litmus :: january 2008

Litmus is the monthly newsletter of ACID, the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design

  1. acid News
    • New Year Greetings and Executive Update
    • The Hon Desley Boyle MP Visits ACID
  2. Research and Project Updates
    • AV Jam Exhibition @ Beta_Space, Sydney
    • Urban Interfaces to Go Live East and West
  3. ACID People
    • ACID Kicks off Year with New Faces
    • Sherwin Huang Passes MA
  4. DATE CLAIMERS: Mark Your Diary Now


1. ACID NEWS

:: New Year Greetings and Executive Update

Welcome back to ACID in 2008! I hope that your holiday break was a safe and relaxing one.

As many of you will have already heard, ACID's Chairman Dr Terry Cutler has been appointed by Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, to chair the expert panel that will review Australia's national innovation system. The review panel comprises a number of distinguished experts on innovation and industry policy, including Professor Mary O’Kane, a member of the ACID Board and Chair of our Audit Committee. Mary has been given the specific task of reviewing the CRC Program.

The Minister’s media release states that the review will examine “the bewildering array of government innovation and industry assistance programs”, and build a strong and robust national innovation system. A Green Paper is expected by the end of July this year.

This is very exciting news for ACID and the CRC program as a whole. I am sure that the review will deliver excellent outcomes for the nation’s innovation system, and we are all looking forward to the outcomes.

ACID is delighted that two members of the ACID Board will be so closely and directly involved in the review. I am sure you will join me in congratulating Dr Cutler and Prof O'Kane on these important appointments.

In due course, given this review, we will be advised of revised dates for the submission of the bid for a new CRC to grow out of ACID. In the meantime, we are working on that strategy now, so that we can be well prepared for the work that needs to be undertaken to submit the rebid.

As we move into 2008, ACID will have many opportunities to capitalise on the solid work undertaken by the organisation in 2007, which saw us go through some significant changes resulting in a number of highly regarded research outcomes. 2008 will also see us tackle the all-important issue of transforming our research success through a more detailed commercialisation strategy.

I am looking forward to reconnecting with everyone in the ACID community over the coming weeks, and to the challenges of a very busy year ahead.

Suzannah Conway
General Manager & Acting Executive Director

 

:: The Hon Desley Boyle MP Visits ACID

L-R: Prof Stuart Cunningham, the Hon. Desley Boyle MP, Suzannah Conway and Brian Anker

L-R: Prof Stuart Cunningham,
the Hon Desley Boyle MP,
Suzannah Conway and Brian Anker

On 29 January the Hon Desley Boyle MP, Minister for Tourism, Regional Development and Industry, visited ACID as part of a broader tour of QUT's Creative Industries Precinct.

The Minister was accompanied by Prof Stuart Cunningham, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation; Brian Anker, Deputy-Director General, Science, Technology and Innovation; and Lindy Johnson, Manager, Creative Industries Sectoral Development.

ACID demonstrated Digital Songlines, an innovative and exciting project aimed at conserving Indigenous heritage using virtual reality technologies. Digital Songlines is developing protocols, methodologies and toolkits to facilitate the collection, education and sharing of indigenous cultural heritage knowledge. The project explores the effective recording, content management and virtual reality delivery of indigenous cultural knowledge in ways that are culturally sensitive and involve indigenous custodians, leaders and communities.

 

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2. RESEARCH AND PROJECT UPDATES

AV Jam @ Beta_Space
beta_space @ Sydney's Powerhouse Museum
Sydney's Powerhouse Museum

:: AV Jam @ Beta_Space

ACID Network Jamming project will host a public exhibition of the AV Jam system at Beta_Space in Sydney's Powerhouse Museum from early February 2008 through to mid March 2008. ACID researcher and AV Jam collaborator Assoc Prof Andrew Brown says, "the exhibition will be a great opportunity for ACID to undertake extended public trials of its technologies that are designed to facilitate collaboration around creative media performances."

AV Jam uses dynamic music and video technologies that will allow anyone, from novice to expert, to perform live in a virtual ensemble as a DJ or VJ.

The exhibition at Beta_Space will involve the running of a continuous AV jam each day. The work will be projected onto a large screen and pumped out of the speakers, turning the venue into an electronic dance space. Performances will be recorded and uploaded to the jam2jam blog so that the recorded data can be used for further research.

AV Jam Project Leader, Dr Steven Dillon, points out that "the jam2jam family of interactive environments brings a new world of understanding through participation to the complex world of media arts. Electronic sounds and vision are the folksong of the 21st Century and jam2jam provides a way for children and adults to make and understand 21st Century art."

The Beta_Space is an experimental environment within the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, sponsored by ACID and the Creativity and Cognition Studios at UTS where the public can engage with the latest research in art and technology. For more information about the exhibition visit the Beta_Space website, and if you are in Sydney come and visit the exhibition, and have fun performing audio visual improvisations with the AV Jam system.

For more information, contact Steve Dillon.

 

nnub - community digital noticeboard
Fremantle Boat Harbour

:: Urban Interfaces to Go Live East and West

The Urban Interfaces team has been busy during January, working on the nnub and InfoPoint demonstrators.

nnub, a community digital noticeboard exploring place-based interaction and communication in Brisbane, will commence trials of the initial prototype in late January with a large-screen kiosk in the Moggill General Store, with an associated community portal.

InfoPoint is a Bluetooth-based information point being developed with Fremantle City Council for the Fishing Boat Harbour redevelopment. It provides rich media content to tourists' and residents' mobile phones, providing a platform to explore mobile experiences and interactions, user-generated content and system architectures. The first prototype will be deployed in mid-February, with up to a total of 12 networked InfoPoints proposed.

For more information, contact Ian MacColl.

