…, I wonder how af Klint would have felt about her paintings being presented in virtual reality. According to Birnbaum [Daniel Birnbaum, current director and curator of Acute Art], who is the former director of Moderna Museet, Sweden’s museum of modern art in Stockholm, af Klint had a scientific mind. “One wonders what she would have thought of computation and recent inventions, like the blockchain,” he says. Stolpe also points me to the artist’s Atom Series—the atom being a major theme during her lifetime.
Image: courtesy Acute Art/Stolpe Publishing [downloaded from https://www.fastcompany.com/90971644/take-a-trip-inside-the-secretive-mind-of-visionary-painter-hilma-af-klint?]
The Guggenheim Museum in New York still has material from its 2018 blockbuster Hilma af Klint show available online, including this October 24, 2018 combined audio/transcript article, which includes these tidbits in the transcript,
The Atom Series (1917) by Hilma af Klint
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Tracey Bashkoff [Director of Collections and Senior Curator at the Guggenheim]: Hilma af Klint is working at a time where the most recent scientific discoveries show that there is a world beyond our observable world, and that things like atoms and sound waves and x-rays and particles exist, that we don’t observe with the naked eye. And so, the question of opening up an invisible world from our physical world, being able to make observations of another dimension of reality, becomes an issue of exploration for af Klint and for many of the thinkers of her time.
Narrator: These works are from TheAtom Series, which was executed in 1917. The atom was a major theme in science and society at large during the artist’s lifetime. In the last five years of the 19th century, the accepted understanding of atoms was overturned by the discovery of subatomic particles. At the same time, scientists were making numerous discoveries about electromagnetism, x-rays, radioactive decay, and other phenomena.
The audio file is about 2 mins. long and it’s a short transcript.
Not sure how I ended up on a National Film Board of Canada (NFB) list but this morning (August 14, 2023) their latest emailed newsletter provided a thrill. From the August 11, 2023 NFB newsletter,
Montreal premiere: Ask Noam Chomsky anything in this interactive VR experience
CHOM5KY vs CHOMSKY is an interactive virtual reality installation created by Sandra Rodriguez, that lets you have a whole conversation with an AI-generated version of public intellectual Noam Chomsky. Be one of the first people to experience it at the NFB Space in Montreal.
Artificial intelligence is everywhere—from the photo enhancer in your smartphone to self-parking cars and the virtual assistant in your kitchen. But what is it exactly?
CHOM5KY vs CHOMSKY: A playful conversation on AI is an engaging and collaborative virtual reality experience that invites us to examine the promises and pitfalls of AI. If machine intelligence is promoted as an inevitable future, we should all be able to ask: What are we hoping to achieve with it? And at what cost?
Visitors use VR headsets to enter the AI world, where they are greeted by CHOM5KY—an artificial entity inspired by and built from the vast array of digital traces of renowned professor Noam Chomsky. CHOM5KY is a friend and serves as a guide, inviting us to peek under the hood of machine-learning systems, and offering thought-provoking takes on how artificial intelligence intersects with human life.
Why Noam Chomsky? [emphasis mine] Professor Chomsky is a philosopher, social critic, historian and political activist, but is perhaps best known for his work in linguistics and cognitive science, the study of the mind. As one of the most recorded and digitized living intellectuals, he has left behind an extensive wake of data traces, enough to create an AI system based on his legacy. Chomsky is also skeptical about the pompous promises made of AI. Which makes him the perfect guide to encourage visitors to question everything they see—and help demystify AI.
