EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Award 2008 (11)

Quality Seals (continued)

In this last posting of the mini-series EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Award 2008 I present the last entries which were awarded a Quality Seal by the jury.

Category: Mobile Content

Title: Tourality – Move Your Mobile!
Producer: Jonas Soukup, Klemens Zieptnig (Austria)
URL: http://tourality.com/

Title: Museum of Canterbury Digiguide
Producer: Elisabeth Valentine

Title: Makai – Just Colour up!
Producer: Christian Kandler, Melanie Friedrich, Marion Dandl, Christina Rotter, Katrin Graff (Germany)
URL: http://makai.fh-augsburg.de/

Category: Interactive Computer Graphics

Title: Dead on Arrival Interactive Control
Producer: Matthew Gibson, Geoffrey Gaviria (UK)
URL: http://www.dead-on-arrival.co.uk/

Title: The Eighth Day
Producer: Arnis Locher (UK)
URL: http://www.eigthdaynovel.com/

Category: Interactive Installations & Interactive TV

Title: PhotoGraphics
Producer: Alexander Koenig, Sebastian Schmidt, Daniel Müller, Florentin Steiner, Regina Demmel (Germany)

Title: Hannu’s Footsteps – Media Design for the Nature Photo Exhibition
Producer: Brnni Antti, Teemu Maikkola (Finland)
URL: http://www.hh-projekti.fi/

Title: Reflections
Producer: Peter Berezhansky, Aleksei Golovy (Israel)

Title: SARoskop
Producer: Martin Hesselmeier, Karin Lingnau
URL: www.martinhesselmeier.com/saroskop

Title: Between Blinks & Buttons
Producer: Sacha Pohflepp (Germany)
URL: http://www.blinksandbuttons.net/

Category: Digital Video & Animations

Title: A Thread of Reality
Producer: Stuart Dyson, Mike Hole, Martin Darby (UK)
URL: http://www.atreadofreality.com/

Title: He Didn’t Eat the Icecream
Producer: Michael Muik, Viktoria Wöss

Category: Content Tools & Interface Design

Title: INTOI – Interchange of Ideas: Digital Flipchart
Producer: Claudia Oster, Michael Hurnaus, Verena Lugmayr, Jürgen Oberngruber, Christian Schafleiner (Austria)
URL: http://intoi.net/

Title: icPoint – Interactive Night Sky Observation
Producer: Michael Dobis, Vladimir Hlavacek, Michael Jajcaj, Dusan Lamos, Linh Hoang Xuan (Slovakia)

Title: amCharts
Producer: Antanas Marcellonis (Lithuania)
URL: http://www.amcharts.com/

This posting concludes the mini-series on the EUROPRIX Multimedia Top talent Award 2008. For more information go to the site. There is a printed catalogue of the competition; for more information: contact the EUROPRIX Top Talent Office c/o International Center for New Media, Moosstr. 43a, 5020 Salzburg (Austria); office@europrix.org; t: +43.662.630408.

Blog Posting Number: 954

Tags: multimedia competition

EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Award 2008 (10)

Besides the nominees, the category winners, the overall winner and the special jury distinction, the competition of the EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Award offers Quality Seals. These seals recognises projects and products that are considered highly innovative and creative by the international experts of the EUROPRIX Top Talent Jury. Overwhelming was the level in the category Broadband/Online with 15 quality seals. In this posting no extensive description is offered, but just a mention of the project. These Quality Seals projects are worthwhile to be researched, especially by digital media students and companies.

Category: Braodband/Online

Title: Project Gobelins Community
Producer: Samy Germaine, Pierrick Vanneau, Theophile Kalumbu, Thomas Dudon, Adrien Havet (France)
URL: http://multimedia.gobelins.fr/~crma2007-pl/

Title: Website for the Tilt Design Studio
Producer: Marc Antosch, Dominic Buenning, Ralph Heinsch, Felix Schultze, Guido von Marientrue (Germany)
URL: http://www.tiltdesignstudio.com/

Title: sperlinge.com
Producer: Martin Sperling
URL: http://www.sperlinge.com/

Title: Degree Show catalogue 2007
Producer: Paul Michalet (UK)
URL: http://newton.sunderland.ac.uk/~degreeshow2007/catalogue.html

Title: medialib
Producer: Leo Lanksford (UK)
URL: http://www.medialib.co.uk/

Title: mezzanaie – elevating your creativity
Producer: Julian Morency, Jack Steven (UK)
URL: www. mezzanaie.com

Title: Wikifonia
Producer: Thomas Bonte, Tom Deryckere, Benoit Catteau, Nicolas Froment (Belgium)
URL: http://www.wikifonia.org/

Title: Hello Staffordshire
Producer: Serim Abboushi
URL: www.serim.me.uk/heliostaffs

Title: Crimeface
Producer: Andrew Lim, Krishna Stott
URL: www.crimeface.net/interactive/inter.html

Title: Virtual FH
Producer: Max Brandl, Hannes Moser, Philipp Strahl
URL: http://virtualfh.multimediaart.at/

Title: The Batana House
Producer: Vladimir Koncar, Ozren Crnogorac, Gorjan Agacevic, Vedran Kolac, Aljosa Mohorovic (Croatia)
URL: http://www.batana.org/

Title: The Last Breath
Producer: Martin Brian, Claire English, Seamus Kavanagh, Ciaran Finnegan, Carmel O‘Callaghan (Ireland)
URL: http://www.thelastbreath.com/

Title: Balcony TV
Producer: Stephen O’Regan, Tom Millett, Pauline Freeman (Ireland)
URL: http://www.balconytv.com/

Category: Offline/Interactive DVD

Title: Multimedia Historic Bratislava
Producer: Peter Borovsky, Milan Ftaanik, Andrej Ferko, Martin Samuelaik (Slovakia)
Media format: DVD

