News Topic - University of Central Florida
Articles 1 - 10 of most recent articles
Virtual classroom at the University of Central Florida puts teachers to the test
Tanya Moorehead's task is to keep the algebra lesson in her middle-school class moving along briskly while keeping a close eye on young Marcus in the back row.
OrlandoSentinel.com – May 15, 2008 04:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
Tanya Moorehead's task is to keep the algebra lesson in her middle-school class moving along briskly while keeping a close eye on young Marcus in the back row.
OrlandoSentinel.com – May 15, 2008 04:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
Searching for work? Summer looks bleak
Entry-level prospects may dwindle as employers scale back or postpone hiring. Lafonda Elkins has been looking for work as an insurance investigator for most of the past year, hoping her criminal-justice degree from the University of Central Florida would open doors. Her job as an insurance-office clerk is a toehold in the industry, but it falls far short of what she had expected to be doing.
OrlandoSentinel.com – May 11, 2008 04:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
Entry-level prospects may dwindle as employers scale back or postpone hiring. Lafonda Elkins has been looking for work as an insurance investigator for most of the past year, hoping her criminal-justice degree from the University of Central Florida would open doors. Her job as an insurance-office clerk is a toehold in the industry, but it falls far short of what she had expected to be doing.
OrlandoSentinel.com – May 11, 2008 04:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
UCF Player Shot In Louisiana
The University of Central Florida Knights football player Johnell Neal was injured by gunfire in his hometown.
WESH.com – May 10, 2008 01:51 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
The University of Central Florida Knights football player Johnell Neal was injured by gunfire in his hometown.
WESH.com – May 10, 2008 01:51 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
Sex Drive: Motion-Capture Suits Will Spice Up Virtual Sex
No matter how beautiful the sex animations are in your favorite virtual playground, they can't compete with the movement of your own body. How soon will we be slipping gracefully into motion-capture suits or using 3-D cameras to capture those uniquely natural moves and engage our entire bodies in online sexual adventures, rather than limping along with keyboard and mouse? Sooner than you might think.Kevin Alderman, who's already infamous for the sex animations his company Strokerz Toyz creates for Second Life, is developing a wireless, consumer-level motion-capture suit that's expected to hit shelves in 2009."Right now only a dozen or so sites on the web offer downloadable mocap files," Alderman says. "You have to wait until some studio becomes benevolent enough to make the animations you want, or you have to engage them for your specific needs." Personal motion-capture suits will enable residents to contribute sex animations to the world of their choice -- and to develop scenarios tailored to their own deepest desires, especially if they team up with others who also have the suits. It's the bridge between today's expensive studio mocap and the real-time avatar control of tomorrow.Meanwhile, technologists Mitch Kapor and Philippe Bossut have developed a less exotic, yet more familiar, prototype for hands-free interaction in virtual worlds: They're using a 3-D camera to track body movements, which are in turn translated and used to control avatars in Second Life.These new technologies won't instantly set off the "ZOMG it's sex!" media alarms the way Bluetooth-to-sex-toy interfaces do. These developers can position themselves as facilitators of dancing and flying and walking around, creators of new input devices rather than instigators of a whole new level of cybersex.But you can be sure we'll adapt whatever they come up with to our own erotic purposes. I would gladly put up with a few technical glitches for the chance to play with home mocap systems and virtual worlds.Traditionally, home motion-capture animation has been financially out of reach for most geeks, costing about a half-million dollars for a studio setup -- a big room, multiple cameras to capture all the angles, the spandex suit with the white pingpong balls, the software that calculates the movement of those points through space and maps it to a digital figure.However, Rick Hall, production director at the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, sees "a trend to move away from big external optical systems" like the mocap setups used for movies and game development. Hall suggests that MMORGs will most likely provide the first venues for real-time mocap."Picture the more sedate scenes like in a bar, or dance clubs," he says. "That could be an interesting application, putting on a little virtual-reality mocap suit and dancing."Ask hard-core game developers about the limitations of using real-time motion capture devices to control your avatar and they'll remind you that your living room is a finite space. Even if you could strap on the motion sensors and use your body to maneuver your digital alter ego, you can't do much flying, climbing or fighting without hitting a wall."You can swing a baseball bat or kick a football, but you can't go dive, can't run, can't explore a cave," Hall says. "We're always going to have this problem. Duplicating