Bye HTML5 and Quickr, Welcome Xpages and Vulcan

So where one project end another begins, I have developed some nice features for Lotus Quickr like HTML5 upload (same as Google has for Gmail), nice facebook-like chat using web-sockets and other nice (mostly GUI) features. But its over.

And where saga ends, saga begins.

So here we go for Xpages extension library and project Vulcan, what seems to be also nice things to be working on.

OpenCV issue

So quick one post. If you are getting OpenCV error:
warning: error opening file (c:\user\vp\ocv\opencv\src\highgui\cvcap_ffmpeg.cpp:452)
where is the problem?

There could be 2 main causes:
1. You need to have build highgui WITH cv_ffmpeg, but before rebuilding check:
2. You dont have resources in right directory.

For Visual Studio (I am using 2008) it is directory in which is your .cpp file, but of course if you have build it and want to run it, it is also directory where is your .exe file, so debug or release directory, depending on what are you building.

I hope this helps.

More on computer games PhD

Hello mr. reader.

So application for ITU Copenhagen done. It was pretty much fight to get everything on time, but there is not too much bureaucracy. We will see how it will go. Btw. I have combined topics 2 and 3 from previous post and submit them. looks pretty good.

But not to bet always only one horse, I have decided also to post more applications. Currently it will be University of Waikato. And here are research topics I am proposing (as topic for research):

1. Persuasive games and public gameplay : Company called MegaPhone [1] recently present their technology, which allows for people play computer games using their mobile phones just in the middle of the street. This technology has been used widely in marketing, which is by nature persuasive. Until now, there was no study about use of this technology specially in persuasive games. It is really interesting to explore what is people attracting to this kind of games and factors as public presentation or physical aspect, which brings difference between classic multiplayer games and MegaPhone games. Also, because this is pretty different way of presentation of game, design challenges and decisions are pretty different, so this is another nice topic about which one can think. So here are few basic questions, on which I would like find answers in work on this topic: How can public games influence players behaviour? What are design challenges for combination of public and persuasive games? How to design successful public game? What are main differences between design of classic casual multiplayer games and public multiplayer games? Are public games suitable only for casual games? How can be public persuasive games used in other areas (marketing, public opinion research, education)? How to use public games for education (use of serious games)?

More generally about persuasive design and technology, there are some young conferences about this topic [2] [3], so here it is observable, that this topic is becoming interesting for scientific community.

Megaphone provides free developer program, in which I participate now and I believe that they would appreciate cooperation in this area, so I can can contact them and create university+industry link.

2. Brain-Computer Interface and adaptive gameplay : Adaptive games are nothing new in computer games research, there is plenty of publication by many institutions and also there are IEEE and ACM conferences on this topic. Pioneer in this are was ITU Copenhagen Centre for Computer game research [4]. Currently research is done all over the world including Sydney Australia, Concordia Canada, Bergen Norway, Georgia Tech USA and many others. Most of papers use for "adaptation" direct player feedback or indirect variables, such as player success in the game.

BCI is existing for a long time, but it is really young area and there is not too much commercial use of it. Most advanced product is [5], which is one I would like to use in my work. First papers about combination of BCI and computer games are only from last years (09-10). And none of them is actually discusses their combination with adaptive gameplay.

This is more experimental topic and open questions are not so clear, but some can be stated: How can be BCI used for adaptive games? Should be BCI used only as passive element, or should player be able also to influence gameplay through it? What is the right metrics to measure player satisfaction with BCI? What challenges are in design of adaptive games with BCI? Can use of BCI during early prototyping of game give results, which can lead to better design of final game?

But except wide theoretical study, purpose of this research will be create actual game, which is using BCI to adapt.

[1] http://www.playmegaphone.com/index.php

[2] http://www.persuasive2010.org/

[3] http://designforpersuasion.com/

[4] http://game.itu.dk/index.php/about

[5] http://www.emotiv.com/