Title: Bodmas’ Brain Buster
Producer: Joseph Waghorn (UK)
Media format: CD-Rom

Number Blog Posting: 953

Tags: multimedia competition, interactive DVD

EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Award 2008 (9)

The EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Award is selected from amidst the category winners. This year the category winners were:
- Broadband/Online: WorldABC (Austria)
- Mobile Contents: Where to climb (UK)
- Games: Hide n’Tag (Israel)
- Interactive Computer Graphics: Kayakpaddling.net (Finland)
- Interactive Installations & Interactive TV: Performative Ecologies (UK)
- Content Tools & Interface Design: Strip mine (Slovenia)
- Digital Video & Animations: Life-Line (Hungary)

The discussion about the over-all winner of the EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Award 2008 in the jury was extensive. It is difficult to choose between an arty entry like Life-Line and innovative entry like Performative Ecologies. Eventually the majority of the jury went in favour of the entry Where to climb by Luke McSorley. Besides the technical and mobile aspects of the entry, the social networking aspect scored highly: climbers can provide information for other climbers and they can form special interest groups around particular mountains. Jury representative Silvia Adriana Ticau, a former Romanian stet secretary and presently member of the European Parliament, wrote the laudation:
Mobile phones are increasingly becoming tools for multiple purposes. In the very near future we will see them providing many useful services. Where to climb is a brilliant example of this. It is easy to use and has a very appealing interface. The content features are incredibly thorough and practical. It is possible to introduce new pictures, design paths to climb and add detailed information about each route. This service has an excellent potential to expand. Where to climb will naturally attract the climbing community as well as tourists to Britain.

Remarkable was the Special Jury Award for Social-Consciousness in Multimedia. The DVD The Big Brother State was a nominee in the category Digital Video & Animations. However the entry had more than just technical merits and a laudable format. Big Brother State was one of the first multimedia pamphlets with a political message. A quote from the jury report:
The Big Brother State sets a trend not primarily associated with multimedia - political opposition. It shows how new uses of technology and content can deliver a message in a new medium which is contemporary and attractive enough to appeal to an audience who just do not react to traditional mainstream political debate anymore. This digital animation proves that new media has the power to set ethical debate. The Big Brother State has a big social conscience. It brilliantly sets an agenda by combining stunning visuals with a clear political message. Its content and outstanding technical execution make it stand out from its peers.

Blog Posting: 952

Tags: Multimedia competition

EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Award 2008 (8)

Category: Digital Video & Animations

The category Digital Video & Animations looks for serial stories and new virtual worlds using digital technologies in innovative ways. Digital Video & Animations is a favourite category as is clear from the number of entries: 68 entries from 16 countries. From the overwhelming number of entries three nominees were selected:
- Life-Line
- Lovelines
- The Big Brother State.
The winner in this category is Life-Line.

Title: Life Line
Producer: Tomek Ducki (Hungary)
URL: http://www.tomekducki.com/
Life Line is an animation film that visualises how the decisions people make influence their journey through life. Playing on the theme of a boy-meets-girl story, the paths of the characters in this tragic love story almost cross but they never meet. This digital animation uses two visual metaphors that show two characters learning the hard way the ropes as well as the nuts and bolts of modern, industrial life. A bunch of cogs and wheels turn into two human-like figures who might be two potential lovers skating along weaving paths. As they skate across straight lines that slice up and down the white screen. The sense of space in 2D creates room for interpretation. Viewers are asked to consider the consequences of the paths these characters choose.

With the recent generation of computerised animation flooding our screens, Life-Line creates a magic world through its highly skilled animation technique and beautifully rendered graphics. These few minutes remind us of our own fragility but they also remind us of the beauty and creativity that true artists can bring to us through the screen. Its poetry not only draws on the mechanic imagery of cogs and wheels on thin and fragile paths, but also on the lines of life that look so very familiar. These might be the very same lines that lead us to glide and dance, to fall and fail.

Title: Lovelines
Producer: Max Brandl, Yusuke Akamatsu (Austria)
Media format: Digital video
Lovelines visualises a love story within a song. The tale has a unifying melody but is composed of two parts – one representing him, the other representing her. “He” is the bass line; “she” the treble as played on an acoustic guitar. The combination of the bass and treble represents the union of music and the relationship itself. The music quickly weaves together as their relationship develops into a colourful, rich and unified song. One moment the music is impulsive, the next it is melancholy - which is then related to the visuals of this animation and to the twists and turns of their relationship.

In a world of commerce, traffic and conflict, Lovelines is a tale that magnificently captures the beauty of growing up and falling in love. It ignites the viewer’s memories of cherished moments in their own life. The storyline can be immediately appreciated by the viewer. Lovelines captures the sensitive and affectionate side of anyone since the theme is universal – falling in love. Finding new ways to express such universal experiences is a creative feat in itself.

Title: The Big Brother State
Producer: David Scharf, Johannes Berner (Germany)
Media format: DVD Pal
In protest to the increasing amounts of supervision of our personal lives by Closed Circuit TV, data collection and phone tapping, The Big Brother State is the modern digital equivalent of a political pamphlet. The flash-based documentary-style animation presents blacked out city structures and traced outlines of people contrasting them with funky urban graphics of the communication network people live in. Viewers are placed in the role of surprised home-owners, flashing a torchlight on their own home, only to find out that they have been ‘bugged’ by the state. The animation raises the question –is everybody who uses communication networks also a suspect in a police state?

The Big Brother State is an outstanding example of the way young talents can independently make a complete film production by themselves. Acting as the scriptwriter, designer, animator, composer and editor, the producer has proven that new media change the old media. The tools of techno-culture can act as a weapon and this film shows its audience how dangerous technical solutions might be since they can be used to compromise the right to privacy.

