The proliferation of virtual and augmented reality technologies into society raise significant questions for judges, legal institutions, and policy makers. For example, when should activities that occur in virtual worlds, or virtual images that are projected into real space (that is, augmented reality), count as protected First Amendment 'speech'? When should they instead count as a nuisance or trespass? Under what circumstances would the copying of virtual images infringe intellectual property laws, or the output of intelligent virtual avatars be patentable inventions or works of authorship eligible for copyright? And when should a person (or computer) face legal consequences for allegedly harmful virtual acts? The Research Handbook on the Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality addresses these questions and others, drawing upon free speech doctrine, criminal law, the law of data protection and privacy, and of jurisdiction, as well as upon potential legal rights for increasingly intelligent virtual avatars in VR worlds. The Handbook offers a comprehensive look at challenges to various legal doctrines raised by the emergence - and increasing use of - virtual and augmented reality worlds, and at how existing law in the USA, Europe, and other jurisdictions might apply to these emerging technologies, or evolve to address them. It also considers what legal questions about virtual and augmented reality are likely to be important, not just for judges and legal scholars, but also for the established businesses and start-ups that wish to make use of, and help shape, these important new technologies. This comprehensive Research Handbook will be an invaluable reference to those looking to keep pace with the dynamic field of virtual and augmented reality, including students and researchers studying intellectual property law as well as legal practitioners, computer scientists, engineers, game designers, and business owners. Contributors include: W. Barfield, P.S. Berman, M.J. Blitz, S.J. Blodgett-Ford, J. Danaher, W. Erlank, J.A.T. Fairfield, J. Garon, G. Hallevy, B. Lewis, H.Y.F. Lim, C. Nwaneri, S.R. Peppet, M. Risch, A.L. Rossow, J. Russo, M. Supponen, A.M. Underhill, B.D. Wassom, A. Williams, G. Yadin

An addictive thriller from the most sensational new voice in YA fiction. When sixteen-year-old Asha Kennedy discovers her older sister Maya's dead body in their home, her world falls apart. Desperate for answers, and to stay out of the hands of the social services she grew up in, Asha turns to her hacker friends for help. Her search leads her to Zu Tech, the hit games studio where Maya was a lead coder. As Asha begins to unravel the riddle of her death, she realises that the only way to uncover the truth is from the inside. Asha ghosts her old life and infiltrates a Zu Tech eSport tournament as they launch 'SHACKLE', the revolutionary Virtual Reality video game Maya was working on - and which hides a monstrous secret... Perfect for fans of The Hunger Games and A Good Girl's Guide to Murder A guaranteed page turner full of heart, tension and twists you won't see coming! The first book in a major new YA series

Step into the Animus and prepare to be transported to the world of Assassin's Creed! With 40 recipes across ten full menus - each inspired by the times and places where the most famous Assassins lived and fought - you can relive the highlights of the Italian Renaissance, the French Revolution and even Victorian London. Follow Altair, Ezio, Arno, Evie, Jacob and all the Assassins of the Brotherhood while enjoying their most celebrated dishes: Masyaf Moutabel, Davenport Homestead Soup, Boston Apple Pie, Colonial Coleslaw, Meringues Mirabeau, Rooks' Bread Pudding and many more.

This book takes a multidisciplinary approach to the question of esports and their role in society A diverse group of authors tackle the impact of esports and the ways in which it has grown within the entertainment industry around the world. Chapters offer a coherent response to the following questions: What role do esports play in the entertainment industry? What communication skills can be learned through esports? What do the media gain from broadcasting esports? What is the relationship between social networks and esports? What are the main marketing strategies used in esports? What effect does communicative globalization have on the development of esports? What is the relationship between merchandising and esports? What do communication experts think about esports? Offering clear insights into this rapidly developing area, this volume will be of great interest to scholars, students, and anyone working in game studies, new media, leisure, sport studies, communication studies, transmedia literacy, and digital culture

This volume brings together two prominent strands in second language acquisition theory and research: the concept of learner autonomy and computer-assisted language learning (CALL). Learner autonomy supports learners in becoming more reflective and communicative and in experimenting with language and language learning. CALL environments offer more and qualitatively different opportunities for learner autonomy than the traditional language classroom. This book offers researchers a starting point into researching learner autonomy in CALL contexts and offers teachers practical advice on chances and pitfalls in realizing learner autonomy goals in the CALL-supported classroom.

