At various events Microsoft Research invites academic visionaries and industry leaders to share their insights. These speakers have been gracious enough to allow Microsoft to share these presentations with you.
| Title: | Tactical Iraqi - Teaching Foreign Language in an Immersive Computer Game |
| Author: | W. Lewis Johnson |
| Abstract: |
Tactical Iraqi is a computer-based, self-paced, learning program that in about 80 hours teaches English-speaking people totally unfamiliar with Iraqi Arabic how to speak enough to accomplish tasks and missions in Arabic. Tactical Iraqi quickly teaches how to communicate effectively with Iraqis in daily situations by providing sufficient knowledge and confidence in both spoken Iraqi Arabic and cultural nuances like gestures that are vital aspects of building trust in communication. It minimizes learners' anxiety; embarrassment and confusion by letting them learn and practice at the computer at their own pace. It’s game-like design keeps learners interested and motivated even after hours of intensive practice. |
| Title: | XNA Overview Presentation March 2006 |
| Author: | Microsoft Corporation |
| Abstract: |
XNA is a set of technologies Microsoft is building to help tame the costs and complexity associated with game development. This introductory session will provide an overview of XNA and describe how game studios will be able to use it to help manage their content creation and content builds . |
| Title: | XNA Build Advanced Presentation March 2006 |
| Author: | Microsoft Corporation |
| Abstract: |
XNA Build is Microsoft’s upcoming solution focused on game content pipelines and content builds. This presentation shows how XNA Build enables incremental content builds, dependency tracking, debugging and more. XNA Build can be customized to meet your unique requirements – whether you create a pipeline from scratch or adapt an existing one. |
| Title: | Building Better Places - Second Life, Collaborative Creation, and 5 Missing Pieces |
| Author: | Cory Ondrejka |
| Abstract: | Second Life is a digital world completely built and owned by its residents. Running on a distributed grid of over 1000 machines, Second Life allows residents to collaboratively create everything from their own bodies, structures, and vehicles to social groups, games, and experiences. Launched 2 years ago, Second Life boasts 40,000 customers, tens of millions of user-created objects and pieces of clothing, over US$2 million per month in internal transactions, a community built around learning from each other, and a phenomenal rate of innovation. Second Life, based almost entirely upon user referrals, maintains a steady 10% monthly growth. Through a demo, Cory Ondrejka will take you through the world of Second Life, explain the technology, economic, and community choices Linden Lab (the creators of Second Life) have made, and surface 5 important technologies that would make Second Life an even better world. |
| Title: | RAPUNSEL & CREOL - Games that Teach Kids to Program |
| Authors: | Mary Flanagan and Professor Ken Perlin |
| Abstract: | RAPUNSEL is an on-line computer game/learning system to enable children, especially underprivileged groups and girls, to learn to program computers. It is being developed by researchers at the Media Research Laboratory at New York University and TiltFactor Laboratory at Hunter College, New York. The goal of the RAPUNSEL project is to make a "self-teaching" environment, delivered as a Web-based service, where children are motivated to learn Java programming incrementally through a shared game. The program is currently targeted at middle school children, and the development team is working with middle school girls at local computer clubhouses as design partners. RAPUNSEL will enable many children across the country to play networked games with their friends, and ultimately create their own games through computer programming. CREOL is a more ambitious follow-on project with the following goals. In another generation: (1) everybody will know how to program; (2) nobody will need to learn how to program. The key innovation is to recast a subset of programming as a natural-language-like skill, and to impart that skill to children ages five through seven, while they are still in the age of rapid natural-language acquisition. A community of children will interact with an on-line simulated game world. Children make things happen in this world via a GUI that lets kids build sentences out of word and phrase tiles, using natural English syntax. The GUI restricts interactions to those that are understandable by a software parser. Children learn how to "converse" with a computer in order to get the computer to do things and to answer questions algorithmically. Children will carry this skill with them into secondary school and adulthood. The first children who use the system will intuitively enforce language rules that are easy and natural for children to learn, using their powerful innate natural language acquisition skills, in ways that we as adults could never explicitly design. The decisions made by these children will lead to a new "creole" - in this case a hybrid human/computer language - which can be picked up intuitively by other children. |
| Title: | Real-time Graphics Systems for 2010 and Beyond |
| Author: | William R. Mark |