Blog Posting Number: 951

Tags: multimedia competition

EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Award 2008 (7)

Category: Content Tools & Interface Design

In the category Content Tools & Interface Design the jury looks for powerful content tools, content management systems and technological innovatioons concerning new ways in interface design. The category attracted 29 entries from 14 countries. The nominees in this category were:
- Strip mine
- Totem
- OpenStudio
Proclaimed as the winner in this category is Strip mine.

Title: Strip Mine
Producer: Andraz Tori, Bostjan Spetic (Slovenia)
URL: www.rtvslo.si/odprtikop
The computer knows how to read but might never understand what it is reading. Faking that understanding gives users the possibility of eventually making web-content interactive. Strip Mine is a content intelligence platform that automatically generates web-pages for television shows. It combines television subtitles with video streams and turns content into attractive, logically structured web-pages. The content is searchable, quotable and playable in segments. The advantages are that texts from television programmes, in this case specially selected Slovenian television shows, can be found using common search engines. Therefore, previously 'hidden' video content becomes discoverable. Exact quotes can be easily embedded into blogs and forums for authoritative debate. Information is then further hyperlinked to Wikipedia for its educational resources. Strip Mine therefore offers an interwoven way of viewing television content.

Strip Mine is a fine example of a new trend in broadcasting and video archives. While the BBC in the 1980s still typed all the texts of BBC World into the Datasolve database for professional use, micro chunking effortlessly generates much more complex text data for target groups such as bloggers and forums as well as the internet community. A simple text search and tap on the video key will bring up the relevant fragment of a current affairs programme. Strip Mine is a fantastic resource!

Title: Totem
Producer: Jennifer Bernier, Aurélie Schwartzmann, Emilie Guelpa, Mathias Roumy, Vincent Perrier Perery, Alexis Lorin (France)
URL: www.projet-totem.fr
Totem is an interactive installation that allows users to leave different post-it notes including drawings, photos, videos, texts on an easy-to-use touch screen monitor in the home. Totem makes it easy to share messages, ideas, feelings and to-do lists with the people you live with. An alerting device also emits a soft coloured light and a pleasant melody every time a user receives a message. Messages can be tagged, organised and stored on screen or in the archive. A fingerprint reader allows users to quickly log into their fully customisable personal space. The display and sound effects evolve according to the constantly updated weather, time and temperature information received via a wireless connection. Rich media messages can also be sent or received to the system via a mobile phone.

Overall, the jury felt that this project demonstrates a novel use of an interactive interface for everyday communication between family members or other groups of people living together. It mingles high technology with the best of personalised messaging in a compelling and emotional manner. The archiving potential also means that it acts as a digital memory of everyday life. Although Totem offers solutions that replicate what people can do already with basic items, it could easily act as a more important focal point for a family than the home television or PC.

Title: Open Studio
Producer: Oded Babayoff (Israel)
URL: http://odedbabayoff.com
Creative people tend to live in their own minds and operate out of their bedroom studios. Breaking out of these self-imposed restrictions is intimidating for designers used to protecting their creative juices. Open Studio brings talent together by acting as an online project management tool. The web application combines the classic tools from the design world – brainstorming, concept boards, project briefs – and places an emphasis on transparency in the creative process as teams work together. Designers can simply take their work anywhere, consult others and discuss their ideas with colleagues or clients. Changes can be online in real-time.

The target group of this application are graphic designers – people who have their own peculiarities, specific terminology and personal creative patterns in the design workflow. Even their culture and how they interact with their colleagues is quite different to other professions. The jury felt that Open Studio is a unique application that really supports the specific project management needs of designers from start to finish. It follows the trend of offering specific tools and solutions for particular communities and their problems

Blog Posting Number: 950

Tags: multimedia competition

EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Award 2008 (6)

Category: Interactive Installations & Interactive TV

The category Intercative installations & interactive TV searches for contents for new platforms and fully digitised environments with high level of interactivity. The category attracted 40 entries from 13 countries. The nominees selected were:
- Performative Ecologies
- Interactive Television Polling
- Alien Action
And the winner in the category is Performative Ecologies.

Title: Performative Ecologies
Producer: Ruairi Glynn (UK)
URL: http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/
Performative Ecologies is a multimedia installation consisting of autonomous kinetic light sculptures which are capable of learning and communicating within a larger network. It examines the potential of responsive environments to engage in non-verbal communication and conversation. The sociable sculptures search and orientate themselves to face people in a room. Each head has a night vision camera on board transmitting to custom-made facial recognition software, designed to detect attention levels of human beings. Genetic algorithms enable the autonomous objects to learn how to attract and keep the audience’s attention. As the system learns, it adapts its behaviours and modifies its movements and lighting strategies for the next performance.

This project is about a new kind of digital ecology, one that invites action and reaction; proposition and response. The surprising thing is that not people but flying objects lead the dance. In a whimsical symbiotic interaction intelligence is shared and poetically amalgamates human kinetic experience to provide a new kind of computer-human relationship. Performative Ecologies is fabulously engineered and actually inspiring. The technology suggests that built environments could, to some level, learn how to provide more effective functional services such as environmental control or security beyond the visions of the original designers.

Title: Alien Action
Producer: Dominic Bünning, Ralph Heinsohn (Germany)
URL: http://www.alien-action.com/
Alien Action exploits that digital dome projection is being installed in more and more locations worldwide, spreading from expo booths to special event installations. It tells the story of an invasion by extraterrestrial fighting robots and interactively projects cutting edge 3D animation and digital video onto a dome-shaped screen. The result is a bitter fight for supremacy. Each chapter in the narrative exploits a different media - 360° music video clips are followed by tense animation or humorous radio scenes. The audience is asked to shoot down the invaders in the manner of interactive video games by using a joystick. Inspired by science-fiction, Pop Art and music entertainment, Alien Action is ultimately an interpretation of the fantasies about space invasions as technology progressed through the last century.

