As Dr. Phil would tell you, one of the most meaningful parts of interaction is what you don't say. At last week's Supernova 2006, Michael Zyda from USC Gamepipe Lab shared some exciting technology around game interfaces . USC has created a pair of glasses that contain very small biosensors that reveal your mental state. More specifically, these glasses can tell whether or not you are engaged in the game.
Zyda put on an unnerving demonstration of an avatar that blinks when you blink, runs out of breath when you do, is able to create escape routes if you are able to "focus hard enough," etc. For a more complex, first-person shooter game, a biometrically-enabled setup can track how much adrenaline is in the player's system as a result of fear, thereby impacting the shooter's performance in the game.
In a learning environment, this same technology can inform educators on whether or not a student is engaged and paying attention. With increased awareness, an instructor can adjust the lesson to make sure that students are continually engaged in the learning process, rather than checked out. If Zyda is right, learning (or nefariously, brainwashing) could be a huge application for these feedback systems.
As cool as this biometric feedback loop is, unknown variables remain a factor. As Zyda called out, once you've got sensory data, you can measure the disengagement of a student in a learning environment, but you can't yet account for environmental and emotional variables. e.g., is the person not paying attention because the instructor is weak, or because he or she had a fender-bender on the way to class?
After Zyda's exploration of the real, Philip Rosedale from Linden Lab shared a view of Second Life that users of Linden Lab never get to see - a robust view of this virtual world with everything full rendered, in thick and bustling detail. (Disclosure note: Omidyar Network is a funder of Linden Lab.) Rosedale brought the audience into Second Life via the projector screen, and toured both a scale-model space flight museum built by hobbyists for the community to enjoy, and a virtual planetarium that a high school science teacher had put together for his students. Second Life is trying to be about more than partying until dawn as a pink flying donkey - instead, Rosedale sees the emergence of a new medium that can be adapted by users in any way that they want.
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