WE ARE CURRENTLY MAKING CHANGES TO THE M3DCAM WEBSITE, IN THE MEANTIME KEEP UPLOADING YOUR 3D PHOTOS AND WE WILL BRING BACK THE PHOTO INTERFACE

Mystic Paul sporting a natty pair of Lava Girl glasses

m3Dcam is an application that allows you to use your mobile phone camera to create 3-D anaglyph images.The 3D images can then be either viewed on phone screen (using suitable pair of 3D glasses) or saved to a community website .

Mobile SprayCan (www.mobspray.com)

Since the first appearance of modern man one trait of human behaviour in our interaction with the physical environment appears to be an inherent desire to leave our mark on a particular object or space. ‘SprayCan’ graffiti that appeared in the 1970s is but a modern extension of this phenomenon, yet it divides communities and generations in terms of how it should be dealt with in terms of either complete acceptance or punitive action. In this project we have developed a system that tries to bridge the divide as it both provides writers with a means of tagging their environment, using mobile phones and RFID tags, whilst minimising the physical effects to the landscape for the communities where it resides. Mobile SprayCan Project

Mobile Spray can site marker

TxT Books (www.thetxtbk.com)

Screenshot from www.thetxtbk.com homepage.

TxT Book is an open, collaborative storybook based upon the technique of ‘Exquisite Corpse’ which was developed by surrealists in the 1920’s for creating accidental poetry. Users may only submit a maximum of 160 characters (standard SMS length) to the book at a time and they may only view the previous person’s entry when considering their own. In order to ensure some kind of (shallow) cohesiveness, when a user is submitting their entry, the database is locked-down to ensure that the entries follow on from each other (in a chain). Once a user has entered his/her story (or their allotted timeslot has expired), the database is unlocked to allow others to participate.

Users can submit entries to TxT Book via two different methods – from their PC or from their mobile phone. By allowing different methods of input, TxT Book seeks to compare the popularity of the two.

TxT Book will attempt to examine the spread of information in way which is not intrusive (this is not viral marketing!), free and, hopefully, quite fun. We will initially seed TxT Book by sending out an SMS to friends containing a link to the WAP submission page. Once a user submits an entry to TxT Book, they are then asked if they would like to forward the original SMS to a friend who might be interested in contributing.

On visiting the TxT Book’s homepage, users are automatically served content based upon the capability of their browser (WAP enabled browsers receive dynamically generated WML files, whilst PC users are delivered XHTML content). Users may also subscribe to an RSS feed of the story which contains the latest submissions.

TxT Book Website

A modified version of the thetxbk was created for the Spoken Word tent at Roskilde Rock Festival July 2007.

Roskilde TxT Book 2007

PAC-LAN is a novel version of the video game PACMAN in which human players play the game on a maze based on Alexandra Park at Lancaster University campus. To play the game the PAC-LAN player collects pills using the mobile which are in the form of colored plastic discs containing RFID tags placed around the maze. Four other players take the role of the ghosts who attempt to hunt down the PAC-LAN. A Java application, running on a mobile phone connects PAC-LAN and the Ghosts to a central game server using GPRS.The server relays to PAC-LAN his current position and that of the ghosts based on the pills he has collected. The pills can also be used by the ghosts, not to gain points, but to obtain PAC-LAN’s last known position which will only be updated when they interact with another pill. The ghosts ‘kill’ PAC-LAN by detecting him via RFID on his clothing (or costume). Similarly when PAC-LAN collects a power pill he is then able to kill the ghosts using the same RFID detection process. Dead ghosts must then return to the central point to be reactivated into the game. Points are allocated on pills collected and ghosts killed. The central point is controlled by the server and a special RFID point to ensure ghosts remain immobile until released. PAC-LAN The Game Site.

Big Game Huntr

Big Game Huntr; a mobile location based game which encourages emergent behaviour by allowing the general public to design their own games around any subject to be played in a place of their own choosing.