 



Calling all ACID Researchers: If you’d like to let others at ACID know about your work, just send the details to Litmus.

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2. ACID PEOPLE

Who are these people?

:: ACID Kicks Off the Year with New Faces

Thorin Kerr is a musician and sound artist who is currently completing a Master of Fine Arts degree in Music at QUT. After several years in the IT industry, Thorin has returned to his musical roots and is currently investigating computer assisted music composition. Thorin is working on the Jam2Jam project helping to produce musical algorithms and other associated content.

Callum Hedemann has just completed an undergraduate degree in Music at QUT and is about to commence an Honours year. He is a musician with an increasing interest in digital arts - both audio and visual. He excelled in the newly established Computational Arts course at QUT last year. Callum is working on the automated film scoring project and is currently building the UI of a hyperscoring tool.

Robert Palmer is a web developer with a strong ASP.NET background and has joined ACID to work on the Yodel-iCi Project. His primary development focus will be on the Yodel-iCi sub-project 60Sox.

Jason Pickersgill is a web designer and communicator with over 13 years experience in software engineering and research environments, and at one time was the national coordinator for the Australian Office of the W3C. Jason has joined ACID as a communication officer, a role he hopes will result in the attainment of personal glory although he rather suspects it could be his ultimate downfall.

Welcome Thorin, Callum, Robert and Jason!

 

:: Sherwin Huang Passes MA

Sherwin Huang, ACID researcher

Last week Sherwin Huang learned that he has passed his Master of Arts, without alteration. Sherwin's MA was based around "Interfaces to Support Community Building in Location Based Games" and involved designing user interfaces for the Cipher Cities project. These interfaces were designed around community building principles in order to encourage user creation of content.

Sherwin would like to thank Deb Polson and the Cipher Team for all their time and support. And, of course, ACID would like to congratulate Sherwin on his outstanding achievement!

 

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4. DATE CLAIMERS: Mark Your Diary Now!

:: Awards and Residencies

2008 Adobe Design Achievement Awards
Entries due: 2 May 2008
Visit the ADAA website for more info...

 

Digital Songlines

2008 iAwards
Information night (Brisbane): 19 February 2008 (reservations by 15 February 2008)
Nominations close: 7 March 2008
Presentations and gala dinner: 28 May 2008
Visit the iAwards website for more info...
*In 2006 ACID won the Education and Training Merit Award for its Digital Songlines project, and the Diversionary Therapy project was shortlisted for a second award.*

 

:: Professional Workshops 

SEARIS (Software Engineering and Architectures for Realtime Interactive Systems) 2008
IEEE Virtual Reality 2008
9 March 2008, Reno, USA
Visit the SEARIS 2008 website for more info...

 

First International Workshop on Location on the Web (LocWeb 2008)
WWW 2008 Conference
22 April 2008, Beijing, CHINA
Submissions due: 1 February 2008
Visit the LocWeb 2008 website for more info...

 

Pervasive Persuasive Technology and Environmental Sustainability Workshop
6th International Conference on Pervasive Computing
19–22 May 2008, Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Visit Urban Informatics for more info...

 

:: Calls for Papers

Imagining Business: Reflecting on the visual power of management, organising and governing practices, First EIASM Workshop
26–27 June 2008, Saïd Business School, Oxford UK
Submissions due: 28 February 2008
Visit the EIASM website for more info...

 

Conversations and Dialogues in Graphic Design
New Views 2 Symposium
9-11 July 2008, London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London UK
Paper Abstracts: 1 February 2008
Intention to submit posters: 1 March 2008
Visit the New Views 2 website for more info...

 

Tangible and Embedded Interaction
A Special Issue of International Journal of Arts and Technology
Abstracts (optional): 2 April 2008
Paper submission: 21 April 2008
Visit the IJART website for more info...

 

Networks of Design
An international symposium defining graphic design for the future
3–6 September 2008, Falmouth UK
Abstracts/proposals due: 25 February 2008
Email the convenor for more info...

 

Facial and Bodily Expressions for Control and Adaptation of Games (ECAG '08)
2008 IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition
16 September 2008, Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS
Paper submission: 15 June 2008
Registration: 1 September 2008
Visit the ECAG '08 website for more info...

 

10th Anniversary Conference on Participatory Design: Experiences and Challenges
30 September – 4 October 2008, Bloomington USA
Submissions due: 15 March 2008
Visit the conference website for more info...

 

:: Conferences

Webstock 08
11-15 February 2008, Wellington, NZ
Visit the Webstock 08 website for more info...

 

Computer Games, Law, Regulation and Policy Symposium
14-15 February 2008, Brisbane, AUSTRALIA
Visit the Symposium website for more info...

 

South By South West Interactive Conference and Festival
7-11 March 2008, Austin USA
Visit the SXSW website for more info...

 

CHI 2008 Conference
5-10 April 2008, Florence ITALY
Visit the CHI 2008 website for more info...

 

10th Virtual Reality International Conference (VRIC'08)
9-13 April 2008, Laval, FRANCE
Visit the VRIC'08 website for more info...

 

SimTecT 2008 Simulation Conference
12-15 May 2008, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Visit the SimTecT 2008 website for more info...

 

IIT Institute of Design Strategy conference
15-16 May 2008, Chicago USA
Visit the IIT website for more info...

 

Graphics Interface 2008
28-30 May 2008, Windsor CANADA
Visit the GI2008 website for more info...

 

:: Calendar Call

If you have an event, meeting or conference date to share with ACID colleagues, just click here to e-mail the info.

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About Litmus

Litmus aims to keep you informed about news and events at ACID, the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design.

Contributions are always welcome and past editions are available. Just e-mail us with your story idea.

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