Gamers, game designers, and parents: "Mortal Combat", a documentary by Spencer Halpin about the game violence debate is worth watching -posted here.

Spencer Halpin's documentary, Mortal Kombat, discusses the debate surrounding about the content of video games, as well as issues such as the video game industry's drive for profit, artistic freedom, "pushing the envelope", and the impact of video games on society. The video is about 85 minutes, but worth watching if you are a gamer, parent, teacher, game designer/ developer, or academician.

One of the reasons I think the discussion in the video is important is that in 2010, more people are playing games on large high-definition displays, providing an enhanced sense of immersion. I'm not sure what the consequences of this trend might be.

Caution:  There are some scenes in this video that might be offensive/violent, and others that would not be appropriate for children.


Here is the description of this video from the Babelgum website:

"Moral Kombat takes a look into the controversial subject of violence in video games. Director Spencer Halpin shows the constant conflict between the game creators' first amendment right to make a violent game and the eminent threat that violence poses on the next generation. In addition, the film is full of the latest green screen and high-definition technology that allow watchers to actually envision the world of gaming. Filled with interviews from lead game designers, politicians, parents, and psychologists, this film provides a candid take on the influence games have on youth today."



Thanks to Henry Jenkins for providing this link.

Elastic Creative, Delphi Productions, GestureTek, & the Metronic HRS multi-touch table and wall

I came across this on the Elevating Interactivity blog:
Medtronic HRS Conference Tables & Walls -Elevating Interactivity, 11/10/09

Elastic Creative and Delphi Productions collaborated to create the Metronic HRS multi-touch table and wall application.  The hardware system was by GestureTek.

Medtronic is a medical technologies company that has been around for many years. Some of their projects include the Activa deep brain stimulation therapy used to treat Parkinson's disease and other conditions, pain management therapies, and more.






Here are the videos:




Medtronic HRS 2009 Multitouch Table from Elastic Creative on Vimeo.

SOMEWHAT RELATED
The following is a video featuring Elastic Creative's work with Colardo Creative for Immersion, a company that creates systems and technology that integrates touch feedback into products, including medical simulators used in training physicians for minimally invasive surgical techniques.

Immersion Brand Video from Elastic Creative on Vimeo.

BBC Video about Immersion's medical simulation application:



Elevating Interactivity's 6 Levels of Interaction

Last night I dreamt about haptic touch-screen overlays...

Technology Dreams
I just haven't had enough time during the day to focus on my passion for interactive technology. I wish I could grab a picture from my dream about haptic overlays and share it here on my blog!   To make sure this technology wasn't only in my dreams, I decided to google "haptic overlays", and here are some of the results:

Future Directions for Tactile Feedback (Peter Odum, Idlemode, 1/23/09)
"Current tactile solutions fall short either in reconfigurability or in pre-interaction feedback...And it’s easy to provide a physical sensation after the user interacts, but not to provide buttons that can be physically felt *before* the interaction is committed."

Some of the work regarding haptic or tactile feedback has focused on smaller screens and virtual reality:
Vinyl overlay for tactile feel on iPhone NES emulator
More Details on Nokia Haptikos Tactile Touchscreens
Haptic Overlay Device for Flat Panel Touch Displays (pdf)
Touchscreen Feedback Overview
Team Daimler-Chrysler Touch (pdf)
The Twelfth Haptic Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems 2004
Patent: Method and apparatus for multi-touch tactile touch panel actuator mechanisms
Benali-Khoudja, M., Hafez, M., Alexandre, J., Kheddar, A. Tactile Interfaces: A State-of-the-Art Survey (pdf) ISR 2004, 35th International Symposium on Robotics

Here is the concept in the form of a "wearable" design:

The surface of this design looks very much like the overlay material that I was working with in my dream, except that the grid-sensors were the same translucent color as the overlay. (I was trying to program this overlay in my dream, but that is another story!)


Here is some technical information about these little haptic finger overlays- with a little tweaking, they could be transformed into something really cute...

"The key material to the display is an electroactive polymer that can stimulate the skin without using any additional electromechanical transmission. The polymer consists of eight layers of dielectric elastomer actuator films which have been sprayed with electrodes in a specific pattern. Along with a protective layer to separate the electrodes from the skin, the entire polymer sheet is about 210 micrometers thick. In their study, the researchers fabricated an 11 x 14 mm sheet with Velcro on the edges, and rolled it up in the shape of a thimble to be worn on the finger. The display can convey information to the wearer when the electrodes induce a voltage across the films. A voltage causes the films to compress down and expand outward. In doing so, the films put pressure on the wearer’s skin, inducing a “mild sensation.” Like most polymers, the device is hyper-elastic, meaning that it can experience large amounts of elastic strain and recover its original shape.This simple stimulation mechanism, which doesn’t require complex electronics, is one of the greatest advantages of the soft tactile display compared with current displays. Its other benefits include efficient power usage, cost-effectiveness, and easy fabrication. As the researchers note, the new display has lower power and displacement values than is considered optimal, which may limit its applications to specific areas"

The Search Continues...

This journey led me to Nokia's "Morph", a device using nano-materials, something I think I posted about a while ago in one of my blogs. (This video reminds my of some of my more vivid technology dreams. It must be nice to be paid to transform technology dreams into prototypes and demonstration videos!)

The Video:

"Launched alongside The Museum of Modern Art “Design and The Elastic Mind” exhibition, the Morph concept device is a bridge between highly advanced technologies and their potential benefits to end-users. This device concept showcases some revolutionary leaps being explored by Nokia Research Center (NRC) in collaboration with the Cambridge Nanoscience Centre (United Kingdom) – nanoscale technologies that will potentially create a world of radically different devices that open up an entirely new spectrum of possibilities."

More haptic/tactile feedback touch interaction:

Nokia's Haptikos Touch Screen Handheld Web Browser

Immersion's Touch Screen: Mimics feel of real buttons
How it works:

Immersion's Fitness Market Brief (pdf)

UPDATE 7/4/09
Apple is working on this sort of thing, in a way. See my recent post:
Haptic/Tactile Feedback for the iPhone? MacRumors says, "YES!"

Dreams about haptic overlays: Part Two: Bridging the gap between virtual and physical controls on tabletops.