mscape

Mscape

Developer(s)	Hewlett Packard
Operating system	Windows Mobile
Type	gaming platform
Website	mscapers

Mscape is a mobile media gaming platform under development by Hewlett Packard that can be used to create location-based games.^[1] The Mscape platform is flexible. HP encourages developers to use Mscape to create not just games, but also informational guides to points of interest, imaginative stories about places, and practical information about worksites.^[2] Mscape makes a player's GPS location an element of the gameplay. Events in a game are triggered by a player's location, and the player interacts with a game by moving from place to place.

Mscape is used to create mediascapes, interactive experiences made up of video, audio, images, and text. Mscape stores the digital media files in a structure that associates them with positions from a GPS system. Players play mediascapes on a Windows Mobile device, such as a mobile phone or a PDA, that's GPS enabled. As players move around, the device senses their position and activates the appropriate media files.^[3]

History

Mscape had its origins in 2002 as Mobile Bristol, a project that explored how mobile devices and pervasive information technology could enhance people's interactions with their physical environments and with each other in urban and public spaces.^[4]

With funding from the British government, researchers in HP Labs Bristol, the University of Bristol, and Appliance Studio collaborated on several trials, working with artists, writers, educators, and others to create a series of interactive, context-aware mobile experiences. In one trial, visitors to Bristol's harbor could virtually navigate the history of what was once one of Britain's busiest ports. In another, middle school students could experience life as a lion by walking around a virtual savannah.^[2]

In 2007, HP made the authoring suite and mobile player software available for download at no cost from the Mscapers community website.^[5]

Technology

Mscape has evolved from research in Augmented reality (which deals with the combination of real world and computer generated data) and from developments in location-based services (services available through a mobile device based on the device’s geographical location).^[6] The Mscape technology is also an example of Ubiquitous computing and a context-aware pervasive system.

Three technologies are essential to mediascapes: portable computing, embedded sensors, and context-coded information and services.^[6]

Portable computing. Mscape has been made practical by the ready availability of consumer GPS navigation devices such as GPS-equipped PDAs and smartphones.

Embedded sensors. The publicly available version of Mscape currently takes advantage only of a player’s GPS location.^[7],^[8] However, experimental deployments of mediascapes have made use of other types of sensors, such as short-range radio beacons and heart rate monitors.^[9] The Mscape technology enables developers to create plug-ins to easily incorporate data from sensors such as infrared and radio frequency beacons, RFID tags, digital compasses, and other types of sensors.^[10]

Context-coded information. Media — images, video, audio, and Flash interactions — is triggered by the logic assigned to a specific space. The logic can not only define behavior based on a person’s presence with the space, but can also vary the behavior based on the number of times the person has entered the space.^[11] Media types include:

• HTML, MP3, and WAV audio
• JPEG and GIF images
• MPEG, WMV, and SWF video and Flash interactions^[12]

For future implementations, Hewlett-Packard proposes a client-server architecture using streaming media over a wireless network. Such implementations would enable multi-player games. Streaming media over a wireless network would also be useful in contexts in which content needs to be updated frequently to reflect rapidly changing information or time-based data.^[13]

Tools

Mscape Player

Mscape Player plays mediascapes on Windows Mobile devices, such as mobile phones or PDAs, that are GPS enabled.^[14]

Mscape Library

Developers and players use Mscape Library to manage the mediascapes they have on their computers. Players download mediascapes from the Mscapers website into Mscape Library. They then use Mscape Library to copy those mediascapes to their Windows Mobile device. Developers can also use Mscape Library to launch Mscape Maker and Mscape Tester. ^[7],^[15]

Mscape Library also detects whether a Windows Mobile device has Mscape Player installed on it, alerts the user if it doesn't, and installs the player.^[16]

Mscape Maker

Developers use Mscape Maker to create mediascapes. Mscape Maker has four work areas:

Place Editor. Developers use the place editor to set up the map that's the basis of the mediascape. The map comprises both an image and the GPS coordinates that associate the map image with a real place on the surface of the earth.^[17] Once the map is set up, a developer defines areas on the map that trigger digital media and interactions with the mediascape. Simple mediascapes can be created by dragging and dropping components onto the map in the Place Editor.^[18]

Script Editor. In the script editor, developers use a much simplified version of C# to script events. HP compares Mscape's scripting language to Adobe Flash ActionScript. Their intent is to make Mscape's scripting language simple enough for beginners: "you can pick it up fairly quickly and you can achieve quite advanced things without having to do lots of programming."^[18]

Script Object Window. The script object window lists all the script objects that are used in a mediascape. Developers use scripts to manipulate and coordinate four types of script objects:

• Media — audio, video, Flash movies, and web pages
• Sensors — GPS coordinates, places (based on MapLib files), regions, and speakers (audio that appears to come from a particular point)
• States — numeric, text, and true/false variables
• Tools — buttons, timers, alarms, playlists, and so on

Properties Window. Developers use the properties window to view and change the properties of script objects.

