Press releases
Insights
 |
Japanese scientists revive famous writer
How do people react if they are to face a long dead writer for "real"? This interesting question is pursued by a team led by professor Hamido Fujita from the Iwate Prefectural University in Japan. For this experiment, the scientists chose Kenji Miyzawa, a writer broadly known in Japan, who was born in 1896 in Iwate. This man was brought back to virtual life with enormous technical efforts.
Now while Kenji Miyzawa war reciting his own works of fiction, the behavior of some test persons watching this presentation was monitored with video cameras. The analysis of the collected data was done with INTERACT afterwards. The scientists where not only interested in the common behavior of the test person, but also did some FACS (Facial Action Coding System) analysis. For this, INTERACT was the team's program of choice, too.
As the team of scientists where also highly interested in analyzing audio data, another solution from the Mangold portfolio was used. Using the Soundalyzer in their studies, which is highly integrated in the INTERACT environment, a great time saving could be achieved.
The team at Mangold International is very proud of having contributed in making the work during this study easier for the scientists. On this subject, professor Hamido Fujita said: "This research has been accelerated and moved further on after we have used INTERACT especially for creating Kenji style based on psychological observation of user".
Now how does this virtual Kenji Miyzawa look like?
Further information about the work at the Iwate Prefectural University can be found in the following documents: |
Insights
 |
Behavioural Analysis of the Tower Controller Activity
...at the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation.
EUROCONTROL, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, has analysed the importance of direct observation for the control tower activity.
The research is motivated by the interest in assessing the applicability of augmented reality technology for Air Traffic Management (ATM). The hypothesis is that augmented reality has the biggest potential when a human operator, in this case the air traffic controller, is largely dependant on visual information, i.e. information retrieved by direct observation of the real world scene. Therefore the EUROCONTROL Agency is initially focussing on tower operations.
In particular, they want to find out if direct observation provides unique information (i.e. not available from other sources) and, more generally, which information can be obtained by it. Once this is known, it may be possivle to design augmented reality environments which assist the tower control acitivity.
In an observation study, INTERACT was used to record paramenters of activities, produce graphic representation of data and obtain basic statistic analysis.
More about the study can be found here... |
Events
 |
Successful participation at the SRCD
It is THE event in the field of child development reserach and as in the years before this years SRCD broke again all preceding records. More than 6000 researchers from the United State and International gathered at the Hynes Convention center in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, to exchange views and promote the further development in this area.
Among the participants to be found was also the Managing Director of Mangold International, Pascal Mangold. The leading technology provider in the area of child development research and behavior analysis came with an information booth and introduced various exciting new developments at Mangold International: First off naturally the new improved INTERACT 8 that provides leading technology for today's researchers.
More detailed information was given out at a Mangold International Hospitality Event at the nerby Boston Sheraton Hotel. Here Pascal Mangold announced the forming of a Mangold Scientific Council, tasked to promote the use of state-of-the-art video coding in gaining better research data. At the reception attendees by a large number of former und future friends of Mangold International, Pascal Mangold handed out the first membership certificate to Professor Roger Bakeman from the Georgia State University.
Last not least the Managind Director took the opportunity to announce that Mangold will in the near future start an US office to better service their large number of clients in the US and South America. |
Insights
 |
Opening of new Usability Lab in Nuremberg
The George-Simon-Ohm Technical University of Applied Sciences in Nuremberg, Germany, continues to lead the way and impress with trend setting in their field. Not only has the university left marks when being involved in motion picture animations such as in the blockbuster movie "Independence day" but now also in setting up one of the most advanced regional usability labs... using Mangold International technology and solutions.
At the recent opening ceremony Mangold International Managing Director Pascal Mangold addresses the who's who in the regional scientific and business community with high marks for the vision of the Technical University in investing into usability and a technology field of the future. The lab which will serve both scientific needs and industrial demands is set up using eye tracking and various Mangold technology products such as the highly acclaims software INTERACT to process any sensor data that testers can come up with to improve the usability of products and interfaces. The lab manager Mrs. Katrin Proschek looks upon the lab as a great opportunity to foster the already very solid relationship between the technical university and local business and invites the industrie to draw from the lab by renting in for testing their products in terms of ergonomics and usability.
Mangold International as a partner of the Georg-Simon-Ohm Technical University is proud to have set another benchmark in developing more usability testing and research excellence and will stay in close touch with the lab to ensure it stays on top in terms of state-of-the art technology. |