| Abstract: | Current real-time graphics systems are based on Z-buffer technology, which is ill-suited to making the next steps towards real-time photorealism. These next steps require support for effects such as indirect illumination, partial transparency, and reflection. Ray tracing technology can overcome these limitations, but traditional ray tracing systems have shortcomings of their own including difficulties with dynamic scenes, inadequate support for geometric level of detail, awkward interfaces to interactive applications, and poor performance. In this talk I will describe a new system design for a ray tracer that is targeted at overcoming these limitations. My collaborators and I are currently in the midst of implementing this new system. Combined with ongoing advances in raw computational performance, we believe that this system will allow ray tracing to replace the Z-buffer in commodity real-time rendering markets in 4-8 years. I will also discuss the implications of this new system design for hardware architectures, with a focus on the need for hardware architectures to support the creation and traversal of irregular data structures. To support the claim that it is possible for hardware to efficiently support operations on irregular data structures, I will present results from an architecture evolved from current GPUs that supports the construction and traversal of linked lists. We have simulated this architecture and shown that it supports a useful extension to the Z buffer algorithm at real-time frame rates. This is joint work with Gordon Stoll, Don Fussell, Greg Johnson and others. |
| Title: | Repositioning Computer Science: Increasing Diversity and Creativity in CS Education |
| Author: | Robin Hunicke |
| Abstract: | Decreased enrollment in Computer Science has led many universities, businesses and government institutions to take a closer look at the field and how it is perceived. As computers become increasingly essential for education and commerce, how can we shape their image within the popular culture? Is it possible to re-invent CS, and to attract new students with diverse backgrounds, goals and talents? In this talk I will present a post-mortem of my (non-standard, but incredibly fulfilling) education in CS, AI and video games. I will describe my experiences with art and computer science education, standardized and self-guided curriculums (undergraduate and graduate alike). I will discuss my dissertation research and explain how working closely with the game development community has inspired my research and informed my practice as a student and educator. Finally, I will explore my work with the IGDA's Education Committee, and show how games are transforming CS programs across the globe. By describing this work in the context of my own experiences, I hope to shed some light on the issues raised above. In particular, how games and CS can work together today, to attract the designers, programmers and leaders of tomorrow. |
| Title: | Trends of Gaming in CS and Industry |
| Author: | John Nordlinger |
| Abstract: |
I work in Microsoft
Research, External Research & Programs.
I have a background in the overlapping
areas of Philosophy and Computer
Science. In the 80’s that meant Logic.
Today it seems more about ethics. My
role at MSR is to reinvigorate Computer
Science.
Computer Science in the United States is seeing a huge drop in enrollment for both men and women. In a hope to reverse that trend and keep computer science exciting, Microsoft is looking at how computer gaming can make the curriculum more compelling while still teaching necessary and fundamental computer science skill like data structures, compiler design, graphics, performance and, now more than ever, communication. The RFP I managed has seen amazing interest world wide and we now moving forward with funding of some of the great programs. I also promote the rising trend in Serious Games, whether for health (Your!Fitness, DDR) or language training (efforts like Northwestern Univ. recent adoption of EQ2 in their foreign language dept and USC’s Tactical Iraqi.) I would talk about the rising computer game industry, opportunities in CS, and the relevance of one to the other. The value to attendees would be to hear where Computer Games and Computer Science is going, where they could be going and, perhaps, where they should be going. The conversation may drift to other areas where Computer Science might be invigorated – whether with robotics or social computing or some unforseen venue.. |
| Title: | Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture |
| Author: | T.L. Taylor |
| Abstract: |
In Play Between Worlds,
T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming
life as it is lived on the borders, in
the gaps--as players slip in and out of
complex social networks that cross
online and offline space. Taylor
questions the common assumption that
playing computer games is an isolating
and alienating activity indulged in by
solitary teenage boys. Massively
multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in
which thousands of players participate
in a virtual game world in real time,
are in fact actively designed for
sociability. Games like the popular
Everquest, she argues, are fundamentally
social spaces.
Taylor's detailed look at Everquest offers a snapshot of multiplayer culture. Drawing on her own experience as an Everquest player (as a female Gnome Necromancer)--including her attendance at an Everquest Fan Faire, with its blurring of online-and offline life--and extensive research, Taylor not only shows us something about games but raises broader cultural issues. She considers "power gamers," who play in ways that seem closer to work, and examines our underlying notions of what constitutes play--and why play sometimes feels like work and may even be painful, repetitive, and boring. She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don't fit the narrow stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And she explores the questions of who owns game space--what happens when emergent player culture confronts the major corporation behind the game. |