"Fundamentals of Wearable Computers and Augmented Reality" presents a broad coverage of the technologies and interface design issues associated with wearable computers and augmented reality displays both rapidly developing fields in computer science, engineering, and human interface design. This book presents concepts related to the use and underlying technologies of augmented reality and wearable computer systems. There are many application areas for this technology, such as medicine, manufacturing, training, and recreation. Wearable computers will allow a much closer association of information with the user than is possible with traditional desktop computers.
This book addresses an important aspect of wearable computers and augmented reality, either from the conceptual or from an application framework. Given the wide coverage of topics on issues related to the display of computer-generated images in the environment, this book can be used as a text for computer science, computer engineering, and interface design courses.

Slated as 'the next big thing in tech', augmented reality promises to take the screen out of our hands and wrap it around the world via 'smart spectacles'. As a pervasive, invisible interface between the world and our senses, AR offers unparalleled capacity to reveal hidden digital depths, but it also comes at a cost to our privacy, our property, and our reality. In this crucial and provocative book, Mark Pesce draws on over thirty years' experience to offer the first mainstream exploration of augmented reality. He discusses the exciting and beneficial features of AR as well as the issues and risks raised by this still-emerging technology - a technology that moulds us by shaping what we see and hear. Augmented Reality is essential reading for anyone interested in the growing influence of this impressive but deeply concerning technology. As the book reveals, reality - once augmented - will never be the same.

Digital worlds and cultures-social media, web 2.0, youtube, wearable technologies, health and fitness apps-dominate, if not order, our everyday lives. We are no longer 'just' consumers or readers of digital culture but active producers through facebook, twitter, Instagram, youtube and other emerging technologies. This book is predicated on the assumption that out understanding of our everyday lives should be informed by what is taking place in and through emerging technologies given these (virtual) environments provide a crucial context where traditional, categorical assumptions about the body, identity and leisure may be contested. Far from being 'virtual', the body is constituted within and through emerging technologies in material ways. Recent 'moral panics' over the role of digital cultures in teen suicide, digital drinking games, an endless array of homoerotic images of young bodies being linked with steroid use, disordered eating and body dissatisfaction, facebook games/fundraising campaigns (e.g. for breast cancer), movements devoted to exposing 'everyday sexism' / metoo, twitter abuse (of feminists, of athletes, of racist nature to name but a few), speak to the need for critical engagement with digital cultures. While some of the earlier techno-utopian visions offered the promise of digitality to give rise to participatory, user generator collaborations, within this book we provide critical engagement with digital technologies and what this means for our understandings of leisure cultures. The chapters originally published in a special issue in Leisure Studies.

The current popular and scientific interest in virtual environments has provided a new impetus for investigating binaural and spatial hearing. However, the many intriguing phenomena of spatial hearing have long made it an exciting area of scientific inquiry. Psychophysical and physiological investigations of spatial hearing seem to be converging on common explanations of underlying mechanisms. These understandings have in turn been incorporated into sophisticated yet mathematically tractable models of binaural interaction. Thus, binaural and spatial hearing is one of the few areas in which professionals are soon likely to find adequate physiological explanations of complex psychological phenomena that can be reasonably and usefully approximated by mathematical and physical models. This volume grew out of the Conference on Binaural and Spatial Hearing, a four-day event held at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in response to rapid developments in binaural and spatial hearing research and technology. Meant to be more than just a proceedings, it presents chapters that are longer than typical proceedings papers and contain considerably more review material, including extensive bibliographies in many cases. Arranged into topical sections, the chapters represent major thrusts in the recent literature. The authors of the first chapter in each section have been encouraged to take a broad perspective and review the current state of literature. Subsequent chapters in each section tend to be somewhat more narrowly focused, and often emphasize the authors' own work. Thus, each section provides overview, background, and current research on a particular topic. This book is significant in that it reviews the important work during the past 10 to 15 years, and provides greater breadth and depth than most of the previous works.

'Shirley zips into her skin-tight school uniform, which on the outside looks something like a ski suit. The lining of the suit in fact contains cabling that makes the suit a communication system and there are pressure pads where the suit touches skin that give a sense of touch. Next, she sits astride something that is a bit like a motorbike, except that it has no wheels and is attached firmly to the floor. Her feet fit on to something similar to a brake and accelerator and her gloved hands hold onto handlebars. She shouts, "I'm off to school, Dad". Her father, who is taking time out from his teleworking, begins to remind her that the family are going teleshopping in the virtual city later in the day, but it is too late, his daughter has already donned her school helmet. She is no longer in the real world of her real home, she is in the virtual world of her virtual school.' Is this the shape of the future of education? This book presents a vision of what will happen to education and training as information technology develops. The argument is simple. To prepare people for life in an information society they need to be taught with the technology of an information society. But what shape will that take? Can the classroom as we know it - a communications system which has been in place for four thousand years - be replaced? The authors argue that through the development of telecommunications for telelearning a genuine revolution in education is in the making. The book describes how, through the convergence of a cluster of new technologies including virtual reality, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and the superhighways of telecommunications, a new educational paradigm will emerge in the form of a virtual class. Teachers, trainers and educators who worry about how best to prepare students for life in an ever-changing world will find much inspiration in this engagingly written and jargon-free book