The installation is a unique presentation of new media, combining state-of-the art 3D video animation techniques with seamless digital videos which are projected onto a semi-sphere shaped "canvas". Non-stop action and latest technical innovations in 3D real-time graphics places it definitely in the entertainment front, regardless of the generic plot concept. The producers are among the first wave of pioneers who have actually found a practical application of this new technology. It sets a great example for the aspirations of other ambitious producers – particularly since 3D graphics are becoming the leading technology in graphics creation and representation.

Title: Interactive Television Polling
Producer: Sam Hassan (UK)
Media format: ITV application
Interactive Television Polling provides an easy-to-use iTV interface and allows viewers to express in real time their opinions on the programmes they are watching, without the need for additional technology such as a telephone or the Internet. Quantitative and qualitative data are instantly gathered and presented. Commentators or presenters can utilise the information collected from the system in order to focus the current or future broadcasts on the viewers’ interests. The user interface is operated by the television production team and allows questions, messages and statistical information to be sent to the users. The iTV interface is operated by a digi-TV remote control and keyboard, allowing the audience to view and respond to questions or change the camera angle and audio commentary.

Within the context of recent scandals involving falsified interactive opinion polling using premium rate telephone numbers, Interactive Television Polling provides a compelling tool to re-establish credibility for published results using a traditional red button interactive TV interface. This system has been developed for the London 2012 Olympics. However, it could be utilised for other broadcasts since its use is not limited to sporting events. For example, reality shows could ask the audience for polls, game shows could allow viewers to play along at home, or news programmes could easily collect public opinion on current events.

Blog Posting Number: 949

Tags: multimedia competition

EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Award 2008 (5)

Category: Interactive Computer Graphics

In the category Interactive Computer Graphics Visually explosive contents are expected, transforming reality and seducing users into virtual worlds of cyber world narratives. In this category 22 entries from 11 countries were received. The jury selected:
- Kayakpaddling.net
- Mijn Naam is Haas
- The Secret Forest.
The entry Kayakpaddling.net was the winner in the category.

Title: Kayak Paddling
Producer: Niko Hakkarainen (Finland)
URL: www.kayakpaddling.net
KayakPaddling.net offers fully animated interactive tutorials for open water paddlers. Traditional learning materials only use text and still images to describe exact body movements in paddling. This slows considerably any learning progress. This website speeds up learning by introducing step-by-step lessons which fully visualise everything from how to get into a kayak and how to paddle in safety to how one can perform successfully an Eskimo roll. KayakPaddling.net also irons out the bugs that can disrupt the e-learning experience. The website is completely scalable so it can be used with monitors of varying sizes. The image quality is automatically selected according to the processor speed. Users can easily flip back to the previous pages by using the browser’s back-button without interruption. All instructions can be printed out on a separate html-page.

This project is a fantastic example of how to develop high quality multimedia resources for teaching sports. As an interactive presentation of a difficult sporting activity, it succeeds on many levels. Design-wise, its presentation is great. It has even sociological and anthropological significance. Finally, its impressive e-learning potential combines an understanding of cognitive psychology and clever computer engineering. KayakPaddling.net breaks down the communication barriers that hinder understanding by linking human-human and human-computer language

Title: Mijn Naam is Haas
Producer: Sanneke Prins, Thijs C. Aarts, Judith Bardoel, Douwe-Sjoerd Boschman, David Hartono, Berend Weij (The Netherlands)
URL: www.mijnnaamishaas.nl
Mijn naam is Haas follows the journey of a young male hare who suffers from amnesia - the only thing he remembers is his name: Haas. He begins his journey and has no idea of what he is searching for in what seems an almost endless but wonderful world. Told piece by piece over seven levels, the user guides the hare through the story by experimenting with the mouse and ‘drawing’ solutions for his problems – for example, making a path to walk on, or a ladder to climb a steep hill. During his journey, Haas meets many animals with specific problems that resemble learning components. The difficulty of the problems that Haas faces depends on the skills of the child.

Mijn naam is Haas has an intuitive interface which helps children to quickly tune in to the story and their role. Interactivity and computer graphics add an immersive dimension to the basic story that compellingly engages the target audience. The game asks children to test their inventiveness and rewards them by linking their progress with the progression in the story. Mijn naam is Haas is successfully being used to improve the language skills of children for whom Dutch is a second language.

Title: The Secret Forest
Producer: Otto Ritter, Judit ERdelyi, Zoltan Fritz, Levente Szucs, Nikios Mandrei, Mate Nagy, Rita Domonyi, Orsolya Sipos, Elmore Forat, Attila Szabo, Peter Erdelyi (Hungary)
Media Format: DVD
Mixing the wondrous world of a fairy tale with the narrative urgency of a crime story, The Secret Forest takes the user into an enchanted world that has been horribly disturbed. The gardens of the forest are ruined and the user has to help the story’s hero, the Little Count, solve the mystery by visiting all the inhabitants of the forest. Through intuitive navigation, the users simply point and click on the various delightfully animated characters and objects that they encounter to progress. The Secret Forest proves that much can be achieved with flash techniques, standard animation software and a small production team.

There is a shortage of new high-quality interactive fairy tails on the market. The Secret Forest helps to fill this gap brilliantly. While the interactive narrative offers far from total control over the story, the users do feel the sense that they are part of an imaginative realm. In this respect, the interactivity is pitched well and at the right level for a younger audience. This captivating interactive animation can be recommended to any parent or grandparent looking for reliable entertainment for their child.

Blog Posting Number: 948

Tags: multimedia competition

EUROPRIX MUltimedia Top Talent Award 2008 (4)

Category: Games

In the category of games the jury looks for pulsating contentswith high speed interactions, highly involving and giving a rush to users.This category received 27 entries from 10 countries. The jury selected:
- And Yet IT Moves
- Hide n’Tag
- xFace Games.
In the category Hide n’Tag was the winner.

