Health And Safety

The next generation Sony Playstation will be able to sense a players mood and respond. The PS/3? will have an optical sensor built in for gesture and facial recognition. This is to permit affective game-design that detects and responds to players' emotional states.

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The Media Lab Europe has devised a way to help families who are in different parts of the world maintain a connectedness. The basic idea in Habitat is that by using RFID tags to create an awareness of the other person's daily routines, it will offer a sense of awareness and reassurance that they are virtually present. To accomplish this, objects and furniture were tagged with the RFID tags. So that "unique RFID tags are embedded in objects typically placed on coffee tables at each site, such as cups, plates, books, and so on. Placing these items on the table causes messages to be sent to the remote table, which displays a graphical representation of the objects. The system operates in both directions, conveying impressions of presence and activity around the coffee tables at each site."

In family relationships, awareness of daily cycles and routines (or more importantly, deviation from these patterns) is particularly important. Habitat explores the potential of using household furniture as a network of distributed ambient display appliances for conveying this kind of awareness between family members separated by a distance.

This is the way it should be...

"As a service to its registrants, The Society for Neuroscience has arranged with the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans to provide free, wireless Internet access at the Convention Center during Neuroscience 2003. Meeting attendees who wish to use this service should bring their own laptop computer, or PDA, with a wireless network card installed. Please be advised that technical support will not be provided. Users of the wireless network should read the disclaimer and the FAQ before accessing the network. We look forward to hearing your opinions on this service, and we hope it serves as a valuable tool during your time in New Orleans. "