Sandra Rodriguez, Ph.D., is a director/producer and sociologist of new media technology. She has written and directed documentary features, web docs and VR, XR and AI experiences that have garnered multiple awards (including a Peabody, best VR awards at DOK Leipzig and the PRIX NUMIX, and the prestigious Golden Nica at the Prix Ars Electronica). She has served as UX lead and consultant for esteemed institutions such as CBC/Radio-Canada and the United Nations. Fascinated by storytelling and emergent technology’s potential for social change, Sandra has created a body of work that spans AI-dance performance, multi-user VR and large-scale XR installations. She is a Sundance Story Lab Fellow and MacArthur Grantee. She is also a Scholar and Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she leads “Hacking XR,” MIT’s first official class in immersive media creation. [Note: XR is Extended Reality]
SCHNELLE BUNTE BILDER Co-producers
The media art collective SCHNELLE BUNTE BILDER was founded in Berlin in 2011. Technically on the cutting edge, their hearts beat for art, culture and science. Together with curators, musicians and other artists, they develop productions for exhibitions and cultural events. Somewhere between art and technology, they combine classical and generative animation with creative coding and critical design to create extraordinary media scenography. Since then, the studio has grown organically and currently consists of a solid core of designers, artists and developers: Michael Burk, Ann-Katrin Krenz, Felix Worseck, Niklas Söder and Johannes Lemke.
Marie-Pier Gauthier Producer
Marie-Pier Gauthier is a producer at the NFB’s Montreal Interactive Studio and has been contributing to this storytelling laboratory for the past 12 years. Whether it’s digital creations on mobile devices or the web, interactive installations, or virtual or augmented reality experiences, she guides and supervises projects by innovative creators working at the crossroads of disciplines, who use a range of storytelling tools, including social networks, code, design, artificial intelligence and conversational robots. Marie-Pier Gauthier has collaborated on more than 100 interactive works (The Enemy, Do Not Track, Way To Go, Motto) that have received over 100 awards in Canada and abroad.
Laurence Dolbec Producer
Laurence Dolbec is a producer in the interactive studio at the National Film Board of Canada. She has more than 12 years of experience working in production, notably for some of Quebec’s most creative institutions including Place des Arts, TOHU and C2 Montréal. Laurence started her career in New York City working for Livestream, which is now part of Vimeo. Her most recent productions explores the spheres of artificial intelligence and knowledge.
Louis-Richard Tremblay Executive Producer
Louis-Richard Tremblay has been an executive producer with the French Program’s Interactive Studio since 2019. He first stepped into a producer role with the NFB in 2013, after a dozen or so years at CBC/Radio-Canada. Fascinated by the power of interactive experiences and media of all kinds, he has guided numerous international co-productions at the NFB, helped produce dozens of award-winning works in Canada and internationally, and regularly participates in panels, conferences and master classes.
CREDITS
Created by Sandra Rodriguez, CHOM5KY vs. CHOMSKY is a co-production by the National Film Board of Canada and SCHNELLE BUNTE BILDER, with support from the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.
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Two Oddities: Berlin and Moov AI and tickets for the Canadian premiere
World Premiere in Berlin on 4 Nov 2022 at Berlin Science Week
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CHOM5KY vs CHOMSKY is a Co-production between the National Film Board of Canada and the Studio SCHNELLE BUNTE BILDER based in Berlin, supported by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.
Starting September 6 [2023] in Montreal. Buy your tickets! Explore the world of artificial intelligence with an engaging and collaborative virtual reality experience by Sandra Rodriguez that examines the promises and pitfalls of AI.
The virtual reality experience takes about 25 minutes, but each timeslot runs 45 minutes, to take into account the introduction and getting set up. Please arrive 5 minutes early.
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How much does a ticket cost?
We offer a general admission ticket, for $26 + applicable taxes.
I’m not sure why Moov AI (based in Montreal, Canada) doesn’t appear in the most recent credits for the project but they host that teaser as an example from one of their projects,
Replicate Noam Chomsky’s persona
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Chomsky vs. Chomsky is a virtual reality and artificial intelligence immersive experience that showcases an interaction guided by CHOMSKY_AI, the virtual host built from digital traces of Noam Chomsky.
Sandra Rodriguez is the director of this project, which was realized in collaboration with the NFB, the MIT Open Documentary Lab, Schnellebuntebilder, and Moov AI.
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Using the digital traces left by Noam Chomsky and archives of his interviews, our team built an AI conversational agent that replicates his personality and cynical humor.
This chatbot is at the heart of the technical solution we developed and deployed to support the experience and link the creative vision of the project’s director to the technical requirements to ensure a fluid and immersive experience.
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AI to power a chatbot.