The metaverse is here. Are you ready? In The Metaverse Handbook: Innovating for the Internet's Next Tectonic Shift, a duo of experienced tech and culture experts delivers a can't-miss guide to participating in the most promising new technology since the advent of the web. Through dozens of metaverse creator case studies and concise, actionable insights, you'll walk away from this book understanding how to explore and implement the latest metaverse tech emerging from blockchain, XR, and web3. In The Metaverse Handbook, you'll discover: What the metaverse is, why you should care about it, and how to build your metaverse strategy The history of the metaverse and primers on critical technologies driving the metaverse, including non-fungible tokens, XR, the blockchain, and web3 How to unearth unique metaverse opportunities in digital communities, commerce, and immersive experiences As the metaverse has rapidly become the technology platform and marketing buzzword of the future, this new reality for companies, creators, and consumers is not easily understood at the surface level. Those who aim to be at the forefront of this exciting new arena must first understand the foundations and central technologies of the metaverse. An essential resource for digital professionals, creators, and business leaders in the vanguard of the coming technology revolution, The Metaverse Handbook provides the go-to roadmap for your journey into the metaverse.

This book takes the practicality of other "Gems" series such as "Graphics Gems" and "Game Programming Gems" and provide a quick reference for novice and expert programmers alike to swiftly track down a solution to a task needed for their VR project. Reading the book from cover to cover is not the expected use case, but being familiar with the territory from the Introduction and then jumping to the needed explanations is how the book will mostly be used. Each chapter (other than Introduction) will contain between 5 to 10 "tips", each of which is a self-contained explanation with implementation detail generally demonstrated as pseudo code, or in cases where it makes sense, actual code. Key Features Sections written by veteran virtual reality researchers and developers Usable code snipits that readers can put to immediate use in their own projects. Tips of value both to readers entering the field as well as those looking for solutions that expand their repertoire.

Taking the reader on a journey through queer manifestations in games, this book advocates for video games as a rich, political and cultural medium, which provides us with tools to navigate the future of gaming. Situated at the intersection of New Media, Game, Cultural and Queer Studies, the book navigates diverse interspecies relationships, queer villains from the past, Pokemon memes on border politics, flanerie in post-industrial cities and one-sided erotic fights. It provides new critical engagements with the works of Jose Esteban Munoz, Bonnie Ruberg, Guy Debord and Jack Halberstam, examining queer representation, gaming subcultures and dissident play practices. Making the bold claim that video games might be the queerest medium today, this book provides organic, self-reflective and, ultimately, thought-provoking thinking in which both games and gamers are queered. This book will be of interest to scholars researching game studies, sex, gender and sexuality in new media, but also readers interested in literature, digital media, society, participatory culture and queer studies.

A compendium of sweet and savoury recipes inspired by Blizzard's hit online card game, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Featuring a dynamic in-world design, this fun and engaging cookbook is an exciting follow-up to World of Warcraft: The Official Cookbook. Including food pairings for each dish and tips on adapting meals to specific diets, this portable little cookbook is the perfect culinary guide for weary travellers from Azeroth and beyond.

This collection of essays is devoted to the philosophical examination of the aesthetics of videogames. Videogames represent one of the most significant developments in the modern popular arts, and it is a topic that is attracting much attention among philosophers of art and aestheticians. As a burgeoning medium of artistic expression, videogames raise entirely new aesthetic concerns, particularly concerning their ontology, interactivity, and aesthetic value. The essays in this volume address a number of pressing theoretical issues related to these areas, including but not limited to: the nature of performance and identity in videogames; their status as an interactive form of art; the ethical problems raised by violence in videogames; and the representation of women in videogames and the gaming community. The Aesthetics of Videogames is an important contribution to analytic aesthetics that deals with an important and growing art form.