Free Londons Monsters

This is an interesting take on a location based game which incorporates user generated content in the form of sketches of monsters. It’s in collaboration between the Mobile Radicals and artist Andrew Wilson who originally ran a workshop at Institute of Contemporary Arts in London where people could sketch there idea of what the London’s monsters might look like. The Mobile Radicals have turned the sketches into a mobile location based game called Free London’s Monsters to be played around the actual locations where the monsters were envisaged. Here is the first prototype which uses the phone camera as the Magic Monstervision Machine (that’s an S60 phone to the uninitiated) to capture monsters when the players enter their lair.

MobHunt

The inspiration for Treasure hunt games arguably started with the early stages of the development of archaeology as this arguably included a significant aspect of treasure hunts and they certainly served to capture public imagination. Treasure Hunt games are either a single player or a group of players trying to find hidden articles, locations or places by using a series of clues. In the earliest versions of these games the clues consisted of pieces of paper secreted at specific location. A modern variant of this is Geocaching which is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called “geocaches” or “caches”) anywhere in the world. In our version of treasure hunt for mobile phones, known as MobHunt,clues are placed on RFID tags which can be read by a suitably equipped mobile phone and information can be changed or added in real-time using the data network.

They Howl (Coming Soon)

This is a location based game written in J2ME and utilises GPS to obtain positional information. The GPS unit is not an integrated part of the phone but rather we exploit the proliferation of GPS units that can be accessed via Bluetooth is cheaper and more readily available than integrated solutions.

The premise for the game itself builds on our experiences from PAC-LAN where sounds were perceived to be the best form of feedback. The sounds in this case are the howls of a wolf pack who are hunting down their prey in a mixed reality landscape. The howls from the wolves enable them to co-ordinate their efforts when following the virtual ‘scent’ trail left by the prey as the flee from the approaching pack.

The prey leaves a trail of virtual scent markers which are automatically generated every two minutes by the application. The wolves can detect a marker by coming within 25 metres of the scent marker. Once a wolf has found a scent marker they howl to the rest of the pack. They howl causes the display on the other wolves’ phones to indicate the direction they must travel to reach that scent marker which appears at the centre of the screen. The wolves must then work together to find the next marker and ultimately track down the prey. The prey also gets an update to his display showing the position of the pack. The prey is caught if two or more wolves come within 25 metres of the prey, having collected all the scent markers, at which point they all let out a group howl indicating their presence while the prey emits a death gurgle. The prey gains points for the length of time within the game and the distance travelled. Wolves gain points for both finding the scent markers and capturing the prey.

Whereas PAC-LAN required a pre formed group to be present at a specific location They Howl is designed for more spontaneous game play that using location although is not tied to a specific location. To facilitate this we have create a lobby system which will allow potential players to gather in any location to play the game. The game area is normally limited to 1 Km square and potential players can be anywhere within that square. Once there are a least three players the game can begin or they can wait for others to join up to a maximum of 10. The game server random selects a player to act as prey whilst the remaining players become wolves.

• Data (often user derived) over software;
• Collective intelligence for example group filtering;
• Open standards “Above the Single Device”;
• Niche markets or the Long Tail;
• Use of context;
• Emergence resulting in constant evolution (perpetual Beta).

At present there are two main types of of mobile widgets these being WidSets widgets and S60 Widgets (Web Run-Time). WidSets Widgets is essentially a Java-based platform. Widgets can be developed using the WidSets Studio, a very easy to use online visual editor for developing simple widgets in a matter of minutes. However, these widgets are essentially limited to picking up RSS feeds (for displaying text and photos). To create custom functionality, developers need to delve into Helium script, a ‘Java like’ language for controlling all aspect of a widget’s behaviour. S60 Widgets are lightweight mobile browser applications developed using familiar, standards-based web technologies such as (x)HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and even advanced AJAX. In order to run S60 Widgets, the phone needs the run-time installed.