Title: Hide n’Tag
Producer: Michal Ferber (Israel)
URL: www.hidentag.com
Make the web your playground! Hide n’ Tag updates the classic childhood game of “Hide and Seek” and takes it into the interactive online world. The web game adds to the experience of surfing the internet and enables users to address the web as a playground, a physical space in which they need to find hiding-places. The game is played on websites according to the group's interests – easily arranged by creating and choosing tags. The thrill of Hide n’ Tag comes from the sense of excitement of being the hunter or hunted as users track down the Hiders or Seekers. The Hiders place hints on the links they click on while the Seekers have to try to follow their path.

Hide n’ Tag stands out as a highly innovative multiplayer game and it is a fantastic example of taking an available idea and finding a new way for everyone to enjoy it. The jury particularly enjoyed its uniqueness, implementation and how it brings a new purpose to web surfing. Users can find endlessly clever ways of teasing their pursuer by testing whether they see the same mental link between the websites as others do. It is therefore a great way to introduce new websites to friends. The game will be compelling for the age group of 7-12 years. Fresh gaming concepts are rare and Hide n’ Tag certainly delivers.

Title: And Yet it Moves
Producer: Felix Bohatsch, Christoph Binder, Jan Hacki, Peter Vorlaufer (Austria)
URL: www.andyetitmoves.at
Cut loose from the physics of everyday life! And Yet It Moves takes a fresh approach on solving puzzles. Gamers must rotate the displayed screen and flip the graphic environment 90 degrees clockwise or counterclockwise in order to make their way through a cave and out of the jungle. Gamers must solve fiendishly tricky puzzles by walking on the ceiling or on the walls in order to move loose objects out of the way – without trapping or killing themselves! The character is a mere hand-drawn figure that crashes to the ground and reassembles if it falls. The more skilful a gamer rotates the terrain, the higher he or she ranks on a virtual leader board.

For over a decade we have run, jumped and flown around screens with hundreds, perhaps thousands of games. And Yet It Moves is different. This game moves for us! After getting over the shock of loosing my sense of gravity, I easily learned that I could negotiate this whimsical terrain in new and surprising ways. This possibility of conquering physics and overcoming its limitations by rotating the screen to move across the paper-like crags is a most liberating way to play computer games..

Title: xFace Games
Producer: Jakob Leitner, Adam Gokcezade (Austria)
www.officeoftomorrow.org
Xface Games combine the interactivity of table-top surfaces with rich social interaction to create two exciting games which use wireless pens for fast strategic action. xFace PenWars is a real time strategy game where two players can draw tanks using the pen-interface in order to compete against the opponent's units. Players receive only a certain amount of digital ink which affects the number, mobility and power of the tanks created. To win, a player has to carefully consider the properties of the opponent’s tanks in connection with the route they can choose to attack an enemy’s base. xFace Comino is a collaborative game for four players who have to solve puzzles using virtual and real domino blocks and custom-built physical interfaces in order to complete the different levels. Using the wireless pen-interface and special tangible menus, players can ‘draw’ lines of virtual domino blocks in order to connect the first domino block with the last one. Virtual domino blocks can also cause real domino blocks to topple over!

The trend towards table-top surface computers is beginning to be commercially viable and xFace Games take a refreshing approach to using this format for fun, interaction and team-building. xFace Comino is extremely clever and creative, clearly illustrating how the individual environment of working or playing at a computer screen could be revolutionised by these table-top surfaces. Overall, the application of the concepts of the game to the technology is impressive.
Blog Posting Number: 947

Tags: games, multimedia competition, virtual domino

EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Award 2008 (3)

Category: Mobile Contents

The category of mobile contents deals with innovative contents and applications using the potential of compact, mobile and communication-intensive platforms focusing on new multimedia solutions. 26 entries have been entered from nine countries. The jury selected the following three nominations:
- Where to climb
- Consumer gadget
- CHEFi
The entry Where to climb won the category award.

Title: Where To Climb
Producer: Luke McSorley (UK)
URL: www.lukemcsorley.oxyuk.net
Where to climb is a community website which addresses climbers with personal and up-to-date advice on climbs all over Great Britain. Users can view practical guides and update them or even contribute to the collection and add new routes. Mountaineers are invited to discuss routes with fellow climbers, look for partners and see who is climbing what. Once the guide is downloaded onto a mobile phone climbers can conveniently take the information into the mountains and follow the combination of images and route descriptions. After the climb, users of mobiles are able to update their online logbooks, add on the website current climbing conditions and check for any other updates. Users can also exchange new climbs or crags and share their personal logbooks and grant their permissions.

Where to climb has considerable value due to the social sharing of information produced by users. In addition, it might save the lives of climbers who are in trouble. It will be the reality of the coming years that mobile phones will be used to improve the life of citizens, to diversify the ways to reach needed information and to create communities based on shared information. We consider Where to climb to be an exemplary project of strategic importance for the future of mobile services. It is fantastically well-implemented and really sets an example to its peers.

Title: Consumer Gadget
Producer: Wesa Aapro, Anu Aapro, Jaakko Vasankari, Karl Tuhkanen (Finland)
URL: www.consumergadget.org
Consumer Gadget aims to be the ethical consumer's new best friend. Consumers make most of their buying decisions based on advertisements or on habit. Only a few have the time or patience to research a product's ecological footprint or the manufacturer’s working conditions. This is where Consumer Gadget intervenes. It presents ethical facts about consumer products. Just use the barcodes and you have the key to that information. The information model comprises undisputable facts and ethical information. Consumer have three possibilities at the cash register: the can scan the barcode using the mobile phone’s camera or the can searching the website online or on their mobile phone or send a short message text back with the EAN or UPC code. An affiliated organisation recruits volunteers to seek out additional products, gather their barcodes and ensure that the information researched and provided is accurate and reliable.