Mscape Maker saves mediascapes in two file formats:

• .msl files are the native format in the authoring environment.
• .msz files are the compressed format played on a Windows Mobile device.

Mscape Tester

Mscape Tester simulates what a mediascape looks like on a Windows Mobile device. A developer can place a small figure at any point on the mediascape's map to test the gameplay at that point.^[19]

Licensing

The Mscape platform is available under either a non-commercial license (for not-for-profit or educational use) or a commercial license.^[20]

Developers who upload mediascapes to the Mscapers community website can offer their mediascapes to other users either under a default license (a non–exclusive, royalty–free, worldwide, perpetual license to use, reproduce, distribute, display, perform, or prepare derivative works of the mediascape)^[21] or under a Creative Commons license.

Types of mediascapes

Mediascapes can be either portable or anchored.

• Portable mediascapes can be played anywhere. They typically require players to set up the game area before beginning to play.
• Anchored mediascapes can be played only in the specific place they were designed for.^[22]

Because the events in mediascapes are triggered by GPS coordinates, mediascapes can offer users various types of experiences of a place.

• Games present some sort of challenge. Players can win or lose, succeed or fail.
• Guides provide specific facts about how the place is now or was in the past. They focus on information
• Stories are an imaginative treatment of facts or fiction. They focus on feelings and thoughts places evoke.^[23]

Developers

Members of the HP Labs team who contributed to the development of Mscape were:

• Phil Stenton
• Richard Hull
• Patrick Goddi
• Josephine Reid
• Ben Clayton
• Tom Melamed
• Susie Wee

Members of the HP Labs team who contributed to the development of the Mscapers community website were:

• Andrew Dahley
• Patrick Goddi
• Kurt MacDonald
• Allen Arakaki

Games using Mscape

• Alien Alley. A sniper alley game set in Park Street in Bristol, England.
• Augustine's Puzzle. A treasure hunt based in the pedestrian area opposite the entrance of the Bristol Hippodrome in the center of Bristol.
• Doubloons. A trading game that invites players to adventure in the Caribbean Sea during the golden age of sail.
• Hidden Danger UXB! Clear the playing field of unexploded bombs.
• Stamp a Mole. An adaption of the popular arcade game Whac-A-Mole.

Other applications using Mscape

• Always Something Somewhere Else. Interwoven stories connect players to remote locations around the world, soundtracked with a generative music score.
• A Walk to the Park in Shanghai. A walk from the Royal Meridien Hotel in Shanghai to the Peoples Park.
• Gulbenkian Gardens. Hear about the Gulbenkian Foundation Gardens in Lisbon and meet some of the people who spend time there.
• Prisoner Escape from the Tower. A historically accurate re-enactment of four escapes from the Tower of London.
• Yosemite Walk to the Falls. Two virtual rangers guide players on a two-hour nature walk through Yosemite Valley.

See also

• Augmented Reality
• Augmented Virtuality
• GPS tour
• I-Tours
• Mediascape
• Mixed Reality
• Scvngr

Notes

1. ^ " Joystiq hands-on: HP's mscape". Joystiq. Retrieved on 2007-04-10
2. ^ ^{a b} "About mscapers.com". Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
3. ^ "Your Next Journey Begins Here". Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-27.
4. ^ "Mobile Bristol". Mobile Bristol. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
5. ^ "mscape – Free Toolkit to Create and Share Mobile, Interactive Experiences". Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
6. ^ ^{a b} Stenton 2007:98
7. ^ ^{a b} "Get Started!" Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
8. ^ "Labs Experimental Zone". Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
9. ^ Stenton 2007:104
10. ^ Stenton 2007:101,105
11. ^ Stenton 2007:99
12. ^ Stenton 2007:101
13. ^ Stenton 2007:102
14. ^ "Hardware Requirements". Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
15. ^ "Running Your First Mediascape". Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
16. ^ "Installing Mscape Suite". Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
17. ^ "Using Maps in mediascapes". Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
18. ^ ^{a b} "Mediascape Scripting Language: an introduction" Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
19. ^ "Using the mscape tester" Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
20. ^ "Mscape License Agreement". Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
21. ^ "Default License Terms". Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
22. ^ "Search results", "Portable" ToolTip and "Anchored" ToolTip. Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
23. ^ "Search results", "Game" ToolTip, "Guide" Tooltip, and "Story" ToolTip. Hewlett-Packard. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.

References

Stenton, S. P., R. Hull, P. M. Goddi, J. E. Reid, B. J. Clayton, T. J. Melamed and S. Wee (2007). "Mediascapes: Context-Aware Multimedia Experiences." IEEE Multimedia 14(3): 98 - 105.

External links

• Applicance Studio
• Create-a-scape
• Creative Commons licenses
• HP Labs Bristol
• Mobile Bristol
• Mscapers.com
• University of Bristol
• BBC Northern Ireland Mobile Learning