the Holodeck on the Enterprise sounds nice, but when they turn the screen off, it's just a big room.... It's not limited by (mocap) technology but by the walls in your house."With virtual sex, that's not such a problem. Sometimes what you want to do in a virtual world takes up no more physical space than a sleeping bag. And sometimes you actually need a wall. Where else would you secure the tie-downs?"I'm not sure I want to go there," Hall says. (That's OK. Everybody has a day job.)Strokerz Toyz's Alderman wants to go all the way there. While the world waits for his $10,000 home mocap suit, he's launching a mocap studio, StroCap, that focuses on mature content."We are soliciting (Second Life) residents to tell us what they want to see in adult motion capture," Alderman says. "More realistic caresses? More erotic dances? More action?"With StroCap's offerings and the inevitable use of home mocap suits and 3-D cams to control avatars, people who want to express themselves sexually in a virtual world -- but can't draw or animate -- will still be able to translate their own desires and preferences into in-world animations.Gradually, our avatars will begin to mirror the way our bodies actually move, which could have an interesting effect on the gender play virtual worlds are so keen on. If we get it right, we'll become at least 50 percent more attractive to other residents, according to a collaborative study conducted last year at Texas A&M University and New York University.People are more than ready to replace keyboards and controllers with more holistic interfaces. Look at the demand for Wii Fit, even though nothing prevents us from popping in an exercise video or walking the dog.As for the lag that can still be a problem in virtual worlds, well, you wouldn't have expected people to use webcams night after night over their 14,400-baud modems, and yet we did, somehow.My first real-time mocap action will be to kiss whoever develops the system I use.See you in a fortnight,Regina Lynn- - -Regina Lynn invites you to move her at reginalynn.com.
Wired News – May 9, 2008 01:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Technology
No matter how beautiful the sex animations are in your favorite virtual playground, they can't compete with the movement of your own body. How soon will we be slipping gracefully into motion-capture suits or using 3-D cameras to capture those uniquely natural moves and engage our entire bodies in online sexual adventures, rather than limping along with keyboard and mouse? Sooner than you might think.Kevin Alderman, who's already infamous for the sex animations his company Strokerz Toyz creates for Second Life, is developing a wireless, consumer-level motion-capture suit that's expected to hit shelves in 2009."Right now only a dozen or so sites on the web offer downloadable mocap files," Alderman says. "You have to wait until some studio becomes benevolent enough to make the animations you want, or you have to engage them for your specific needs." Personal motion-capture suits will enable residents to contribute sex animations to the world of their choice -- and to develop scenarios tailored to their own deepest desires, especially if they team up with others who also have the suits. It's the bridge between today's expensive studio mocap and the real-time avatar control of tomorrow.Meanwhile, technologists Mitch Kapor and Philippe Bossut have developed a less exotic, yet more familiar, prototype for hands-free interaction in virtual worlds: They're using a 3-D camera to track body movements, which are in turn translated and used to control avatars in Second Life.These new technologies won't instantly set off the "ZOMG it's sex!" media alarms the way Bluetooth-to-sex-toy interfaces do. These developers can position themselves as facilitators of dancing and flying and walking around, creators of new input devices rather than instigators of a whole new level of cybersex.But you can be sure we'll adapt whatever they come up with to our own erotic purposes. I would gladly put up with a few technical glitches for the chance to play with home mocap systems and virtual worlds.Traditionally, home motion-capture animation has been financially out of reach for most geeks, costing about a half-million dollars for a studio setup -- a big room, multiple cameras to capture all the angles, the spandex suit with the white pingpong balls, the software that calculates the movement of those points through space and maps it to a digital figure.However, Rick Hall, production director at the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, sees "a trend to move away from big external optical systems" like the mocap setups used for movies and game development. Hall suggests that MMORGs will most likely provide the first venues for real-time mocap."Picture the more sedate scenes like in a bar, or dance clubs," he says. "That could be an interesting application, putting on a little virtual-reality mocap suit and dancing."Ask hard-core game developers about the limitations of using real-time motion capture devices to control your avatar and they'll remind you that your living room is a finite space. Even if you could strap on the motion sensors and use your body to maneuver your digital alter ego, you can't do much flying, climbing or fighting without hitting a wall."You can swing a baseball bat or kick a football, but you can't go dive, can't run, can't explore a cave," Hall says. "We're always going to have this