The idea of Consumer Gadget is a very clear and elegant one. Its use is not limited to ethical values associated with products, but can easily be extended to customer reviews in general, best-price-data, or dietary information. I am convinced that such an interface between the real world of products and Web 2.0 will be one of our everyday tools in a few years. While there are very similar projects going on in the commercial world (e.g. Project Aura from Microsoft Research), it is impressive to see how Aapro Wesa competes against the big guys on a tiny budget.

Title: CHEFi
Producer: Igor Ginzburg (Israel)
URL: www.chefi.net
CHEFi is an interactive cooking instructor which aims to make an expert cook or ‘chef’ out of anyone. After downloading the software onto your mobile phone, a virtual chef will guide you through even quite complicated recipes using real time voice interaction. CHEFi uses text to voice technology which translates written recipes into easy to understand spoken orders for the gastronomically challenged. Step by step you are lead in your cooking. An accompanying website hosts social networking features that aim to create a young community that will upload and share recipes, make friends and help each other to learn how to cook. Popular searches, the recipe of the day as well as leading chefs are also highlighted online.

Cooking recipes have been a favourite topic on the Internet for years. But using a technological solution in the kitchen has never caught on, something CHEFi addresses in an innovative fashion. The concept is simple and effective and has more potential than electronic cookbook recipes which have to be shown on a monitor or be printed out. The project is professionally presented and is, at this stage, a very promising work-in-progress which could definitely have significant market impact.

Blog Posting Number: 946

Tags: mobile content, multimedia competition

EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Awards 2008 (2)

Category: Broadband/Online

The category Broadband/Online is about all web and Internet contents and applications, especially those showing the potential of broadband experience demonstrating high interactivity, global connection, real-time and streaming media, and up-to-date communication. In this category 53 projects from 18 European countries entered. In the category Broadband/Online three entries were nominated:
- Sobieski Party planner
- Townkings
- World ABC
World ABC was selected as the category winner.

World ABC
Company: VS Ortnergasse 4
Country: Austria
URL: http://www.weltabc.at/
World ABC is a collaborative web-project of grade school children who under the direction of their teacher invite users to see and hear how different cultures call in their languages objects of everyday life. The pupils recorded their pronunciations in their first or second languages – including German, English, Serbian, Turkish and Kurdish. What emerges is a panphonetic collection and an online multilingual encyclopaedia. World ABC helps users to appreciate the wonders of other languages and cultures. Additionally, they are encouraged in Web 2.0 fashion to submit to the editors their own images, word suggestions and voice recordings. Made for children with contributions by children, World ABC focuses on the beauty of how different languages have a unique or similar word for the same things.

World ABC is a very effective social learning project for young children. One can imagine very well its usefulness for children to appreciate other cultures and to see learning another language as enjoyable and worthwhile. As such it could become a community tool, helping to build relations between pupils, their families and teachers. Its innovative openness to contributions means that it also has fantastic potential to grow.

Sobieski Party planner
Company: Gaumina Ltd
Country: :Lithuania
URL: http://www.partyplanner.lt/
SOBIESKI Party Planner is an online events calendar. Aimed specifically at advertising club events sponsored by the vodka brand in Lithuania, users can plan their social life by selecting from a list of the coolest places in the capital city off Vilnius. Users can select events and then invite their friends via email to join them by quickly creating a movie flyer with their friend’s face pasted on a disco character. Does your friend dance like Dima, with his vain good looks, or body-pop like 20 cent? Is she like Pinky, the girly girl, or the mysterious goth Blackie? Simply upload a photo to watch their disco alter egos throw outrageously clichéd dance moves!

Mixing brand recognition with viral marketing, SOBIESKI Party Planner is a fresh way for advertisers to target a youth market that is not responding to traditional advertising anymore. What particularly attracted the jury’s attention was the use of Web 2.0 features which create a compelling participatory environment for this website’s target audience. The highly innovative use of personalised music video messages is a simple gag, but also a highly effective way of getting people interested in the site’s services – and the vodka brand. The web site executes its viral advertising strategy brilliantly.

Townkings
Company: Supreme NewMedia GmbH
Country: Germany
URL: http://www.townkings.com/
The Internet has broken down the distances between people worldwide. Finding and sharing information is fast and effortless. People now live in a global village. But how do they find the girl-next-door type? Do they even know who lives next door? Townkings is the first social community website which is based on where people live on a map. Users simply enter as much detail as they wish about themselves and then build up a network according to their needs. Users can find people with the same interests, search for love or post an event and organise their social life. Skype is fully integrated as is a user-friendly messaging service in this inviting and vibrant portal. Rather than living in an anonymous virtual world, Townkings lives off real life.

This is Web 2.0 at its best! Townkings offers a platform and allows users to expand it into a growing online community. What is unique about Townkings is that it is based on city maps. While the world becomes more global day by day, the most relevant contacts remain local. Mothers can ask other mothers for help or find company for the playground nearby. Fitness-fanatics could find a buddy for jogging who lives around the corner. It is easy to imagine that Townkings might lead to a huge, helpful database of people who live next to each other in a city, district or street.

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Blog Posting Number: 945

Tags: multimedia competition, broadband, online

EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Awards 2008 (1)

The dust has settled after the EUROPRIX Top Talent Awards Gala in Graz (Austria). And the excitement has faded away. It is now time to scrutinise the 21 nominees over the next seven days. What are the entries about and what the creativity, innovation or trend is. In this posting I will present the framework of the EUROPRIX Top Talent Awards. The EUROPRIX Student’s Award was initiated in 1998. The competition was part of the EUROPRIX, an multimedia industry competition. Besides the categories for companies and institutes, there was a category for students of multimedia departments. That part of the competition was completely in the hands of students. They had there own jury to judge the entries. When the EUROPRIX was discontinued in 2001, the student’s competition was turned into a competition for young talents up to 30 years and rebranded as EUROPRIX Top Talent Award in 2002. Over the past ten years the EUROPRIX Student’s Award and its successor EUROPRIX Top talent Award has proven itself to be the first and only pan-European competition, as can be seen by the entries per country:.