After the immense success of the prototype at Sundance 2020, the teams involved in the project are hard at work completing the final phase of production of Chomsky vs. Chomsky.
The project team is equipped with a CHOMSKY_AI conversational device that is true to the director’s artistic vision and allows thousands of people worldwide to chat with the digital doppelgänger of such a significant figure in contemporary history.
What a privilege!
Canadians and Noam Chomsky
“Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media” was one of the most successful feature documentaries in Canadian history. From the Manufacturing Consent (film) Wikipedia entry, Note: Links have been removed,
Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media[1] is a 1992 documentary film that explores the political life and ideas of linguist, intellectual, and political activist Noam Chomsky. Canadian filmmakers Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick expand the analysis of political economy and mass media presented in Manufacturing Consent, a 1988 book Chomsky wrote with Edward S. Herman.
Funny, provocative and surprisingly accessible, MANUFACTURING CONSENT explores the political life and ideas of world-renowned linguist, intellectual and political activist Noam Chomsky. Through a dynamic collage of biography, archival gems, imaginative graphics and outrageous illustrations, Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick’s award-winning documentary highlights Chomsky’s probing analysis of mass media and his critique of the forces at work behind the daily news. Available for the first time anywhere on DVD, MANUFACTURING CONSENT features appearances by journalists Bill Moyers and Peter Jennings, pundit William F. Buckley Jr., novelist Tom Wolfe and philosopher Michel Foucault. This Edition features an exclusive ten-years-after video interview with Chomsky.
Caption: Dream artwork by Jewel Chang of Anglia Ruskin University, which will be on display at the Cambridge Festival. Credit: Jewel Chang, Anglia Ruskin University
Let’s clear up a few things. First, as noted in the headline, the Cambridge Festival (March 17 – April 2, 2023) is being held in the UK by the University of Cambridge in the town of Cambridge. Second, the specific festival event featured here is a display put together by students and professors at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and in the town of Cambridge as part of the festival and will be held for two days, March 31 – April 1, 2023.
Dreams are being turned into reality as new research investigating the unusual experiences of people with depersonalisation symptoms is being brought to life in an art exhibition at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in Cambridge, England.
ARU neuroscientist Dr Jane Aspell has led a major international study into depersonalisation, funded by the Bial Foundation. The “Living in a Dream” project, results from which will be published later this year, found that people who experience depersonalisation symptoms sometimes experience life from a very different perspective, both while awake and while dreaming.
Those experiencing depersonalisation often report feeling as though they are not real and that their body does not belong to them. Dr Aspell’s study, which is the first to examine how people with this disorder experience dreams, collected almost 1,000 dream reports from participants.
Now these dreams have been recreated by eight students from ARU’s MA Illustration course and the artwork will go on display for the first time on 31 March and 1 April as part of the Cambridge Festival.
This collaboration between art and science, led by psychologist Matt Gwyther and illustrator Dr Nanette Hoogslag, with the support of artist and creative technologist Emily Godden, has resulted in 12 original artworks, which have been created using the latest audio-visual technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), and are presented using a mix of audio-visual installation, virtual reality (VR) experiences, and traditional media.
Dr Jane Aspell, Associate Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at ARU and Head of the Self and Body Lab, said: “People who experience depersonalisation sometimes feel detached from their self and body, and a common complaint is that it’s like they are watching their own life as a film.
“Because their waking reality is so different, myself and my international collaborators – Dr Anna Ciaunica, Professor Bigna Lenggenhager and Dr Jennifer Windt – were keen to investigate how they experience their dreams.
“People who took part in the study completed daily ‘dream diaries’, and it is fabulous to see how these dreams have been recreated by this group of incredibly talented artists.”
Matt Gwyther added: “Dreams are both incredibly visual and surreal, and you lose so much when attempting to put them into words. By bringing them to life as art, it has not only produced fabulous artwork, but it also helps us as scientists better understand the experiences of our research participants.”
Amongst the artists contributing to the exhibition is MA student Jewel Chang, who has recreated a dream about being chased. When the person woke up, they continued to experience it and were unsure whether they were experiencing the dream or reality.