Bombus

• Bombus

Nabazget

M-Post

RetroBall

• RetroBall

• Data (often user derived) over software;
• Collective intelligence (for example group filtering);
• Open standards “Above the Single Device”;
• Niche markets or the Long Tail;
• Use of context;
• Emergence resulting in constant evolution (perpetual Beta).

Whilst some of these concepts might be alien to traditional console games developers, the very nature of the mobile games environment and the broad demographic of game players would appear to offer enormous potential for this industry. However, if Mobile Games 2.0 is to become more than a mere buzz phrase, we will need to overcome the current fragmentation within the market and provide a platform that facilitates the majority of these features. To achieve the principles of Web 2.0 in Mobile Game 2.0 it is worth seeking inspiration for the by evaluating the solutions that have evolved in that environment, ascertaining their relevance to mobile. In this regard Widgets are seen as a primary enabler of Web 2.0 as they utilise open standards, are easy to distribute, and have a mechanism for continued evolution. As Nokia has recently introduced two flavours of Widgets for mobile, in this project we have explored:

• How Widgets address the concepts previously defined for Mobile Web 2.0;
• Potential mechanisms for social interaction;
• Distribution mechanisms and possible revenue generation.

Boom!

Widget investigating user generated content in games.

• BOOM!

4 in a row

First multiplayer widget game using WidSets channel API.

• 4 in row

3D Bombus

First 3D widget game using WidSets

Mobslinger (mobiles! we dont need no stinkin mobiles!)

Mobslinger is a game that enables spontaneous stimulated social interaction between mobile phone users by utilising proximity information from Bluetooth. This innovative game takes the form of a wild west, quick draw, ‘shoot-em-up’. Mobslinger runs as a background application on Symbian Series 60 smartphone which periodically scans for other users in the vicinity who are also running the mobslinger application. Once detected, a countdown timer is initiated on both phones which alerts the user by sounding an alarm and vibrating the phone. The user then has to ‘draw’ their mobile and enter the randomly generated number which has appeared on the screen as quickly as possible. The person with the fastest time is the winner and the loser is ‘killed’, which means their application is locked out from game-play for a set period of time. The game is playable in a number of different modes that allow different numbers of players and game play. The modes are Quick Draw, Bloodbath, Last Man Standing, and Outlaws.

Mirage Space

Motion controlled 3D multiplayer space combat game. Mirage Space uses the same S60 Mirage-X API to create a motion controlled 3D space battle game in which you compete with opponents via Bluetooth to save the galaxy. As can be seen the video shows players first select their space ship and then they must engage in a space dogfight shooting their opponents as they appear on their screen. The player movement is controlled entirely through tilt but speed and fire are controlled via the joypad using up and centre button respectively.

Mobi-Tron

Mobi-Tron in action

The game is based on the old arcade classic Tron which was first released in 1982 to coincide with the Walt Disney picture of the same name. Although the arcade game consisted of four sub-games: Light Cycles; MCP Cone; Input/Output Tower; and Battle Tanks, it is the Light Cycle game most often associated with the title. The game requires the blue player to guide his light cycle around the game arena meanwhile avoiding running into walls or the light trails left by his or the opposing player’s yellow cycle.In the arcade game it could be played as either a two-player game or against an Artificial Intelligence (AI) opponent. Mobi-Tron basically employs the same game play, although there is currently no option to play against the computer. However, it does allow more than two players to be active in a game simultaneously. The players’ names are displayed as their Bluetooth friendly names at the top of the screen and each player starts from opposite corners of the game board. The play continues until one player has either crossed their own or opponents trail or runs into one of the side walls.

Tilt Racer

Tilt Racer is a novel multiplayer game running on a large public display were the players cars are controlled using Nokia 5500 with their in-built 3-D motion sensors via Bluetooth.