Austria 22
Belgium 4
Bulgaria 8
Croatia 6
Cyprus 2
Czech Republic 5
Denmark 1
Estonia 4
Finland 7
France 16
Germany 32
Greece 4
Hungary 7
Ireland 21
Israel 11
Italy 8
Latvia 5
Lithuania 14
Malta 2
Netherlands 9
Poland 6
Portugal 3
Romania 7
Slovakia 9
Slovenia 5
Spain 1
Sweden 4
Switserland 3
Turkey 2
United Kingdom 50

The EUROPRIX Top Talent Award’s main aim is to give recognition to the most outstanding new talents using ICT for creative contents and innovative applications in Europe. The awards are dedicated to promoting young talent and finding those producers who could and in some cases already have become leading innovators in the future. The contest and the festival showcase and demonstrate innovation and imagination.

1998-Born with a broken tongue; Martin Casey (Ireland)
1999-Learning the mouse with Burbie Rocket; Graham Mitchell (UK)
2000-Rund um dem Domhof in Bremen; Jussi Steudle, Kristjan Krisjansson, Christiana Matthäi Boris Müller (Germany)
2001-s/He’ll survive; Daniel Sauter, Pepe Jürgens (Germany)
2002-Last FM; Thomas Willomitzer, Felix Miller, Martin Stiksel (Austria)
2003-Non violence project; Camille Sautel, Aurélien Coimet, Hélène Meneuvrier, Nicolas Rakotoary (France)
2004-DVD-Maxi Edelwis Müller Juicy Panic; Pauline Thomas, Christine Delaquaize, Clément Dozier, Charly Meignan (France)
2005-Guitar Shred Show; Mika Tyyskä (Finland)
2006-Outerspace; Markus Lerner (Germany)
2007-Where to climb; Luke McSorley (UK)

In the coming days I will post the nominees per category in the following order:
- Broadband/Online
- Mobile Contents
- Games
- Interactive Computer Graphics
- Interactive Installations & Interactive TV
- Content Tools & Interface Design
- Digital Video & Animations
I will be drawing on the print catalogue (see illustration of the cover on top), which is published by ICNM – International Center for New Media.

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Blog Posting Number: 944

Tags: multimedia competition

Academic Network Conference 07 (3)

Yesterday, by noon, the Academic Network Conference at the FH Joanneum campus was over. Many subjects had passed and perhaps too many presentations given. Yet the moderator and timekeeper Cai Melakoski kept close to the schedule. In the afternoon the participants of the Academic Network had been invited to join the nominee teams of the EUROPRIX Top Talent Award Winners 2007 for their presentations of the projects in the Kunsthaus (see photograph).

This is a programme item I always look forward to. And some presenters are not just giving you insight into the project, but give also a hilarious presentation, just like the guys (see photograph), who produced Lovelines. Being a German (Deutscher) and a Japanese (Japaner), they started to interview each other, in the meantime telling details about their project. It was a riot.

And the team of one of my favourite projects in the category Interactive Computer Graphics named Mijn Name is Haas (My name is hair, a Dutch expression for Do not ask me, I do not know anything nor have I seen), a playful game for young children to learn words and get computer literate, had not only come with a fine presentation, but they had also brought, a life size puppet of the hair (see photograph).

By the en of the presentations the nervousness among the nominees could be sensed. Bets were placed by some people that attended the presentations. The project Mijn Naam is Haas scored high to become a category winner. But the teams had to wait till the late evening for the EUROPRIX Top Talent Award Winners 2007 Gala. The Gala was held in the hall of an old, restored monastery with beautiful baroque paintings on the walls and ceiling.

By 20:00h the Gala started and enfolded the list of winners. There were surprises and disappointments. Mijn Naam is Haas sadly did not make it to the winners’ list and was surpassed by the production Kayak peddling. By 9:30h all the category winners were known and the suspense fo the overall winner started to become felt. And the overall winner of the tenth edition of the EUROPRIX Top Talent Award is: Where to Climb, anwell crafted mobile site for climbers with social network elements such as the formations of groups climbing certain mountain and passing on the tips and tricks..

List of EUROPRIX Top Talent Award Winners 2007

Category: Broadband/Online
Title: WorldABC
Producer: Christian Schrager
Country: Austria
URL: www.weltabc.at

Category: Mobile Contents
Title: Where to climb
Producer: Luke McSorley/Staffordshire University
Country: UK
URL: www.lukemcsorley.oxyuk.net

Category: Games
Title: Hide n’Tag
Producer: Michal Ferber/Shenkar College
Country: Israel
URL: www.hidentag.com

Category: Interactive Computer Graphics
Title: Kayak Paddling
Producer: Niko Hakkarainen/Lahti Polytechnic
Country: Finland
URL: www.kayakpaddling.net:

Category: Interactive installations & Interactive TV
Title: Performative Ecologies
Producer: Ruairi Glynn/Bartlett School of Architecture
Country: UK
URL: www.interactivearchitecture.org

Category: Content Tools & Interface Design
Title: Strip mine
Producer: Andraz Tori, Boatjan Spetic/RTV Slovania
Country: Slovenia
URL: www.rtvalo.si/odprtikop

Category: Digital video & Animations
Title: Life-Line
Producer: Tomek Ducki/Moholy-Nagy University
Country: Hungary
URL: www.tomekducki.com

Special Jury Award
Title: The Big Brother State
Producer: David Scharf, Johannes Berner/FH Augsburg
Country: Germany
URL: DVD Pal

Blog Posting Number: 933

Tags

Europrix TTA 2007 nominations

The nominations of the EUROPRIX Top Talent Award have been published. The list and screen shots are available online. As a juror I can now talk freely about the nominations (but I can not say anything about the winners). Of course anyone can go through the list for him/herself and look at the entries and links, but I just show my personal preferences.

