Saturday, April 17, 2010

CFP: ACIS 2010 Call for Workshops, Panels and Tutorials

21st Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS 2010):
Call for Workshops, Panels and Tutorials

Brisbane, Australia
1-3 December 2010
http://acis2010.org

The Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS) is the premier conference in Australasia for Information Systems academics and professionals, covering technical, organisational, business and social issues in the application of Information Technology. In 2010, the ACIS Conference will be jointly organised by Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and The University of Queensland (UQ). The event will take place at the QUT Gardens Point Campus. The campus is located in the Central Business District of Brisbane, the fastest growing city in Australia. With 1.7 million people, Brisbane offers all the facilities and infrastructure of a global hub for technology and tourism.

ACIS 2010 will be dedicated to the definition and establishment of Information Systems as a discipline of high impact for the scientific community and IS professionals. The focus will be on approaches that facilitate the identification of research questions of significant relevance that are studied by following sound research methodologies and that lead to results of measurable impact. Thus, the theme for ACIS 2010 will be: 'Information Systems: Defining and Establishing a High Impact Discipline'.

We now invite submissions for workshop, panel and tutorial proposals to be included in the ACIS 2010 Conference Program.

Workshops are meant to facilitate the focused exchange of ideas and experiences between active researchers, and stimulate discussions on new and emerging issues in line with the conference topics. Workshops may concentrate in-depth on research topics, or may also be devoted to issues such as applications, standardization, and curriculum development. Proposals for one-day workshops are requested.
Tutorials and panel discussions will complement the core of the ACIS 2010 conference. Tutorials will provide the opportunity to introduce one selected topic to the conference participants and to discuss related trends and challenges. Panel discussions will allow for the open conversation of topics related and relevant to the ACIS conference theme among a group of experts. The conference organizers are able to facilitate contacts to local industry representatives, if this is of interest for the organizer of a panel.

Each proposal should include the following information:

- Workshop/Panel/tutorial title and acronym, where applicable

- Brief biography of each organizer and key invite speaker, where applicable

- An outline of the workshop/panel/tutorial theme, goals, planned activities, and a brief discussion on intended audience, and expected audience numbers

- The complete text of the envisioned call for papers, where applicable.

(To decide your workshop key dates, please note that the preliminary workshop proceedings to be distributed at the workshop must be submitted to the ACIS 2010 conference organizers before November 1, 2010.)

We especially encourage workshop proposals that explore new topics and/or attract audience from outside the Australasian region.

All proposals should be directed to the ACIS 2010 Workshop, Panel and Tutorial Chair in electronic form (plain text or PDF) by the deadline indicated below.

Important Dates:

Deadline for workshop/panel/tutorial proposals:
May 15, 2010

Notification of proposal acceptance: June 15, 2010
Workshops and Tutorials: November 29/30, 2010
Panels will be included in the ACIS conference program from 1-3 December, 2010

Organizing Committee

ACIS 2010 Conference Co-Chairs
Peter Green, The University of Queensland
Michael Rosemann, Queensland University of Technology

ACIS 2010 Workshop, Panel and Tutorial Co-Chair
Jan Recker, Queensland University of Technology
Email: j.recker@qut.edu.au

Contact: info@acis2010.org

Monday, April 12, 2010

Seminar: From Concept to proposal with Morgan Jaffit

Game On free public programs - WEDNESDAY 14 - all welcome
Venue: the glasshouse, CIP Musk Av, KG, Brisbane, Qld
Time: 5.00pm - 6.00pm

From Concept to proposal with Morgan Jaffit

Indie game dev is typified by small teams, short production timelines and – ideally – getting a strong work out there that engages with its audience. Indie concepts are actually the most difficult to get right because they cannot hide behind big production budgets and glamorous
high end visuals. Come and join us for a presentation by a games industry veteran on the nuts and bolts of getting to the core of an idea and producing a good indie game proposal.

Speaker Bio: Morgan Jaffit is the head of The Impossible Changing Brain Foundation, an independent game developer focused on creating innovative titles and addressing users outside the classic market. He has been designing games all his life. Morgan’s first computer game design was an educationally focused biology challenge for the Atari ST at the age of 13. He has been working as a professional game designer for the last nine years and has shipped a wide variety of games for a broad spectrum of audiences including: Happy Feet, Freedom Force and
Homeworld 2. Most recently Morgan was Assoc. Creative Director for Pandemic Studios developing new I.P. with a strong social and online focus. He is convinced that the game industry is the most exciting place in the world to be, at least partially because it’s filled with crazy people on the frontier of creativity. Morgan has lectured internationally on topics such as the game design process and creative team leadership.

