Blog Archives

All Posts in Computational Arts Research (2019, term 1)

July 04, 2023 - No Comments!

Griffon Casino: A New Era in Online Gaming in the UK

When it comes to online casinos in the United Kingdom, Griffon Casino has quickly carved out a place for itself among the top-tier platforms. Owned by Aspire Global International Ltd, a well-established iGaming operator, Griffon Casino has quickly risen to prominence since its launch. Here, we'll delve into its games, security measures, customer service, and overall user experience, providing a comprehensive review of this online gaming giant.

A Vast Selection of Games

One of Griffon Casino's biggest strengths is undoubtedly its extensive game portfolio. Whether you're a fan of classic casino games like poker, blackjack, and roulette, or you prefer the thrill of modern video slots, Griffon Casino has you covered. The platform features games from top-notch providers such as NetEnt, Microgaming, Play'n Go, and Evolution Gaming, ensuring high-quality gaming experience. The live casino section deserves a special mention, offering the real-time gaming experience with professional dealers to make you feel like you're on the casino floor.

Fair Play and Security

Griffon Casino is licensed and regulated by both the UK Gambling Commission and the Malta Gaming Authority, two of the most respected regulatory bodies in the online gaming industry. This means players can rest assured that Griffon Casino adheres to the highest standards of fairness and security.

All games use a Random Number Generator (RNG) to ensure fairness, and the casino undergoes regular audits by independent third-party agencies. In terms of security, Griffon Casino uses the latest 128-bit SSL encryption technology to safeguard players' personal and financial information.

User-Friendly Interface and Mobile Gaming

Griffon Casino has designed its website with a focus on user-friendliness. The interface is easy to navigate, and games are categorised conveniently, allowing players to find their favourites effortlessly. The website's sleek design and responsive features make it compatible with all devices, providing a seamless gaming experience on both desktop and mobile.

Speaking of mobile gaming, Griffon Casino doesn’t have a dedicated mobile app, but this doesn’t hinder the gaming experience. The website is fully optimized for mobile browsers, enabling players to enjoy their favourite games on the go without the need to download anything.

Exceptional Customer Service

Griffon Casino boasts an excellent customer support team, ready to assist players with any queries or issues they may encounter. Support is available 7 days a week through live chat and email. Additionally, the casino has a comprehensive FAQ section that covers most common questions and issues, providing immediate assistance to players.

Responsible Gaming

Griffon Casino is committed to promoting responsible gaming. The platform offers a variety of tools to help players maintain control over their gambling activities, such as deposit limits, time-out periods, self-exclusion options, and reality checks. The casino also provides links to helpful organizations like BeGambleAware and GamStop for players who may need additional support.

Conclusion

In summary, Griffon Casino represents a reliable and exciting online gaming platform that meets the expectations of UK gamblers. With a broad range of games, robust security measures, excellent customer service, and a user-friendly interface, Griffon Casino has indeed succeeded in delivering a high-quality gaming experience. The platform's commitment to promoting responsible gambling further enhances its credibility, making it a great choice for both casual and experienced players alike.

December 16, 2019 - No Comments!

Digital Intimacy: Immersive media in performance

What constitutes true intimacy in the context of performance? With the aid of digital technologies, how can we foster a sense of audience-performer as well as inter-audience intimacy in what our research group came to call “remote environments”? These are the main questions our group is concerned with.

We came to define a “remote environment” in performance as one where the audience is physically removed from the location of the spectacle they are observing. This is not only the case in “digital” environments such as VR or MMORPGs, where the user is obviously physically isolated, while their “digital self” or avatar participates in the experience. For us, a live music concert or theatre performance also constitutes a “remote environment”: the audience is condemned to a physical distance from the performers, who are usually on a stage.

Our hypothesis is that a sense of true intimacy can still be established between an audience and a performer, as well as between audience members themselves, not by attempting to lessen the physical distance, but by creating strong emotional connections between all parties.