In the category Mobile Contents is the most hilarious entry CHEFi Interactive Cooking Guide from Israel, produced by Igor Ginzburg of the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design. I should perhaps be more precise. The promotion movie is most hilarious. The project is very practical. The entry is about a mobile cooking assistant. No screens in the kitchen as even kitchen builders once would you like to believe. Just a simple mobile. Dowload the recipe and you can start with the spaghetti. The project took the fancy of Reuters for a report. But have a look at the promotion movie under the Reuters one. It is a riot. Besides this practical solution for cooking, Igor Ginzburg knows how to sell his project. He will go a long way in the interactive marketing world.

In the category Interactive Computer Graphics the entry Mijn naam is Haas from my home country the Netherlands produced by Sanneke Prins from the Utrecht School of the Arts has been chosen. It is a beautiful DVD-ROM production for young children. It combines storytelling and nice graphics. Besides it is an aid for teaching languages regardless the specific language.

In the category Interactive Installations and Interactive TV there was an intriguing entry: Performative Ecologies from the UK by Ruairi Glynn, Bartlett School of Architecture. On the site it says: 'Performative Ecologies' examines the potential of responsive environments to engage in gestural and performative forms of non-verbal communication and conversation. To me it was the installation has charm by its intelligence and capacity to learn.

In the category Content Tools and Interface Design the entry Strip Mine from Slovenia by Andraž Tori, RTV Slovenia was surprising. The project follows the trend in broadcast archiving to cut video up in small independent parts (mico-chunking). A photograph, the digital text of the item and the link to the video are presented. The text is automatically linked to items in Wikipedia and bloggers are alerted by the Slovanian broadcast to the item; they can quote the right text of the item in their postings. (I guess they should have another name. I know what a strip mine is in mining. But I guess the entry will be searched by the wrong people; yes a dirty mind is a joy for ever!).

In the category Digital Video and Animations the entry Life-Line from Hungary by Tomek Ducki from the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design is very impressive. It is not online yet, but it should be published on YouTube. It is really worthwhile.

The winners in the categories and the overall TTA winner will be presented with the awards in Graz (Austria) on November 24, 2007.

Tulse Luper Journey to end today
Last year The game Tulse Luper Journey won the Europrix Top Talent Award 2006 in the category of Games. It is part of Peter Greenaway’s multi-platform project: The Tulse Luper Suitcases. Tulse Luper is the lead character in an ambitious series of projects initiated by film director Peter Greenaway. So far, the project includes three feature films, a series of DVD’s, travelling exhibitions, books, publications and this online game produced by the Dutch company Submarine. The online game finishes today. For many a player or researcher it will mean that they do not know what to do with their time. As one of the participants Hikari expresses this on the forum: “So uh... what happens after the contest is over?”

Blog Posting Number: 895

Tags: competitions

The multimedia competition season has started

Presently I am working on the organisation of the Dutch language multimedia content competition Europrix.nl. I am not doing it all by myself, but I work with Wim, a multimedia veteran entrepreneur. We will have to get the site up again and have the entry form in shape. We had in fact already one candidate who wanted to enter an internet service. And I had the promise from a college that they would enter a 3D product.

That sounds already exciting. But as we had to call off the competition last years as due to a lack of entries, I am cautious about this year. Last year we thought that it was the aftermath of the economic crisis which led to a slow down. But as things are buoyant again in economic terms, we hope that we can get a fully fledged competition again this year.

The Europrix.nl exists since 2003, when it was set up as a national fledgling of the Europrix.org. The Europrix.nl would limit itself to the Dutch language products and services. Since 2003 we have held the competition every year, but had to call it off last year due to a lack of entries. And we had some fine award winners, which went on to international fame. Most noticeably is Fabchannel, the thematic music channel on internet, which won several awards after the Europrix.nl 2005.

This year will be interesting as Europrix.nl will be linked to two international competitions: the World Summit Awards 2007 and the Europrix Top Talent Awards 2007 for Young Professionals. The company nominations of the Europrix.nl will go on to the national pre-selection for entry into the global competition of the World Summit Award 2007. The nominations of the Young Professional category will be entered into the European competition of the Europrix Top Talent Awards 2007 for Young Professionals.

We will have two months for registering the entries. There is a discussion whether this period should be longer or shorter. Fact is that 60 percent of the entries arrive in the last two weeks. We have that experience and it was confirmed again this week when in The Netherlands the registering closed for the Spin Awards, a competition for interactive marketing products and services.

This year with the help of the HRO/RIVIO department there will be also a public judging day. This is held especially for students, so that they can hear the analysis of the nominated products and services. On the public jury day there will also be a kind of fair for the participants of the competition, where they can show their company products and tell more about their entry. So far we had the Award Ceremony following the public jury day. It looks like we will fit it into a big manifestation in Rotterdam. I am excited about this prospect.

Sometimes people ask why we spent all this effort on competitions. Wim and I are convinced that competitions have a function. Competitions recognise and honour outstanding products and services and their producers. But competitions also set a standard for the multimedia world. In fact in some cases they are even precursors of successful products and attract investors. And last but not least, they become part of a digital library, in which you can look back, but also research. Together with the European Academy of Digital Media we had entered a proposal in the EU e-content programme to set up such a digital library, called Channel Gold. The proposal was to record all nominated content products and services of European competitions, make them accessible with many metadata and fill an internet channel with themes and movies of the making of. It is a pity that the proposal has not been accepted.

Yet we look forward to a fine competition of the Europrix.nl for Dutch language products and services. In fact we hope to pick up entries from Flanders, South Africa, Indonesia, the Caribbean and Surinam; all areas where still Dutch is spoken.

Blog Posting Number 672

Tags: multimedia, competition, Europrix, WSA