The purpose of virtual reality is to make possible a sensorimotor and cognitive activity for a user in a digitally created artificial world. Recent advances in computer technology have led to a new generation of VR devices such as VR headsets. Accordingly, virtual reality poses many new scientific challenges for researchers and professionals. The aim of this book, a manual meant for both designers and users of virtual reality, is to present the current state of knowledge on the use of VR headsets in the most complete way possible. The book is divided into 13 chapters. The objective of the first chapter is to give an introduction to VR and clarify its scope. The next chapter presents a theoretical approach to virtual reality through our Immersion and Interaction methodology also known as "3I(2) model''. Then, a chapter about human senses is necessary to understand the sensorimotor immersion, especially vision. These chapters are followed by several chapters which present the different visual interfaces and the VR headsets currently available on the market. These devices can impart comfort and health problems due to sensorimotor discrepancies. A chapter is devoted to these problems, followed by a chapter that gives a detailed discussion of methods and 32 solutions to dispel, or at least to decrease, VR sickness. The following three chapters present different VR applications that use VR headsets (behavioural sciences, industrial uses and Digital Art) and the final chapter provides conclusions and discusses future VR challenges.

Working with Video Gamers and Games in Therapy moves beyond stereotypes about video game addiction and violence to consider the role that games play in psychological experiences and mental health. Chapters examine the factors that compel individual gamers to select and identify with particular games and characters, as well as the different play styles, genres, and archetypes common in video games. For clinicians looking to understand their clients' relationships with video games or to use games as a therapeutic resource in their own practice, this is a thoughtful, comprehensive, and timely resource.

Learn virtualization skills by building your own virtual machine Virtualization Essentials, Second Edition provides new and aspiring IT professionals with immersive training in working with virtualization environments. Clear, straightforward discussion simplifies complex concepts, and the hands-on tutorial approach helps you quickly get up to speed on the fundamentals. You'll begin by learning what virtualization is and how it works within the computing environment, then you'll dive right into building your own virtual machine. You'll learn how to set up the CPU, memory, storage, networking, and more as you master the skills that put you in-demand on the job market. Each chapter focuses on a specific goal, and concludes with review questions that test your understanding as well as suggested exercises that help you reinforce what you've learned. As more and more companies are leveraging virtualization, it's imperative that IT professionals have the skills and knowledge to interface with virtualization-centric infrastructures. This book takes a learning-by-doing approach to give you hands-on training and a core understanding of virtualization. * Understand how virtualization works * Create a virtual machine by scratch and migration * Configure and manage basic components and supporting devices * Develop the necessary skill set to work in today's virtual world Virtualization was initially used to build test labs, but its use has expanded to become best practice for a tremendous variety of IT solutions including high availability, business continuity, dynamic IT, and more. Cloud computing and DevOps rely on virtualization technologies, and the exponential spread of these and similar applications make virtualization proficiency a major value-add for any IT professional. Virtualization Essentials, Second Edition provides accessible, user-friendly, informative virtualization training for the forward-looking pro.

Storytelling for Virtual Reality serves as a bridge between students of new media and professionals working between the emerging world of VR technology and the art form of classical storytelling. Rather than examining purely the technical, the text focuses on the narrative and how stories can best be structured, created, and then told in virtual immersive spaces. Author John Bucher examines the timeless principles of storytelling and how they are being applied, transformed, and transcended in Virtual Reality. Interviews, conversations, and case studies with both pioneers and innovators in VR storytelling are featured, including industry leaders at LucasFilm, 20th Century Fox, Oculus, Insomniac Games, and Google. For more information about story, Virtual Reality, this book, and its author, please visit StorytellingforVR.com

This book aims to provide insights into how 'second lives' in the sense of virtual identities and communities are constructed textually, semiotically and discursively, specifically in the online environment Second Life and Massively Multiplayer Online Games such as World of Warcraft. The book's philosophy is multi-disciplinary and its goal is to explore the question of how we as gamers and residents of virtual worlds construct alternative online realities in a variety of ways. Of particular significance to this endeavour are conceptions of the body in cyberspace and of spatiality, which manifests itself in 'natural' and built environments as well as the triad of space, place and landscape. The contributors' disciplinary backgrounds include media, communication, cultural and literary studies, and they examine issues of reception and production, identity, community, gender, spatiality, natural and built environments using a plethora of methodological approaches ranging from theoretical and philosophical contemplation through social semiotics to corpus-based discourse analysis.

