News & Announcements
TEDxUSC Showcases ICT Innovations
Skip Rizzo, ICT’s associate director for medical virtual reality was one of the featured presenters at the 2010 TEDxUSC event. Rizzo demonstrated his virtual reality therapy designed to treat post traumatic stress in soldiers and…
San Diego Union Tribune Covers ICT Technologies Helping Make Decisions Under Stress
A story about the the Marine Corps Infantry Immersive Trainer at Camp Pendleton noted that the mixed-reality training facility was built on years of research by the Navy and software development by the…
Army.mil Covers ICT “Technologies of the Future”
Two recent stories on the Army.mil website overview ICT tools and technologies used by the Army, from virtual humans to serious games to virtual reality. Command Sgt. Maj. Hector Marin, RDECOM’s senior enlisted advisor, was…
Army Studies Virtual Iraq - ICT’s Virtual Reality System for Treating PTSD
An aticle on NextGov.com, a website that covers goverment uses of technology, featured the Army’s use and study of Virtual Iraq, ICT’s virtual reality based therapy for treating PTSD. The story states that,…
ICT’s Jonathan Gratch and Stacy Marsella Honored for Virtual Human Breakthroughs
Research recognizing and replicating emotion’s role in thought and behavior, earns duo top international award in their field.
From computer-generated counselors who help mothers of sick children make decisions under stress to virtual…
Mashable.com Features ICT’s 3D Teleconferencing System
A video demonstration and an explanation of the technology behind ICT’s 3D teleconferencing display at the TEDxUSC reception is up on mashable.com. Watch it here. Read their full story.…
Paul Debevec Honored At Viterbi/ICT Event
Colleagues hailed Paul Debevec’s Academy Award Tuesday evening at a reception hosted by ICT and the Viterbi School.
Debevec, ICT’s associate director for graphics research and a research associate professor in the Computer…
Canadian Newspapers Feature Andrew Gordon’s Blog Mining Research
A story published in several Canadian daily newspapers explains the blog mining research being done by ICT research associate professor Andrew Gordon. The story reports that Gordon aims to archive every English-language personal story blog…
ICT Researchers Nominated for Best Paper Awards
Papers by Jina Lee and Lixing Huang and ICT colleagues have been nominated for best virtual agent paper at the Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems conference (AAMAS ), the premier scientific conference for research on…
The Eye’s Have It! Wired Interviews Paul Debevec About Realistic Virtual Actors
Wired’s Hugh Hart interviewed Paul Debevec about the future of virtual actors and the technology developments that are allowing them to be believable. “Benjamin Button and Avatar created digital characters that achieved the one thing…
The Economist Features Work of ICT’s Andrew Gordon
In a story appearing in print and online, the Economist magazine describes Andrew Gordon’s research identifying and analyzing personal stories told in blog entries. The idea, the article states, is that this will eventually lead…
Viterbi’s Shri Narayanan Wins Best Paper Award for ICT Supported Emotion Work
A 2005 paper co-authored by Shri Narayanan and his former student Chul Min Lee has won a 2009 Best Paper prize from the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS). The prize honors Lee (PhD EE, 2004)…
Science Day at ICT
A group of Los Angeles area youth visited ICT on Saturday to see first hand what technologies and career paths can come from a solid understanding of math, science and engineering concepts. ICT researchers demonstrated…
UrbanSim featured on DoD’s Armed with Science
ICT’s Andrew Gordon was interviewed on the DoD podcast Armed with Science about UrbanSim, ICT’s computer-based game to support the training of military commanders and their staffs in complex counter-insurgency and stability operations. “One of…
ICT Virtual Humans Ada and Grace Talk Science at AAAS in San Diego
NSF showcases science education collaboration with Museum of Science, Boston
Ada and Grace, two bright and bubbly young women literally stopped visitors in their tracks in the National Science Foundation (NSF) expo booth…
Forbes Asks if CG Can Bring Actors Back From the Dead - Features ICT’s Paul Debevec and Light Stage
The March 15 issue of Forbes Magazine looks at the impact of digital filmmaking on acting, asking whether technology will be able to bring actors back from the dead. Reporter Dorothy Pomerantz interviewed ICT’s Paul…
Academy Award® Shines Light on Innovations of ICT Researcher
Paul Debevec and colleagues recognized with Academy Award® for development of the Light Stage technologies. System has been used in films including Avatar, Benjamin Button and Spider-Man™ 2
A researcher whose work involves…
PBS FRONTLINE’s Digital Nation Features Interviews and Video from ICT
Digital Nation, a new internet and documentary project from PBS FRONTLINE is featuring many ICT researchers and technologies on its website. The project aims to capture life on the digital frontier and explore how the…
The Economist Features Work of ICT’s Louis-Philippe Morency
The Economist featured research by ICT research assistant professor Louis-Philippe Morency that found a way for a computer to understand a human gesture: the nod. Morency and…
From Academe to the Academy Awards - Read All About it in the Chronicle of Higher Ed
Reporter Marc Parry interviews Paul Debevec about his Academy Award-winning Light Stage technology.
