Metazoa Ludens: Amazing New System Allows Humans to Play Computer Games with their Pets
Singapore - Apr 27, 2007 (PRN):
Ever wanted to play computer games with your pet hamsters? For the very first time ever - now you can! Metazoa Ludens is the first revolutionary entertainment system showcased in Wired Fest 2007, L.A., USA, which allows you to play computer games with your pets! Being the only group in Singapore to showcase in Wired Fest, Mixed Reality Lab of Singapore is proud to present to you Metazoa Ludens: the first system that allows you to play computer game with your pet (in this case hamsters)!
With over 50,000 attendees witnessing the game at Wired Fest, the most prestigious innovative innovation event of the year, Metazoa Ludens breaks through the boundary, emerging as the first in the world to allow owners to not just play computer games with their pet hamsters locally but online over the Internet.
So are you ready to play more than just running wheels with your hamsters? Are you looking forward to more than just watching your hamsters running a running ball across your room? With Metazoa Ludens you can now interact with your pet hamsters in a highly technologically advanced manner, bringing your interaction with them to an even more enriching and endearing level!
The pet hamsters are placed within a tank above a highly elastic surface. A movable attractor entices the pets into a chase while the elastic surface is constantly being molded by actuators below, changing the terrain while giving it an organic biomechanical feel. Camera then scans the movements of the hamster and sends it back to the virtual gaming world. These movements are then translated to a corresponding movement of pet avatar running across an ever-changing virtual terrain. The pet owner on the other hand controls a human avatar in the virtual gaming world whose main aim is to prevent her from being caught up by the giant pet avatar. Unbeknownst to all this, movement of the human avatar is then sent to the movable attractor. The movable attractor moves as the owner moves her human avatar trying to get away from the pet avatar chasing behind. This thus moves the attractor away from the chasing pets in the real world. Two related but separated realities are thus merged by a common virtual interface giving a mixed reality game that forms the basis for the computer game-play between human and their pet hamsters. This unique way of playing computer game by merging separate real world realities at two different but related situations together through a virtual interface as the linkage would therefore give rise to a whole new way of mixed reality human-animal interaction.
Technology has always been improving the ways we do things; Metazoa Ludens is yet another of such revolutionary system that brings human-animal interaction to a digital level. Such revolutionary interactivity as exhibited by Metazoa Ludens may bring about whole new experiences benefiting both the pets and owners thereby molding the future of the relationship between pets and humans.
About Mixed Reality Lab – Mixed Reality Lab is a research centre in Singapore led by Professor Adrian David Cheok. The centre works on research covering interactive media, mixed reality, human-computer interaction, wearable computers and smart spaces, fuzzy systems, embedded systems, human power electronics, and multi-modal recognition with the main aim of combining interactive media, arts and technology. The research output has included numerous high quality academic journal papers, research prototype deliverables to DSTA, numerous demonstrations including to the President and Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, CNN / CNBC / National Geographic / Discovery television worldwide broadcasts, and international invited new media exhibits such as Ars Electronica, Wired Festival More details can be found at the website at http://www.mixedrealitylab.org.
About Adrian David Cheok (http://www.adriancheok.info) has worked in both Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (Osaka, Japan), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and National University of Singapore (NUS). He is currently Director of the Mixed Reality Laboratory (http://www.mixedrealitylab.org) and an Associate Professor in the National University of Singapore where he leads a team of over 20 researchers and students. He has been a keynote and invited speaker at numerous international and local conferences and events. He is invited to exhibit for two years in the Ars Electronica Museum of the Future, launching in the Ars Electronica Festival 2003. He is Associate Editor of the ACM Computers in Entertainment and Associate Editor of Journal of Virtual Reality and Scientific Advisor of Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting. He was IEEE Singapore Section Chairman 2003, and is presently ACMSIGCHI Chapter President. He was awarded the Hitachi Fellowship 2003, the A-STAR Young Scientist of the Year Award 2003, the SCS Singapore Young Professional of the Year Award 2004, the Life Time Fellowship of World Technology Network in 2004. In 2004 he was invited to be the Singapore representative of the United Nations body IFIP SG 16 on Entertainment Computing and the founding and present Chairman of the Singapore Computer Society Special Interest Group on Entertainment Computing. In 2004 he was invited to be the Singapore representative of the United Nations body IFIP SG 16 on Entertainment Computing and the founding and present Chairman of the Singapore Computer Society Special Interest Group on Entertainment Computing.
Roger Thomas Tan is a PhD research scholar in the Mixed Reality Lab in Singapore. His works have been published on several conferences and journals such as: LASTED, ICUTE, SWITCH, Sketches SIGGRAPH and more. His works include the Biotherm Homme and Lancome flash presentations which help won 1st runner-up for the Nanyang Technological University Team (Singapore), beating numerous other countries, in the Annual International L'Oréal Marketing Awards (now known as Brandstorm) held in Paris, June 2004; the Studio Line flash presentation used by the National University Singapore Team in the Annual Brand Storm 2005 held in Paris, France, June 2005; the design and development of the online flash game for the internationally acclaimed Singapore International Racing Festival and the Singapore Airlines International Cup held in Singapore, May 2006; the video presentation for MICA to showcase Singapore in the Global Leadership Forum on Economic and Cultural Development held in San Jose, USA, August 2006; the online Sudoku flash game for Brand’s Sudoku Challenge launched in STOMP, Straits Time website, March 2007 and more. On the Press/Media side, his works on Metazoa Ludens have been reported on The Straits Time (Singapore), Wired News, News Scientist Tech and more. Currently his research interests are in the area of human-computer interaction, human-pet interaction and digital interactive media with a focus on digital entertainment and computer games.
For more information, contact:
Dr. Adrian David Cheok
Mixed Reality Lab
National University of Singapore
Email: metazoa@mixedrealitylab.org
Website: http://metazoa.mixedrealitylab.org
Website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx9Ovw5RaLU