The proliferation of virtual and augmented reality technologies into society raise significant questions for judges, legal institutions, and policy makers. For example, when should activities that occur in virtual worlds, or virtual images that are projected into real space (that is, augmented reality), count as protected First Amendment 'speech'? When should they instead count as a nuisance or trespass? Under what circumstances would the copying of virtual images infringe intellectual property laws, or the output of intelligent virtual avatars be patentable inventions or works of authorship eligible for copyright? And when should a person (or computer) face legal consequences for allegedly harmful virtual acts? The Research Handbook on the Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality addresses these questions and others, drawing upon free speech doctrine, criminal law, the law of data protection and privacy, and of jurisdiction, as well as upon potential legal rights for increasingly intelligent virtual avatars in VR worlds. The Handbook offers a comprehensive look at challenges to various legal doctrines raised by the emergence - and increasing use of - virtual and augmented reality worlds, and at how existing law in the USA, Europe, and other jurisdictions might apply to these emerging technologies, or evolve to address them. It also considers what legal questions about virtual and augmented reality are likely to be important, not just for judges and legal scholars, but also for the established businesses and start-ups that wish to make use of, and help shape, these important new technologies. This comprehensive Research Handbook will be an invaluable reference to those looking to keep pace with the dynamic field of virtual and augmented reality, including students and researchers studying intellectual property law as well as legal practitioners, computer scientists, engineers, game designers, and business owners. Contributors include: W. Barfield, P.S. Berman, M.J. Blitz, S.J. Blodgett-Ford, J. Danaher, W. Erlank, J.A.T. Fairfield, J. Garon, G. Hallevy, B. Lewis, H.Y.F. Lim, C. Nwaneri, S.R. Peppet, M. Risch, A.L. Rossow, J. Russo, M. Supponen, A.M. Underhill, B.D. Wassom, A. Williams, G. Yadin

A dazzling look at modern videogame worlds seen through an architectural lens, utilizing maps, diagrams and graphic illustrations to offer new perspectives on the art of virtual world building. Videogame Atlas presents a journey through twelve well-known videogame worlds via panoramic maps, intricate exploded diagrams and detailed illustrations. The book offers a playful new way of seeing these beloved virtual worlds using the practices and academic rigour that underpins real-world architectural theory. Titles such as Minecraft, Assassin's Creed Unity and Final Fantasy VII are explored in exhaustive detail through over 200 detailed illustrations of the micro and macro, each with supporting commentary and architectural theory. Taking influence from high-end architectural monographs, the book is carefully designed to the smallest of details and its production is intricately executed. This book, printed in five colours, with neon ink throughout, is a culmination of Luke and Sandra's work, which includes founding the Videogame Urbanism studio at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL that promotes the use of game technologies in architectural education.

Fantasy sport has become big business. Recent estimates suggest that there as many as 33 million fantasy sport participants in the US alone, spending $3bn annually, with many millions more around the world. This is the first in-depth study of fantasy sport as a cultural and social phenomenon and a significant and growing component of the contemporary sports economy. This book presents an overview of the history of fantasy sport and its close connection to innovations in sports media. Drawing on extensive empirical research, it offers an analysis of the demographics of fantasy sport, the motivations of fantasy sport players and their significance as heavy consumers of sport media and as ultra-fans. It also draws cross-cultural comparisons between fantasy sport players in the US, UK, Europe and beyond. The Fantasy Sport Industry examines the key commercial and media stakeholders in the production and development of fantasy sport, and points to new directions for the fantasy sport industry within modern sport business. It is therefore, fascinating reading for any student, scholar or professional with an interest in sports media, sports business, fandom, the relationship between sport and society, or cultural studies.

This volume brings together two prominent strands in second language acquisition theory and research: the concept of learner autonomy and computer-assisted language learning (CALL). Learner autonomy supports learners in becoming more reflective and communicative and in experimenting with language and language learning. CALL environments offer more and qualitatively different opportunities for learner autonomy than the traditional language classroom. This book offers researchers a starting point into researching learner autonomy in CALL contexts and offers teachers practical advice on chances and pitfalls in realizing learner autonomy goals in the CALL-supported classroom.

This book aims to provide insights into how ?second lives? in the sense of virtual identities and communities are constructed textually, semiotically and discursively, specifically in the online environment Second Life and Massively Multiplayer Online Games such as World of Warcraft. The book's philosophy is multi-disciplinary and its goal is to explore the question of how we as gamers and residents of virtual worlds construct alternative online realities in a variety of ways. Of particular significance to this endeavour are conceptions of the body in cyberspace and of spatiality, which manifests itself in ?natural? and built environments as well as the triad of space, place and landscape. The contributors? disciplinary backgrounds include media, communication, cultural and literary studies, and they examine issues of reception and production, identity, community, gender, spatiality, natural and built environments using a plethora of methodological approaches ranging from theoretical and philosophical contemplation through social semiotics to corpus-based discourse analysis.