ICT’s Light Stage on CNN - Footage Shows Making Of Avatar
CNN’s Larry King Live devoted a show to the film Avatar. The program featured footage of some of the film’s actors being scanned in the Light Stage device. ICT’s Paul Debevec developed the Light Stage…
ICT’s Kim LeMasters Explains UrbanSim on NPR
In a story called Sim City Baghdad National Public Radio’s program, On the Media, spoke to Creative Director Kim LeMasters about UrbanSim, a computer game developed at ICT for practice in counterinsurgency operations. LeMasters gave…
The CBS Evening News Features ICT’s Light Stage Technology Used in Avatar
CBS News reporter Ben Tracy visited the ICT Graphics Lab and was scanned in Light Stage 5 as part of a story about the technological innovations in the blockbuster film Avatar. Many of the film’s…
New York Times Features MCIT and Virtual Iraq
An article about the Pentagon’s high-tech efforts to counter the threat of low-tech IEDs highlighted the Mobile Counter IED Trainer (MCIT), which uses well-crafted stories to impart a framework…
Academy Award® Honors Developers of USC ICT’s Light Stage Technologies
Used in films including Avatar , Benjamin Button and Spider-Man™ 2, award recognizes Institute for Creative Technologies’ visual effects systems that create believable digital actors and have ever-increasing entertainment applications.
The Atlantic Magazine Features UrbanSim, ICT’s Counterinsurgency Computer Training Game
UrbanSim, ICT’s turn-taking strategy game created in collaboration with the U.S. Army’s Simulation and Training Technology Center (STTC), is the subject of a feature story in the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Read More »
ICT Virtual Human Toolkit Now Available - Provides a Free and Common Platform to Create Characters
The University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies has created the ICT Virtual Human Toolkit with the goal of reducing some the complexity inherent in creating virtual…
ICT Researchers Earn Special Effects Credits in Groundbreaking Avatar Film
Paul Debevec, ICT’s associate director for graphics research, Abhijeet Ghosh, research assistant professor, and Wan-Chun (“Alex”) Ma, postdoctoral researcher, have been recognized with film credits for their work using Read More »
Randall W. Hill, Jr. Joins National Academies’ Board on Army Science and Technology
ICT Executive Director Randall W. Hill Jr., has been selected as a member of the Board on Army Science and Technology (BAST) of the National Academies. The BAST was established at the National Academies by…
ICT Virtual Humans Debut at Museum of Science, Boston
On Tuesday, December 8, 2009, just in time for National Computer Science Education Week, the the USC Institute for Creative Technologies and the Museum of Science, Boston introduced “Grace” and “Ada,” two of the most…
Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute Features ICT
ICT Executive Director Randall W. Hill, Jr and Director of Technology Bill Swartout discuss the current state and future of simulation in this journal article, which also covers ICT’s Virtual Iraq application for treating…
ICT’s Jonathan Gratch Named Editor of New Journal on Computing and Emotion
Jon Gratch, ICT’s associate director for virtual humans research, has been named the inaugural editor of the new journal, The IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing. The IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing…
Paul Debevec Covered by the New Zealand Press
On his recent trip to New Zealand’s AnimfxNZ conference, Paul was featured on the TV New Zealand as well as in an article in the New Zealand Dominion Post. The stories focused on the work…
The New York Times Features ICT’s Coming Home Project
The New York Times featured Coming Home, an ICT project led by Jacquelyn Morie. Coming Home is a destination within the virtual world Second Life that provides camaraderie, support and resources for…
Paul Debevec’s TED Talk Posted at TED.com
Paul Debevec’s presentation from TEDx USC has been posted on the main TED conference site.