False awakenings and multiple layers of dreams can be confusing, affecting our perception of time and space. Jewel used AI to create an environment with depth and endless moving patterns that makes the visitor feel trapped in their dream, unable to escape.
Kelsey Wu, meanwhile, used special 3D software and cameras to recreate a dream of floating over hills and forests, and losing balance. The immersive piece, with the audience invited to sit on a grass-covered floor, creates a sense of loss of control of the body, which moves in an abnormal and unbalanced way, and evokes a struggle between illusion and reality as the landscape continuously moves.
Dr Nanette Hoogslag, Course Leader for the MA in Illustration at ARU, said: “This project has been a unique challenge, where students not only applied themselves in supporting scientific research, but investigated and used a range of new technologies, including virtual reality and AI-generated imagery. The final pieces are absolutely remarkable, and also slightly unsettling!”
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.
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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
“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 LinWeikang, 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.
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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
As noted in the headline for this post, I have two items. For anyone unfamiliar with XR and the other (AR, MR, and VR) realities, I found a good description which I placed in my October 22, 2021 posting (scroll down to the “How many realities are there?” subhead about 70% of the way down).
eXtended Reality in Rome
I got an invitation (via a February 24, 2022 email) to participate in a special session at one of the 2022 IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) conference (more about the conference later).
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 all human endeavours, including creation, display, entertainment, social, and trading. Thus, the Metaverse will evolve how users interact with brands, intellectual properties, 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 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.
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 Metaverse
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 factors issues related to Metaverse
Proof-of-Concept in Metaverse: Experimental Prototyping and Testbeds
ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS
Giuseppe Caggianese is a Research Scientist at the National Research Council of Italy. He received the Laurea degree in computer science magna cum laude in 2010 and the Ph.D. degree in Methods and Technologies for Environmental Monitoring in 2013 from the University of Basilicata, Italy.
His research activities are focused on the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to design and test advanced interfaces adaptive to specific uses and users in both augmented and virtual reality. He authored more than 30 scientific papers published in international journals, conference proceedings, and books. He also serves on program committees of several international conferences and workshops.
Ugo Erra is an Assistant Professor (qualified as Associate Professor) at the University of Basilicata (UNIBAS), Italy. He is the founder of the Computer Graphics Laboratory at the University of Basilicata. He received an MSc/diploma degree in Computer Science from the University of Salerno, Italy, in 2001 and a PhD in Computer Science in 2004.
His research focuses on Real-Time Computer Graphics, Information Visualization, Artificial Intelligence, and Parallel Computing. Has been involved in several research projects; among these, one project was funded by the European Commission as a research fellow, and four projects were founded by Area Science Park, a public national research organization that promotes the development of innovation processes, as principal investigator. He has (co-)authored about 14 international journal articles, 45 international conference proceedings, and two book chapters. He supervised four PhD students. He organized the Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Agent-Based Simulations, a satellite Workshop of Euro-Par, from 2013 to 2015. He served more than 20 international conferences as program committee member and more than ten journals as referee.
The 2022 IEEE International Conference on Metrology for eXtended Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Neural Engineering (IEEE MetroXRAINE 2022) will be an international event mainly aimed at creating a synergy between experts in eXtended Reality, Brain-Computer Interface, and Artificial Intelligence, with special attention to measurement [i.e., metrology].
The conference will be a unique opportunity for discussion among scientists, technologists, and companies on very specific sectors in order to increase the visibility and the scientific impact for the participants. The organizing formula will be original owing to the emphasis on the interaction between the participants to exchange ideas and material useful for their research activities.
MetroXRAINE will be configured as a synergistic collection of sessions organized by the individual members of the Scientific Committee. Round tables will be held for different projects and hot research topics. Moreover, we will have demo sessions, students contests, interactive company expositions, awards, and so on.
The Conference will be a hybrid conference [emphasis mine], with the possibility of attendance remotely or in presence.
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Program Committee is inviting to submit Abstracts (1 – 2 pages) for the IEEE MetroXRAINE 2022 Conference, 26-28 October, 2022.
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.