problem. Duplicating the Holodeck on the Enterprise sounds nice, but when they turn the screen off, it's just a big room.... It's not limited by (mocap) technology but by the walls in your house."With virtual sex, that's not such a problem. Sometimes what you want to do in a virtual world takes up no more physical space than a sleeping bag. And sometimes you actually need a wall. Where else would you secure the tie-downs?"I'm not sure I want to go there," Hall says. (That's OK. Everybody has a day job.)Strokerz Toyz's Alderman wants to go all the way there. While the world waits for his $10,000 home mocap suit, he's launching a mocap studio, StroCap, that focuses on mature content."We are soliciting (Second Life) residents to tell us what they want to see in adult motion capture," Alderman says. "More realistic caresses? More erotic dances? More action?"With StroCap's offerings and the inevitable use of home mocap suits and 3-D cams to control avatars, people who want to express themselves sexually in a virtual world -- but can't draw or animate -- will still be able to translate their own desires and preferences into in-world animations.Gradually, our avatars will begin to mirror the way our bodies actually move, which could have an interesting effect on the gender play virtual worlds are so keen on. If we get it right, we'll become at least 50 percent more attractive to other residents, according to a collaborative study conducted last year at Texas A&M University and New York University.People are more than ready to replace keyboards and controllers with more holistic interfaces. Look at the demand for Wii Fit, even though nothing prevents us from popping in an exercise video or walking the dog.As for the lag that can still be a problem in virtual worlds, well, you wouldn't have expected people to use webcams night after night over their 14,400-baud modems, and yet we did, somehow.My first real-time mocap action will be to kiss whoever develops the system I use.See you in a fortnight,Regina Lynn- - -Regina Lynn invites you to move her at reginalynn.com.
Wired News – May 9, 2008 01:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Technology
UCF Pays For Late Player's Funeral Costs
The University Of Central Florida has started to pay the funeral costs for football player Ereck Plancher.
WESH.com – May 8, 2008 11:51 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
The University Of Central Florida has started to pay the funeral costs for football player Ereck Plancher.
WESH.com – May 8, 2008 11:51 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
Sources: UCF baseball coach harassed equipment manager
A lawyer for Jay Bergman says his firing is not warranted. The University of Central Florida fired baseball coach Jay Bergman because he was accused of sexually harassing a team equipment manager, a university source has confirmed.
OrlandoSentinel.com – May 3, 2008 11:52 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
A lawyer for Jay Bergman says his firing is not warranted. The University of Central Florida fired baseball coach Jay Bergman because he was accused of sexually harassing a team equipment manager, a university source has confirmed.
OrlandoSentinel.com – May 3, 2008 11:52 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
Sources: UCF baseball coach Jay Bergman harassed staffer
The University of Central Florida fired baseball coach Jay Bergman because he was accused of sexually harassing a team equipment manager, a university source has confirmed Bergman used a bat to simulate raping equipment manager Chris Rhyce in late February, said the university source and two other sources with knowledge of the allegation. The university source asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to speak for UCF.
OrlandoSentinel.com – May 3, 2008 02:51 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
The University of Central Florida fired baseball coach Jay Bergman because he was accused of sexually harassing a team equipment manager, a university source has confirmed Bergman used a bat to simulate raping equipment manager Chris Rhyce in late February, said the university source and two other sources with knowledge of the allegation. The university source asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to speak for UCF.
OrlandoSentinel.com – May 3, 2008 02:51 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
Sources Say Harassment Led To UCF Coach's FiringSources told Channel 9 Friday that the University of Central Florida fired its head baseball coach because of harassment.
WFTV.com – May 2, 2008 8:52 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
UCF Baseball Coach Abruptly Fired
The University of Central Florida's baseball head coach, Jay Bergman, was abruptly fired on Thursday.
WESH.com – May 2, 2008 12:51 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
The University of Central Florida's baseball head coach, Jay Bergman, was abruptly fired on Thursday.
WESH.com – May 2, 2008 12:51 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando
Former UCF Football Star Sentenced To 5 Years For Armed RobberyA former University of Central Florida football star and Tampa Bay Bucs player, accused of robbing a UCF student at gunpoint, will spend the next five years in prison. VIDEO: 5-Year Prison Sentence For Former UCF Football Star ARCHIVE: Read Previous Reports On Football Player's Arrest
WFTV.com – May 1, 2008 4:53 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Florida: Orlando