Debevec’s presentation covered the Digital Emily project, a collaboration between the…
Jacquelyn Ford Morie Presents on New Uses for Emerging Technologies at Web 2.0 Summit
ICT’s Jacki Morie was selected to present her work on ICT’s Coming Home project, an effort that is building an online community for returning veterans to find support, resources and healing in…
3-D Teleconferencing Featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education highlighted work by Paul Debevec and colleagues at ICT in a story on increase uses of and advances in videoconferencing technology. Debevec has built a…
Skip Rizzo Named Associate Director for Medical Virtual Reality at ICT
In a newly created position, Dr. Albert “Skip” Rizzo will be responsible for advancing and overseeing the use of virtual reality and game technology in a wide range of medical domains for training, therapy,…
Variety Covers ICT
ICT was featured in a Variety article about ways the military transitions Hollywood technologies for training. The story highlights ICT’s Mobile Counter-IED Interactive Trainer (MCIT) as an example of a project that uses not just…
LabTV Posts New Segments about ICT Work
Stories about the work of the ICT Graphics Lab are now up on the LabTV website. Click on the link below to be directed to new segments about Light Stage technology and…
ICT Researchers Win Best Paper Award
Research by Jonathan Gratch, Stacy Marsella, Ning Wang and Brooke Stankovic received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE 2009 International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction in Amsterdam. Their paper, Assessing the Validity…
USC Coach Pete Carroll, Provost C. L. Max Nikias and Athletic Director Mike Garrett Visit ICT
Pete Carroll, coach of the USC football team, took a break from football practice to experience a different kind of training here at ICT. Coach Carroll was accompanied by USC’s executive vice president and provost,…
ICT Training Games in Training and Simulation Journal
The August issue of Training and Simulation Journal features two stories about ICT work. One covers the BiLAT negotiation trainer that recently won an Army Modeling and Simulation award and…
3D Teleconferencing Makes Heads Spin at SIGGRAPH - Forbes and Technology Review Cover
ICT’s 3D Teleconferencing Display is being showcased at the SIGGRAPH-09 Emerging Technologies Exhibit. The system, also known as HeadSPIN, is profiled in the August issue of Forbes Magazine and in MIT’s…
Recent Coverage for ICT’s “Coming Home” Project
ICT’s project to create a space within Second Life to provide camaraderie, support and resources for returning troops to help them re-assimilate into civilian life was featured in CNET and United Press International articles and…
ICT Games Featured in PC World Magazine Story
A PC World story about the Army’s increasing use of video games discussed ICT’s Virtual Iraq, UrbanSim and BiLAT applications. Noting that the characters in ICT games feel…
ICT’s Virtual Worlds and Characters Featured in Armed with Science Interview with Jacquelyn Morie
ICT’s Jacquelyn Morie discussed how research on immersive games, virtual worlds and human intelligence is being used to provide support to military veterans on Armed with Science, a weekly webcast that discusses the importance of…
USC Researcher Honored for Virtual Reality Innovations
ICT research scientist Albert “Skip” Rizzo was selected as the first ever winner of the Intellectual Leadership Award established by the Los Angeles Chapter of Mensa to recognize, honor and celebrate the region’s leaders in…
ICT’s Bill Swartout Wins Major AI Award
Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence recognizes achievements and service of William Swartout, a USC expert who has redefined personal computing
William Swartout, director of technology at the USC Institute for Creative…
PTSD Virtual Exposure Therapy Featured in Military Training and Simulation Magazine
The latest issue of Military Training and Simulation magazine covers ICT’s Virtual Iraq application for treating PTSD in a story about therapeutic uses of simulation and virtual worlds. …
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