http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn10655&feedId=online- news_rss
Backseat virtual reality entertains passengers Movie Camera An in-car gaming system that creates an interactive game corresponding to a vehicle's real-world route could keep passengers entertained on long journeys, say Swedish computer scientists. It turns passing sights like forests, buildings and rivers into locations for in-game characters and events. The Backseat Playground consists of a GPS receiver, a handheld computer and headphones, all connected to a laptop in the trunk of the car. The laptop uses the GPS data to maintain a three-dimensional model that keeps the car correctly positioned within the virtual world. A database of geographical information is used to match events in the game to suitable locations. Players interact using the handheld computer. The game begins with a radio newsflash, relayed by the handheld computer, which places a passenger at the start of a murder mystery or a werewolf thriller. As the car travels along its route, the player receives further phone calls and walkie-talkie messages from characters in the game. Like a novel Although the game is largely audio-based it can easily draw players in, says John Bichard, who created Backseat Playground with colleagues Liselott Brunnberg and Oskar Juhlin at The Interactive Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. "It's like a novel," Bichard explains. "We are trying to suggest spaces and places and events and have the user fill in the gaps to build a narrative." A video explains the system and shows two children testing out a prototype (13MB, MP4 format). For now, the game only works over an area of 35 square kilometres in Stockholm. "We are doing an evaluation of the prototype at the moment to test how people respond to the game," Bichard says. Initial feedback has been positive, and the team would like to add voice recognition to the set-up. "Being able to talk directly to the characters would be great," he says. "This is a very interesting way to deliver content," says Rob Aspin, a researcher from the Centre for Virtual Environments at the University of Salford, UK. "It can create a high sense of presence and interaction while hiding most of the technology from the user." Aspin adds that attempts to implement analogous visual systems using augmented reality (see 'Augmented reality' glasses tackle tunnel vision) have been hampered by the fact the resolution of GPS tracking is limited to around a metre. "Objects appear to drift, which is very disorientating to the user," Aspin says, though he believes this could be solved in the future. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TELECOM-CITIES Current searchable archives (Feb. 1, 2006 to present) at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Old searchble archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
