Argon operates by taking video from the phone's camera and then rendering content on top of it. The prototype/initial release operates by taking any content from the Apple iPhone's mobile Safari web browser and "pushing it" out on virtual billboards. More interestingly, the creators of Argon promise 3D content support in soon-to-come releases. Other platforms, like Android, are also to be supported in the future.
This conference (ICADIWT 2011) will include presentations of contributed papers and state-of-the-art lectures by invited keynote speakers and is set to take place at Stevens Point, Wisconsin, USA between the 4th and the 6th of August (for more info please check here).
The application is based on Google Street View with additional content superimposed on its visualization (relevant to the hotel theme) and while not truly AR per se (and how could it be as the iPad currently does not have a camera, although that it said to change soon with iPad 2) this still is a novel idea which can find great use in the interested audience, and of course can be further extended with future evolutions of Apple's device. You can find the application here.
Interestingly, Adminder dismisses (for now) BCIs (brainwave interfaces) as the brain is too noisy to read with current inexpensive devices. Instead, in an experiment using the Left 4 Dead game (discussed during the GDC talk) Valve measured electrical resistance of the player’s skin. This was in order to get an impression of their interest and emotional investment in the game. The data from this was used to increase the challenge of the game during lull of activity, thus producing adaptive manipulation of the games difficulty.
The subsequent survey demonstrates that when the biometrics adaptive mode was in play the subjects found the game significantly more fun. It'll be great to see where Valve can take this and also very impressive to see a company that could be churning out another installment of Half-Life instead investing some of its resources to more visionary research like this.
The PSP2 is to currently feature an ARM Cortex-A9 processor and judging by these news and support behind it it will be interesting to see how or whether it will dethrone Apple from its current mobile gaming lead.
It should be noted that the PC version itself is still a beta one, despite having sold, in downloads, over 1.3 million copies. As long as the touch screen interface usability issues are respected and integrated well enough in this it could well make a fascinating addition to Apple's gaming cannon.
The investigation consists of four empirical studies, conducted in a range of conditions, across a combined total of 211 participants. The first and second studies are based on the use of self-reported rankings for crucial spatial attributes of the, respectively, 2D and 3D scene stimuli. For the third experiment, following the Nielsen usability taxonomy and based on a route retracing task, objective measures are collected. Similarly, for the final experiment a route retracing task is repeated, which on this occasion contrasts the learning the rendering styles provide for a realworld urban location, rather than a virtual one. Across all experiments standardized additional tests such as the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction scale, the NASA TLX workload assessment tool and the IBM Computer Usability questionnaire provide additional information on both the user experience and the population sample itself. A three-tier architecture-based prototype pedestrian navigation application with GPS and digital compass sensor integration has been used in the studies, capable of the display and interaction of egocentric, real-time, georeferenced 3D urban location models.
On the occasion where buildings are displayed in characteristic colours, the process is automatic. This operates by detecting blocks of colour on a scan of the map, and then subsequently highlighting the edge of each block. This then generates a clear outline of the building(s). The extracted outlines can be imported into a commercial software package (such as the often mentioned in this blog CityEngine) and then further manipulated.
This will run on the Sony PlayStation Suite framework, a new scheme devised by the company which allows developers to port games to the Android OS (new and old ones). While Sony has offered no official confirmation, further rumours include the device codenamed S1, the device taking on the form of "open paperback stuffed into the back pocket, or a magazine folded backward upon itself such that only a single page is visible to read" (according to the Engadget site), the device to come with a pre-installed PS1 game and a Tegra 2 processor, 1280x800 resolution and cameras. 
Options include the production of a discussion paper or short abstract which will form the basis of collaborative discussion after a short oral presentation. Additionally, there is the opportunity to submit a full paper for peer review and formal presentation towards the development of a special issues in JITT.
- Digital Games: Changing Education, One Raid at a Time
This year the conference takes place in Rome, Italy between the 24th and 26th of July, for more information about deadline dates please visit the official website of the event here. 
Titled Prototyping Expressive 3D Virtual Worlds, the article has the following abstract; "3D virtual worlds are increasingly popular arenas for social interaction. There are new opportunities and possibilities for the style of communication but important aspects present in face-to-face meetings are absent in the artificial environment, including the visual cues of emotion that are provided by facial expressions, and a realistic representation of one’s geographical location. Our research attempts to enhance social interaction within virtual worlds by proposing a framework that would enable fully expressive Internet communication with the use of 3D expressive models. The framework contains three separate systems that support different aspects of social interaction within virtual worlds. Firstly, the Virtual City Maker creates a believable environment by automatically creating realistic identifiable geo-referenced 3D environments from a variety of aerial and GIS image data. Secondly, an automated 3D head modelling system provides a mechanism for generating and displaying expressions. Thirdly, the Emotion Analyser provides a mechanism for triggering the display of appropriate expressions by automatically identifying emotional words contained in text messages, the person to whom the emotional words refer to and the intensity. Each system in the framework is discussed with reference to their contribution to enhancing social interaction within 3D social worlds."
ENTER 2011 took place in Innsbruck, Austria this year between the 26th and the 28th of 2011. The PhD proposal itself was titled "3D Mobile, Context-Aware City Tourism Applications" and it is great to see recognition for the great work carried out so far on this project. For more information about the conference, including proceedings information, please visit here.
The report has already generated discussion and controversy (including comments from the government, TIGA and many others). On a personal level, while I agree with a number (if not most) of the suggestions, such as for example the increase of support of research-oriented university-industry collaborations in video games and visual effects and the strong focus on core computing skills and STEM, I feel that it is important not to treat higher education exclusively as a training school, as is unfortunately the norm in a modern market-driven economy.