An example we looked into, where intimacy is created between an audience and a performer despite the physical distance, is the case of Hatsune Miku, the famous Vocaloid software. Despite not having a physical dimension at all, she has a devoted fan-base who will attend her concerts just to get a glimpse of her performing “live” (in reality as a holograph). We tried to dissect the ways in which the creators of Miku created this bond between her and her fans. In “Human-machine reconfigurations: Plans and situated actions,” Lucy Suchman unpacks ideas such as “what it means to be humanlike,” as well as embodiment: what are the ways in which machines are “figured,” meaning represented, anthropomorphically or anthropocentrically and to what effect? In this case, why is the digital element, Miku, “figured” as a teenage girl? It would appear that her creators have attempted to represent her as a young female pop-star not unlike the human ones that dominate today’s music charts. This way fans can emotionally “invest” in her as much as they would with a human performer. After all, when attending a human performer’s concerts, there is no way of interactively or haptically verifying the performer’s physical dimension. How are they any different from Miku?

For our artefact we attempted to quantify the element of “emotional connection” during remote experiences by using an Arduino-powered heart-rate monitor to record the heart-rate data of a sample group in real time as they experience a performance through a VR headset. Our aim more specifically was to use the biometric data collected by the study to garner an understanding of the engagement of the viewer with the performance, i.e. does their heart-rate pick up when something new and exciting happens in the performance?

We were also interested in establishing a pattern between different participants’ heart-rate data: do they show any evidence of syncing? According to a study carried out by Stephen Fry and Alan Davies called “Science of the opera” it seemed that the audience hearts start to sync during the performance of an opera. This could possibly imply some correlation between the feeling of connection and intimacy one might feel during the show with biometric activities.

Despite being unable to collect enough results to draw a definitive conclusion due to unforeseen, persistent technical difficulties with the various heart-rate monitoring equipment we tried and tested over the span of a few weeks, we plan on continuing our research. Our research led us to new lines of inquiry. For example, if our findings support the theory about syncing heart-rates, what would be the effect of externalising this data for all audiences and performers to see? What if a performer were to interact with this data? We believe that the externalisation of otherwise “invisible” biometric data during a performance would be a big step forward toward creating greater audience-performer as well as inter-audience intimacy.

 

 

 

 

 

Reference

  • Bollen, Johan, Herbert Van de Sompel, Aric Hagberg, Luis Bettencourt, Ryan Chute, Marko A. Rodriguez, and Lyudmila Balakireva. ‘Clickstream Data Yields High-Resolution Maps of Science’. Edited by Alan Ruttenberg. PLoS ONE 4, no. 3 (11 March 2009): e4803. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0004803.
  • Breaker, Jeanine. ‘The Complexion of Two Bodies. Part One: Nuance Drawn Out’. Leonardo 46, no. 5 (October 2013): 425–31. https://doi.org/10.1162/LEON_a_00636.
  • Leach, James, and Scott deLahunta. ‘Dance Becoming Knowledge: Designing a Digital “Body”’. Leonardo 50, no. 5 (October 2017): 461–67. https://doi.org/10.1162/LEON_a_01074.
  • Marks, Laura U. The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000.
  • Pongrac, Helena, Jan Leupold, Stephan Behrendt, Berthold Färber, and Georg Färber. ‘Human Factors for Enhancing Live Video Streams with Virtual Reality: Performance, Situation Awareness, and Feeling of Telepresence’. PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 16, no. 5 (2007): 488–508. https://doi.org/10.1162/pres.16.5.488.
  • Shoda, Haruka, Mayumi Adachi, and Tomohiro Umeda. ‘How Live Performance Moves the Human Heart’. PLoS ONE 11, no. 4 (22 April 2016). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0154322.
  • Spiess, Klaus, Lucie Strecker, Michael Kimmel, Melanie Martes, and Peter Pietschmann. ‘Modeling the Immune System with Gestures: A Choreographic View of Embodiment in Science’. Leonardo 51, no. 5 (October 2018): 509–16. https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_01464.

 

 

 

 

December 13, 2019 - No Comments!

