World Cyber Games Ireland Lan

The World Cyber Games are coming to Ireland for the first time in September 2006. The World Cyber Games is the world’s first ‘Cyber Games Festival’ designed to build a healthy cyber culture. The best gamers from around the world will gather in different cities to share the excitment and fun of the games tournament.

Since 2000 more than 70 countries have participated in Grand Finals in 5 countries across the world. This years Grand Final takes place in Monza Italy from 18th – 22nd October 2006.

The Irish Heats to send participants to Monza will take place from 23rd – 24th September 2006 at The Digital Hub.

To register please visit http://www.room101.org

Computer Flight Simulator And Aviation Show

Ireland s only combined Computer Flight Simulator and Aviation show will be held on
Sunday 1st October 2006
Red Cow Hotel, Naas Road, Dublin.
10.00am to 5.00pm

This is Ireland’s second combined Computer Flight Simulator and Aviation Show which will have exhibitors from the Irish, UK and European Flight Simulation community and exhibitors from the Irish Aviation community.

The purpose of the event is to promote Computer Flight Simulation as a hobby in the context of the wider aviation interest.

Aviation fans will have the opportunity to fly the new version of Microsoft Flight Simulator (FSX), watch demonstrations of flying on the Internet with live virtual Air Traffic Control (who will be at the show), and fly in our home built cockpit. You can see and try, various PC Pilots Ireland member’s computer setups for using Microsoft Flight Simulator.

There will be presentations from Flight Simulator and Aviation groups and screenings of Aviation Videos in the seated Presentation Theatre.

Visitors will be able to enter a free draw to win copies of Microsoft Flight Simulator, and other PC Flight Simulation software.

Microsoft Flight Simulator will be on sale, along with additional software (Aircraft and Scenery) for use on Microsoft Flight Simulator, plus Joysticks, Throttles, Flight Control Yokes, Rudder Pedals.

Alpine Systems specialise in building PCs to suit your needs, be it for Flight Simulator, Office, or Home.
Experts will be available to give advice on suitable home computers, graphics cards, joysticks, control yokes, rudder pedals, etc.

Aviation Clubs & Societies

Want to share your interest in aviation with other enthusiasts? Talk to the Aviation Society of Ireland at the PC Pilots Flight Simulator Show.
The National Aero Club of Ireland (formally the Irish Aviation Council) is the aviation umbrella organisation in Ireland will be in attendance.
If you’re looking for a dedicated Irish aviation magazine, ‘Flying In Ireland’ is Ireland’s only dedicated aviation magazine.

PC Pilots Ireland

Information will be available ‘PC Pilots Ireland’ and their magazine ‘PC Flight’.

Entrance fee is ?5.00

For a full list of exhibitors log onto www.pcpilotsireland.com

IT&T Conference

The 6th annual IT&T Conference is being held in the Institute of Technology, Carlow on October 25-26.

A new addition to this year’s conference are technology workshops. One of the workshops is entitled “The Future of Games Development in Ireland” and will feature a moderated panel discussion on the topic, with some of the leading names in gaming in Ireland, including Steven Collins, Havoc and TCD; Tony Kelly, Nephin Games & President of IGDA; Aidan Keogh, Logitech; Will Golby, PopCap Games International; Sean Blanchfield, DemonWare & Ross Palmer, IT Carlow.

The conference will also feature technical sessions on Games and Entertainment Technology and poster sessions.

Further details are available on the conference website www.ittconference.com where a call for posters is currently open.

Computer Games For Disabled Or Underrepresented People

Games development is perhaps one of the least explored areas of accessible design. A new aesthetics theme at the upcoming 9th International Computer Games Conference to take place in Dublin from 22nd to 24th November 2006, will provide an opportunity for contributors to address a broad range of questions in the emerging area of accessible computer games design.

The overarching theme will aim to provoke lively debate on the question: How can the aesthetics of game design lead to the making of inclusive games and for gaming experiences coloured with play, beauty, engagement and interaction?

In the context of computer games, much attention is paid to the visual and auditory elements of design that make a game fun, intriguing, challenging, educational, or whatever designers and users intend, most often from a seeing world perspective. This exciting new theme encourages designers, practitioners, researchers, and others with an active interest, to share perspectives on game design that overstep the boundaries of traditional approaches in designing for people who are blind or partially sighted, as well as for others with special (dis)abilities. This session will offer participants a unique opportunity to specifically examine possibilities for creating accessible games for visually impaired gamers in a cross-disciplinary setting.

The event is enveloped in an aesthetic theme to address the important questions emerging about how to make the most out of opportunities to design in a really inclusive way. For example:

What can sighted designers learn from designing games for blind people or for people with other special sensory abilities or difficulties?

Can design of video-games be made accessible or should design of computer games be totally reinvented for blind or disabled people?

What can we learn from examples of design for disabled people?

Examples of design of computer games for disabled or underrepresented people.

How can an awareness of aesthetic issues open up new avenues for computer games design?

What is the role of aesthetics in the design of accessible computer games?

The session is equally open to contributions on the aesthetics of games design and accessible games design that take an analytic or a more speculative approach. Contributions will be accepted based on originality and relevance to the theme and can be based around work in progress (deadline is 20th September 2006).

For more information please visit the conference website http://www.comp.dit.ie/cgames/index.html or contact Sal Fiore salfiore@wlv.ac.uk or Qasim Mehdi q.h.mehdi@wlv.ac.uk

Computer Science And Illusion Talk

“Computer Science and Illusion: A Computational View of the Interpretation and Manipulation of Images”

A presentation by Prof. Andrew Blake, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research Cambridge.

7:30pm Wednesday 6th September
Ernst Walton Theatre
Arts Building, Trinity College Dublin

Please visit: http://isg.cs.tcd.ie/ for more details.

Presentation Abstract

The Interaction, Simulation and Graphics (ISG) Lab in Trinity College Dublin, in association with Microsoft Ireland, are delighted to announce a seminar by Prof. Andrew Blake of Microsoft Research in Cambridge. Prof. Blakes’s lecture, “Computer Science and Illusion”, will explore some connections between visual perception, geometry, and computer processing of images. It will touch on: perspective in drawings and how a computer can understand it; analysis of perspective in certain paintings; perspective and stereo vision; colour illusions and Edwin Land. Finally there will be demonstrations of how the understanding of visual perspective, colour and texture has helped to produce more powerful tools for manipulating images by computer.

Speaker Biography

Andrew Blake is a Senior Researcher in the Machine Learning and Perception Group (MLP), where his main research focus is computer vision. Andrew graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1977 with a BA in Mathematics and Electrical Sciences. After a year as a Kennedy Scholar at MIT and two years in the defence electronics industry, he studied for a doctorate at the University of Edinburgh, which was awarded in 1983.

Andrew ran the Visual Dynamics Research Group as faculty of the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford from 1987-1999. He became a Professor in 1996, and was a Royal Society Senior Research Fellow from 1998-1999. Andrew then joined Microsoft Research Cambridge as Senior Researcher in the Vision Group within MLP, though he continues as visiting Professor of Engineering with the University of Oxford. Andrew was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2005. In 2006 the Royal Academy of Engineering awarded him its Silver Medal. Andrew has published several books including “Visual Reconstruction” with A. Zisserman (MIT press), “Active Vision” with Alan Yuille (MIT Press) and “Active Contours” with Michael Isard (Springer-Verlag).