Tunnel Run

In terms of games implemented using tilt on mobile phones there have been numerous implementations using the camera and one for the Nokia 5500 using the accelerometers all of which have been based on the marble type games previously described. Whilst these games are no doubt fun, they are replicating the existing game input mechanic of the previous games and in this research we wanted to explore tilt in relation to other game genres. Therefore, for this project we decided to implement a 3D graphics first person driving game which has been called Tunnel Run.

MIRAGE-X

• Mirage Money Experience For Mobile HCI

Since the advent of accelerometers on programmable mobile phones an array of implementations have appeared from navigating through menus without pressing buttons to creating Wii-like game controllers for games running on large public screens as in Tilt Racer and Tunnel Run. However, all of these controllers limited the interaction experience in the 2-D visual plane. The MIRAGE-X API we present here allows the use of the in-built accelerometers on mobile phones to maneuver in 3-D OpenGL ES virtual or augmented reality (mixed reality) worlds with full 3-D motion control. The API is currently implemented for the most prevalent smart phone platform: the Symbian OS. It provides the user with a first-person view which allows for instinctive navigation through the 3-D world by simply moving the phone in the direction the user wishes to go to. According to that movement the relative view direction in the 3-D environments gets updated and displayed on screen.

The game MirageMoney has been developed as the first demonstration of the capabilities MIRAGE-X API. The game is a flight-simulation with the phone screen being the window to the virtual, or augmented, world the player is flying through. The mission of the player is to control his/her plane and ‘fly’ around in the 3-D world collecting the floating silver and gold coins by colliding with them on the screen.

This control is achieved by pitching the phone up or down and rotating it clock-wise or counter clock-wise as in the pictures below. Note that speed through the world is controlled by the joy-pad buttons: up tp speed-up, down to slow-down.

Download Mirage Money application to your phone from MOSH

Mirage Money Forum

Poppet

The system developed is part of a generic framework, which we have termed Poppet , for utilizing on-board phone sensors such as cameras, accelerometers, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)/ Near Field Communications (NFC), which can be linked to games running on large public displays via Bluetooth.

Poppet public display controller framework

Although Poppet is capable of addressing a range of devices, in this section, we specifically describe the design challenges involved in producing a mobile client for the Nokia 5500 together with its on-board accelerometers.

Accessing the 3-D motion sensors requires the use of the Symbian Sensor API which is similar in function to J2ME’s Mobile Sensor API (JSR-256). Both of these APIs provides the potential to access a wide range of sensors such as accelerometers, thermometers, barometers, and humidity monitors, in fact any type of sensor designed to be incorporated in a mobile phone, or those accessible via Bluetooth. Sensors need only be supported by the API library to be usable. The Symbian Sensor API is available from Nokia and requires the use of the Symbian S60 3rd Edition SDK. Whilst there is support for the Symbian Sensor API on several mobile devices, there are currently no mobile phones that include JSR-256. The general Poppet framework uses J2ME, as this is currently the most widely deployed mobile platform. Although the sensor data is not directly accessible from J2ME because of the lack of JSR-256 as previously highlighted, the problem can be overcome by using a socket connection on the mobile phone to allow access to native services. The general solution for accessing native services from J2ME on Symbian S60 phones is by opening a low level socket connection in a Symbian C++ application then connecting to the defined port on the loop-back address from the J2ME application. Thus the Symbian C++ application can retrieve any information from the phone and then the data can be passed to any other application that can process the received information. This solution has been applied in our simple mobile client to allow J2ME applications to access the 3-D sensor data. The connection between the game client and server is based on Bluetooth, which creates a reasonably high bandwidth (data rates can vary between 1 megabit and a few kilobits per second depending upon the type of transfer mode initiated) between the devices. In order to allow a device to become discoverable by others, it is necessary to advertise at least one Bluetooth service. In the case of Poppet, the mobile client implementation uses the official Java Bluetooth API (JSR-82) to alleviate porting issues.