VR for Memory Storage: ‘RecallME’

Produced by: Peilu Chen and Junqiao Luo

 

Based on the memory palace theory and virtual reality technology, this research project ‘RecallME’ aims at finding a way to combine these two fields to help people memorize.

 

VR + Memory Palace

Since people’s way of storing memory tends to be more digital, there must be a brand new way which can be more convenient or full-scale in the future. According to memory theory, one of the best ways to recreate memories is by reproducing the scene and memory palace is the one which is quite corresponding. In the memory palace, each room store memory by categories. But building a memory palace is hard for most people, there is a potential to use technique. As for VR, it can provide an immersive experience for the user, which could help recall things better. Besides, VR is quite popular in some fields such as games, movies or exhibitions, which is considered is that whether there any possibility for VR applying in people’s most daily life as another electronic way.

a virtual database: recallME

Then the idea of ‘RecallME’ occurred. It is a virtual product for building people’s memory database, acting as a virtual memory palace storing many scenes. Although ‘RecallME is a conceptual product, t using VR to store memory can be an effective possibility someday. A VR picture is equal to a room in the memory palace. Users can create new room for new memory and divide their rooms into several categories, such as graduation, marriage, or any memorable moment. When any information is recalled, they can search it through the virtual memory palace quickly.

In this experiment ‘do you remember the name of the café’ shown in the video, only 5 of 22 can recall the name correctly? The point is that people can’t remember everything in their lives and don’t know what kind of information might be asked someday in the future. VR version memory can store as much information as possible that involved in the scene the user has taken part in. By immersing themselves in the VR memory palace, it’s easier to search the information they want.

Similar to this research, there are some other projects are studying using VR technology in memory fields. ‘The Wayback’ team designed a virtual reality film series named ‘The Way Back’, using VR glasses to help those living with dementia and their carers. Besides, another research claim that they are provided with highly optimisible a visuo-spatial environment made of software, which gives them the opportunity to tailor the Memory Palaces to people’s own needs.

VR research about memory is still in the start period now, some limitation and risks should be paid attention to. Like other kinds of digital information, there is a risk of data being compromised. As a result, the protect procedure should be enhanced convincingly. Combined with other technologies can be an efficient way to make it well designed. ‘RecallME’ is still a conceptual product now, but it’s possible to come true in the future as such a number of teams are support the idea. VR could be accessible to everyone, as can the memory palace.

 

Reference:

Krokos, E., Plaisant, C. & Varshney, A., Virtual memory palaces: immersion aids recall. Virtual Reality, 23(1), pp.1–15.

Godden DR, Baddeley AD (1975) Context-dependent memory in two natural environments: on land and underwater. Br J Psychol 66(3):325–331

Fassbender E, Heiden W (2006) The virtual memory palace. J ComputInf Syst 2(1):457–464

Hall, V., Conboy-Hill, S. & Taylor, D., 2011. Using virtual reality to provide health care information to people with intellectual disabilities: acceptability, usability, and potential utility. Journal of medical Internet research, 13(4), p.e91.

Vindenes, J., de Gortari, A.O., Wasson, B., 2018. Mnemosyne: Adapting the Method of Loci to Immersive Virtual Reality, in: De Paolis, L.T., Bourdot, P. (Eds.), Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Computer Graphics, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 205–213.

Hartley T, Lever C, Burgess N, O’Keefe J (2014) Space in the brain: how the hippocampal formation supports spatial cognition. Philos Trans R Soc B 369(1635):20120,510

Virtual Reality Memory Palaces – Matrise, n.d. URL https://www.matrise.no/2018/03/virtual-reality-memory-palaces/ (accessed 12.13.19).

The Wayback – A virtual reality film series [WWW Document], n.d. URL https://thewaybackvr.com/ (accessed 12.13.19).

The Rise of Digital Amnesia | Kaspersky Lab [WWW Document], n.d. URL http://amnesia.kaspersky.com/ (accessed 12.13.19)

Virtual Reality Memory Palaces – Matrise, n.d. URL https://www.matrise.no/2018/03/virtual-reality-memory-palaces/ (accessed 12.13.19).