Singapore, 24 January 2011 – A team of researchers from A*STAR’s Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), creators of the highly successful Dance!3D system has received more accolades again. The team was awarded at the World Technology Summit and Awards 2010 in New York. As such, they were voted as one of six award finalists among the highly selected 23 nominees under the Entertainment category. The 2010 World Technology Awards were announced on Dec. 1, 2010, in a gala ceremony at the TIME & LIFE Building in NYC by Ali Velshi (Anchor and Chief Business Correspondent) and James P. Clark (Founder/Chairman of the WTN).
Dance!3D is the world’s first 3D immersive and truly tetherless system that allows a two-way live and face-to-face dancing with a virtual character in three dimensions under fast changing and low lighting conditions that simulates night clubs’ environment with no need for user to carry/hold any devices or to go through any calibration process. The virtual character performs non-repetitive dance performance each time to attract the user’s attention. A series of technologies in computer vision, human computer interaction, and human character animation have been developed to achieve real-time and immersive performance for such a highly interactive application.
Professor Lye Kin Mun, Executive Director, I²R said, “We are very proud to receive recognition by the WTN for our innovation and to be amongst such distinguished company. This stands out as another example of our ability to develop real world solutions, whether for infotainment or other industry sectors, that leverage cutting edge research to deliver technologies that are globally marketable and internationally acclaimed.”
The World Technology Network (WTN) is a global meeting ground, a virtual think tank, and an elite club whose members are all focused on the business and science of bringing important emerging technologies of all types (from biotech to new materials, from IT to new energy sources) into reality. The WTN's membership is comprised of approximately 1000 members from more than 60 countries, judged by their peers to be the most innovative in the technology world.
All Winner and Finalists are automatically inducted into the World Technology Network (WTN) as new individual Fellows or as new Corporate Members. The World Technology Awards are presented each year to the outstanding innovators from each sector within the technology arena, both as a way to honour those individuals and as a vetting mechanism to determine the newest WTN members. The awards are announced each year in a gala ceremony at the close of the annual World Technology Summit.
The team's highly immersive entertainment technology emerged as one of six finalists in entertainment category. The criteria for making it as a finalist is that the top individuals or corporations must receive the most votes by the WTN judges (individual WTN members).
The I2R team comprised of Dr Susanto Rahardja, Dr Farzam Farbiz, Dr Huang Zhiyong, Chua Gim Guan, Dr Yuan Miaolong, Christina Tang Ka Yin, Loke Mei Hwan, Dr Corey Manders, Dr Ishtiaq Rasool Khan, Dr Zhu Yongwei, and Chan Ti Eu.
For media enquiries, please contact:
Mr Andrew Yap
Manager, Corporate Communications
Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R)
DID: (65) 6419 1143 Fax: (65) 6466 7716
Email: yapjt(at)i2r.a-star.edu.sg