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Abstract Submission Deadline:
March 28, 2022
Full Paper Submission Deadline:
May 10, 2022
Extended Abstract Acceptance Notification:
June 10, 2022
Final Paper Submission Deadline:
July 30, 2022
According to the email invitation, “IEEE MetroXRAINE 2022 … will be held on October 26-28, 2022 in Rome.” You can find more details on the conference website.
Council of Canadian Academies launches four projects
This too is from an email. From the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) announcement received February 27, 2022 (you can find the original February 17, 2022 CCA news release here),
The Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) is pleased to announce it will undertake four new assessments beginning this spring:
Gene-edited Organisms for Pest Control Advances in gene editing tools and technologies have made the process of changing an organism’s genome more efficient, opening up a range of potential applications. One such application is in pest control. By editing genomes of organisms, and introducing them to wild populations, it’s now possible to control insect-borne disease and invasive species, or reverse insecticide resistance in pests. But the full implications of using these methods remains uncertain.
This assessment will examine the scientific, bioethical, and regulatory challenges associated with the use of gene-edited organisms and technologies for pest control.
Sponsor: Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency
The Future of Arctic and Northern Research in Canada The Arctic is undergoing unprecedented changes, spurred in large part by climate change and globalization. Record levels of sea ice loss are expected to lead to increased trade through the Northwest Passage. Ocean warming and changes to the tundra will transform marine and terrestrial ecosystems, while permafrost thaw will have significant effects on infrastructure and the release of greenhouse gases. As a result of these trends, Northern communities, and Canada as an Arctic and maritime country, are facing profound economic, social, and ecosystem impacts.
This assessment will examine the key foundational elements to create an inclusive, collaborative, effective, and world-class Arctic and northern science system in Canada.
Sponsor: A consortium of Arctic and northern research and science organizations from across Canada led by ArcticNet
Quantum Technologies Quantum technologies will affect all sectors of the Canadian economy. Built on the principles of quantum physics, these emerging technologies present significant opportunities in the areas of sensing and metrology, computation and communication, and data science and artificial intelligence, among others. But there is also the potential they could be used to facilitate cyberattacks, putting financial systems, utility grids, infrastructure, personal privacy, and national security at risk. A comprehensive exploration of the capabilities and potential vulnerabilities of these technologies will help to inform their future deployment across society and the economy.
This assessment will examine the impacts, opportunities, and challenges quantum technologies present for industry, governments, and people in Canada.
Sponsor: National Research Council Canada and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada
International Science and Technology Partnership Opportunities International partnerships focused on science, technology, and innovation can provide Canada with an opportunity to advance the state of knowledge in areas of national importance, help address global challenges, and contribute to UN Sustainable Development Goals. Canadian companies could also benefit from global partnerships to access new and emerging markets.
While there are numerous opportunities for international collaborations, Canada has finite resources to support them. Potential partnerships need to be evaluated not just on strengths in areas such as science, technology, and innovation, but also political and economic factors.
This assessment will examine how public, private, and academic organizations can evaluate and prioritize science and technology partnership opportunities with other countries to achieve key national objectives.
Sponsor: Global Affairs Canada
Gene-edited Organisms for Pest Control and International Science and Technology Partnership Opportunities are funded by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). Quantum Technologies is funded by the National Research Council of Council (NRC) and ISED, and the Future of Arctic and Northern Research in Canada is funded by a consortium of Arctic and northern research and science organizations from across Canada led by ArcticNet. The reports will be released in 2023-24.
Multidisciplinary expert panels will be appointed in the coming months for all four assessments.
You can find in-progress and completed CCA reports here.
Fingers crossed that the CCA looks a little further afield for their international experts than the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and northern Europe.
Finally, I’m guessing that the gene-editing and pest management report will cover and, gingerly, recommend germline editing (which is currently not allowed in Canada) and gene drives too.
It will be interesting to see who’s on that committee. If you’re really interested in the report topic, you may want to check out my April 26, 2019 posting and scroll down to the “Criminal ban on human gene-editing of inheritable cells (in Canada)” subhead where I examined what seemed to be an informal attempt to persuade policy makers to allow germline editing or gene-editing of inheritable cells in Canada.
