Avatars in the Lab at the Media X Annual Meeting

Business Wire, April 10, 2007

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- "Let me show you what happens when you reverse the spatial orientation with the video input." The avatar of a Media X corporate affiliate in Japan switches the sequence of tasks specified in an estimation of facial orientation. Colleagues in Europe and Asia, also present (in avatar) at that moment, comment about other situations in which the order of the input signals have been reversed. Across the Pacific at Stanford University, faculty members and graduate students, their avatars showing the faces they wear in real life, observe the modified application, as the output of its real-time run appears on the real life computer screens of all avatars present at the virtual meeting.

At Stanford University, academic and industry researchers affiliated with Media X are launching Media X WORKS, a virtual collaboratory, at the 2007 Media X Annual Meeting for Members and Affiliates. "This industrial-strength 'Second Life-like' virtual collaboration tool will give each Media X Affiliate the option of having a private suite at the WORKS, to provide secure, scalable interactive involvement with the projects, faculty, and students specific to your interests on campus," explains Chuck House, Executive Director of Media X.

"Media X WORKS will form the basis for a major longitudinal research program in its own right for Media X researchers, as well as a rich link between corporate affiliates and Media X research activities. In true Escher fashion, this laboratory will allow any room to have secret passageways to any other room, provided that the two suite owners are in agreement," says House. The environment, developed by Qwaq Forums, supports real time application sharing for a wide variety of file types, synchronous and asynchronous conversation in text or VOIP and attention dynamics indicators.

The 2007 Media X Annual Meeting features thought leaders from business and academia, on the topic of "Research, Collaboration, Innovation, and Productivity." Paul Saffo, the long-time futurist at the Institute for the Future will talk about the biggest 21st century challenges for the sequel to the Information Age. Scott Burns, who after hearing a classical PowerPoint presentation, proposed to Al Gore that Scott and collaborators turn the slideshow into a documentary movie. The resultant movie, An Inconvenient Truth, won an Oscar this year, without doubt changing that PowerPoint pitch into a memorable message.

Speakers at the Media X Annual Meeting include business and academic leaders in interactive communication. From business: Eric Hoffert, creator of QuickTime software for Apple; Erik Hauser, Founder of Swivel Media; Craig Samuel, Vice President Global Business Innovation at Unisys; Julian Lighton, Vice President Strategy and Business Development for Emerging Markets, Cisco; and others.

From Stanford: Byron Reeves, Director of H*STAR (Human Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research) Institute; Bob Sutton from Stanford's Management Sciences Department; Sebastian Thrun, Chair of the Artificial Intelligence program; Roy Pea, Director of the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning; and Cliff Nass, Professor in the Department of Communication.

For Registration:

http://www.register123.com/event/profile/form/index.cfm?PKformID= 0x3492025640 (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

Video interview with Chuck House, Executive Director, Media X can be found at:

http://mediax-stanford.blogspot.com

About Media X

Media X is a community of academic and business researchers studying interactive communications and technology. Based at Stanford University, its studies integrate perspectives from communication, engineering, humanities, law, medicine, business, and design. Corporate partners include Cisco, Omron, DNP, Time Warner, Scottish Enterprise, and The University of Edinburgh. Affiliates of Media X include SAP, Visa, France Telecom, Sesame Workshop, Microsoft Research, Phillips, British Telecom, Cox, AARP, Reuters, Phillips, British Petroleum, Steelcase, Intuit, Tekes, NBC Universal, Reuters, Boeing, Fuji, and Fox.

About Qwaq, Inc.

Qwaq, Inc. is creating virtual spaces for the enterprise that enable collaboration in ways that weren't possible before. Qwaq Forums, the company's first product, is a secure virtual workspace application that significantly increases the productivity of distributed teams by bringing critical resources together in virtual places, as if they were in an actual physical location. A highly interactive and persistent environment, Qwaq Forums enables users to work, collaborate with others, and identify and solve problems. www.qwwaq.com