The GI Direct for September 19, 2024

What's Happening at the GI

Welcome to the very first edition of the GI Direct! A bi-weekly newsletter that gives you some insight about what's happening at the GI including: new research updates from our members, GI research events, relevant external and UWaterloo events, and research opportunities that may be of interest to our community.

Whether you're a GI member from near or abroad or you want to follow along for all the exciting research in games, interactive, and immersive technologies, considering subscribing and checking out all that we have below that highlights the ongoing interdisciplinary research we support.

Research Updates

• The GI welcomed representatives from AMD, a global leader in advanced computing technologies. The delegation toured the GI facility, exploring GI labs and learning about ongoing research at GI.
• GI faculty member Dr. Igor Grossmann received a $1.5 million grant for his “Wisdom across cultures beyond traditional decision-making paradigms” interdisciplinary project.

The GI Podcast

The GI Podcast is available on all major podcast platforms and features a wide variety of emerging and established scholars from diverse disciplines. Check out this episode featuring the GI's Executive Director, Dr. Neil Randall !

• 045: Lord of the Rings and Adaptation with Dr. Neil Randall

Project Spotlight

For this week's project spotlight, we're spotlighting a project GI faculty member Dr. Oliver Schneider accomplished during his postdoctoral fellowship.

DualPanto is a new haptic device that lets blind users interact continuously with a changing virtual world rather than being restricted to relying only on audio cues. For blind users, continuous interaction means they can have more enjoyable play experiences with first-person shooting games and sports games.

DualPanto is built out of two haptic pantographs connected to handles. Users operate the me handle with one hand and hold the it handle with the other. The me handle represents the user, while the it handle represents something else, like an enemy. Encoders track the rotation and position of each handle so that motors can calculate the precise location of the avatar in the virtual world.

Learn more about the haptic device and its design.

Upcoming External Events

Check out the following UWaterloo events we've highlighted for our community.

1. Data Content Analysis and Visualization [ONLINE] September 20th, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm. Join Feminist Think Tank for the first workshop in their Feminist Data Training Series — Data Content Analysis with Pascale Dangoisse from the University of Ottawa and explore feminist approaches to analyzing data and uncover new insights. Register by completing the form.
2. Waterloo.AI and WIN Joint Symposium on AI for Materials Discovery [IN-PERSON] September 24th, 8:30 am - 3:40 pm. Join the "AI for Materials Discovery" symposium. Hosted by the Waterloo Data & Artificial Intelligence Institute (Waterloo.AI) and the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN), this event promises to be a landmark occasion for all involved in the fields of AI and Material Science. Register via Ticketfi.
3. Navigating Misinformation: Trust in Information in the Digital Age [ONLINE] October 3rd, 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm. A panel discussion in collaboration with GI member. Dr. Lai-Tze Fan and UWaterloo librarians on navigating social media and understanding the basics of large language models.

Research Opportunities

Get involved with some exciting research projects and opportunities we've highlighted for our community!

1. Disability Game Studies - GI Member Guiseppe Femia has put out a CFP for the scholarly collection Disability Game Studies. This CFP is seeking chapters that act as foundational texts for the different ways disability identity is being observed in gaming media while promoting disability and game studies research. Abstracts and author bios are due November 30th . If interested, email Guiseppe at [email protected]
2. ICA Game Studies: East Asian Gaming Fandoms Volume - Call for chapters for edited volume, scholars at any stage in their career encourage to submit, particularly interest is in interdisciplinary research drawing from methodologies in the humanities and social sciences. Abstracts are due November 15th. Contact editors [email protected].
3. 2024 Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute Annual Conference Call for Poster Presentations Annual Conference will be hosted on Thursday, October 10th, from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM. Posters may be in any format and there will be one prize of $1000 for the top poster. To submit a poster presentation for consideration, please submit an abstract (up to 200 words) to [email protected].

Member Testimonial

"The most exciting thing I ever saw at the GI was the first town hall. Someone called Neil Randall [Executive Director of the GI] said something about 'please play games. You are actually doing research by playing games.' And that was the most exciting thing I have ever heard. Having fun isn't a thing in Engineering. In my experience, people in Engineering are boring. So a professor asking people to play games was very novel to me." - Sahand Ajami , MASc 2024 Graduate

Where to Find Us

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Join the GI!

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