French-Japanese Seminar on “Metaverse and Virtual Reality - The Science and Technology of Interacting with Digital Worlds”

Photos of the Event: https://www.flickr.com/photos/oistedu/albums/72177720307832229

French Embassy in Japan x OIST Theoretical Sciences Visiting Program (TSVP)

Metaverse and Virtual Reality - The Science and Technology of Interacting with Digital Worlds
メタバースとバーチャルリアリティ： デジタルワールドを行き来する科学技術

This event is supported by the department for science and technology of the French Embassy in Japan and OIST’s Theoretical Sciences Visiting Program (TSVP).

This one day seminar on Metaverse and Virtual reality is accompanied by a public lecture in the evening, which is accessible to all OIST members and the general public: https://groups.oist.jp/tsvp/event/seminar-virtual-realitymetaverse
(The seminar itself is for invited participants and all students and researchers at OIST).

Poster/Banner image was created by Shunichi Kasahara using Midjourney.

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) spontaneously evokes a set of high-end technologies designed to "immerse" its users in synthetic 3D environments simulated in real time by a computer. Thanks to dedicated interfaces such as head-mounted displays, VR applications allow users to have powerful experiences such as being in a different place or interacting with characters that are not physically present for real. The first VR systems date back to the 1950s or 1960s, but a media and economic craze has recently developed, especially with the buzz around "Metaverses", these massively shared virtual worlds sometimes presented as the "Internet of the Future", in which we may one day be able to perform many human activities such as working, training, visiting, meeting, shopping, etc. Such an extraordinary promise has motivated colossal investments of the tech giants over the last 10 years. We are therefore living in a pivotal and historic moment for this field, which is progressively moving towards mass applications. In this seminar, we will question the next steps for VR technologies. We will question the present and the future of immersive technologies. We will draw up the state of the art of the field, and present the current and future research tracks, trying to answer the question: is the metaverse really the future of our interactions with digital contents?

Program

• Welcome coffee, 8:30 JST

• Opening words, 9:00 JST
  • Nicholas M. Luscombe (Professor, Dean of Research at OIST)

• Session 1:  Embodiment and Interaction, 9:15-10:15
  • Takuji Narumi (Univ. Tokyo)  
  • Rebecca Fribourg (ECN) 
  • Maki Sugimoto (Keio Univ.)

<BREAK> 10:15-10:45

• Session 2: Augmented Reality, 10:45-11:45
  • Guillaume Moreau (IMT-A)   
  • Daisuke Iwai (Osaka Univ.)  
  • Yuta Itoh (Univ. Tokyo)    

<LUNCH BREAK> 12:00-13:00

• Session 3: Haptics, 13:00-14:00
  • Kouta Minamizawa (Keio Univ.)  
  • Yutaro Hirao (NAIST)  
  • Arata Horie (Keio Univ.; commissure)

<BREAK> 14:00-14:30

• Session 4: Cognition and Neuroscience, 14:30-15:10
  • Léa Pillette (CNRS/IRISA)  
  • Kazuhisa Shibata (RIKEN CBS)  

• Wrap-up/Discussion, 15:10-15:30
  • Chaired by Tom Froese (OIST)

• SonyCSL-OIST Collaboration | Lab Tour (for seminar participants only), 15:45– 17:00 at Lab 5

• Public Lecture (with simultaneous interpretation), 17:15-18:30
  • Shunichi Kasahara, Researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratories, SonyCSL-OIST collaboration Cybernetic Humanity Studio  
  • Anatole Lécuyer, Research Director and Head of Hybrid Team at Inria (France) and TSVP Visiting Scholar  
  • More details here

• Closing remarks, 18:30-18:40
  Jean-Baptiste Bordes (Attaché for Science and Technology of the French Embassy in Japan)

• SonyCSL-OIST Collaboration | Lab Tours (for OIST/General Public), 18:45 And 19:15

Seminar will also be broadcast online via Zoom

Join Zoom (Zoom is open. Please try Meeting ID and Passcode if the link is not working)
Meeting ID: 977 9491 3409
Passcode: 327684

※ Please note that this event will be recorded and the video uploaded. In addition, photos may be taken during the event. These are intended for publication online to report on the website, social media, etc.

Event Guidelines

• Please conduct a self-health check prior to the event.　
  Please do not enter OIST if you have a cough, fever, or any other symptoms of an Infectious disease like Covid-19.
• 事前にセルフヘルスチェックを実施してください。
  咳や発熱、Covid-19などの感染症の症状がある方は、OISTへの入場をご遠慮ください。