Serious Games Supporting Cooperative Exchange Of Digital Media

by on 17 September, 2007 - 22:14

Via: Interactive Multimedia TechnologyLynn Marentette states that there are numerous interesting applications developed by university researchers that haven't come to market. Part of the problem, she thinks, is that most of the world isn't yet ready for these innovations. Things seem to be changing a bit, so she is currently highlighting some promising projects from the recent past that warrant revisiting.

Serious Games as a communal interactive vehicle

Dynamo is a "communal, multi-user surface for sharing and exchanging digital media", according to information from the project's website.Dynamo is a situated display system, normally configured to use two large, publicly visible wall displays. Dynamo is multi-user. This means that each user has their own pointer on the communal display. This may be via their own laptop, tablet PC, or via wireless mice & keyboards provided.Dynamo is designed for installation in community spaces: tese are the kind of places where people cross paths and often come to socialize and interact informally.Dynamo supports a range of activities, from asynchronous 'noticeboard' type activities to synchronous 'show, tell & share' activities. Dynamo allows people to interact together. This means that traditionally solitary activities like browsing the web can become sociable group activities, where you sit together and share a big screen, on which you can click into each other's windows and give each other links.

"The idea is for it to be installed in public community centers, like cafes, bars, libraries and other places where people get together and share experiences, but usually only have lightweight technology on them - like mp3 players and digital cameras.Dynamo allows people to plug-in these personal devices via USB2, and place files onto the wall by drag and drop (e.g. music, photos, videos, office docs or live web-pages) via it's multi-user UI."The project was a joint effort between the Mixed Reality Lab at Nottingham University and the Interact Lab at Sussex University.

Original post: http://elianealhadeff.blogspot.com/2007/09/serious-games-supporting-cooperative.html