Join our facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=319387216329
Join the Brisbane Chapter of the IGDA: http://www.igda.org/brisbane

* With love and thanks to our adored supporters - The Institute for Creative Industries & Innovation [iCi], Griffith Film School [QCA], QANTM, Southbank Institute of Technology and of course CI Precincts, the Brisbane IGDA and our own GDAA *

CFP: GET2010 Extension to 24th May

CALL FOR PAPERS - Deadline for submissions (1st call extension): 24 May 2010

IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE GAME AND ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGIES (GET2010)
Freiburg, Germany, 26 - 28 July 2010
(http://www.gaming-conf.org/)
part of the IADIS Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems(MCCSIS 2010)
Freiburg, Germany 26 - 31 July 2010
(http://www.mccsis.org)


* Keynote Speaker (confirmed):
Matt Costello, Scriptwriter & Games Designer, USA

* Conference background and goals
This conference aims to bring together research and practice from creative, social and business practitioners and researchers in this challenging field. The focus of this conference is on design, development and evaluation of games, entertainment technologies and the nature of play.

* Format of the Conference
The conference will comprise of invited talks and oral presentations. The proceedings of the conference will be published in the form of a book and CD-ROM with ISBN, and will be available also in the IADIS Digital Library (accessible on-line).

* Best Papers
Selected authors of best papers will be invited to submit extended versions of their papers to selected journals (i.e. IADIS International Journal on Computer Science and Information Systems - ISSN: 1646-3692) including journals from INDERSCIENCE Publishers.

* Types of submissions
Full and Short Papers, Reflection Papers, Posters/Demonstrations, Tutorials, Panels and Doctoral Consortium. All submissions are subject to a blind refereeing process.

* Topics related to Game and Entertainment Technologies are of interest. These include, but are not limited to the following topics:

- Development methodologies
- Design issues
- Controversial issues - we welcome debate and dissension, for example; games as art, entertainment as purely for monetary returns etc
- Special Effects
- Animation
- Mobile and ubiquitous games and entertainment
- Serious Games and entertainment -applications, critiques
- Philosophical issues
- Prototypes
- Social and cultural uses of/for Play
- Tools and technologies
- Skills, strategy, rules and chance
- Genre
- Immersiveness and engagement
- Research methodologies in creative practice

- Usability and playability
- User/player centered design
- Psychological, social, and cultural differences in perception and participation
- Communities, networks, social interaction and social capital
- Cross-cultural and intercultural approaches
- Assessment of exploratory learning approaches
- Emerging practices


* Important Dates:
- Submission Deadline (1st call extension): 24 May 2010
- Notification to Authors (1st call extension): 14 June 2010
- Final Camera-Ready Submission and Early Registration (1st call extension): Until 30 June 2010
- Late Registration (1st call extension): After 30 June 2010
- Conference: Freiburg, Germany, 26 - 28 July 2010

* Conference Location
The conference will be held in Freiburg, Germany.

* Secretariat
IADIS Secretariat - IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE GAME AND ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGIES 2010
Rua Sao Sebastiao da Pedreira, 100, 3
1050-209 Lisbon, Portugal
E-mail: secretariat@gaming-conf.org
Web site: http://www.gaming-conf.org/

* Program Committee
Game and Entertainment Technologies 2010 Conference Program Chair:
Katherine Blashki, University of Sydney, Australia

General MCCSIS 2010 Conference Co-Chairs:
Piet Kommers, University of Twente, The Netherlands
Pedro Isaías, Universidade Aberta (Portuguese Open University), Portugal
Dirk Ifenthaler, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany
Nian-Shing Chen, National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan

Committee Members: *
* for committee list please refer to http://www.gaming-conf.org/committees.asp

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Article: iPad Virtual Worlds



Well, since the world is going crazy over the iPad, I guess I had to at least reference one article. Neat video here, from Techcrunch, of someone playing Crysis using the iPad as a thin-client, displaying the streamed output from a cloud rendered version of the popular game.

Now, I have just spent the last article I wrote, talking about needing to allow people to exchange virtual worlds as documents, to open up their usage in the light of unreliability of access to networking for cloud computing.

The above video makes me hope that we can have reliable high speed wireless networking everywhere, even in the basements of large buildings - I have had access problems at meetings in such dungeons. Such thin-client software opens up the possibility of using high quality virtual worlds on slower hardware as a video streaming device. Network speeds are high enough now that we can see the output from a virtual world system as a streamed video in real-time, thus cutting out the need for a powerful machine as a world client.

Seems this is the bees knees in Games at the moment, with new Game Cloud offerings from OTOY and OnLive. AMD is also working with OTOY on their technology, utilising the amazing capabilities of the cinematic quality LightStage system for real-time photo realistic rendering.

So, apropos of nothing. Does this move of games to the cloud, yet again show how Games and Interactive Entertainment is leading the development of new technology in IT? Will gamers and their insatiable thirst for content actually bring about the wide spread adoption of the new cloud technology? I wouldn't bet my house, but I might bet a few dollars, that a business technology is now going to be taken over by the Gaming field.

The motivation is that one of the biggest pains with new games, is the requirement for new hardware. With cloud forms of games, this hardware maintenance is left to the "Game As a Service" providers. You just buy a small interface client like an iPad for a few hundred dollars.

This is looking very, very disruptive to me.

Ross