We are pleased to announce that the proceedings of the conference will be published in Springer's renowned Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

"Online Storytelling: People, Stories, and Games"

Storytelling is a vital form of human communication. Games are a rewarding form of social interaction. These two important activities are fundamentally different and often require contradictory behavior from audiences and participants. In this talk Dr Glassner will show that there is hope for bringing them together in principled ways to create exciting new entertainments and art forms.

Dr Andrew Glassner is a writer and consultant. He has worked in 3D computer graphics research for many years, most recently at Xerox PARC and Microsoft Research. He has written many articles and books on computer graphics for artists, designers, scientists, and researchers. He is currently a full-time novelist and screenwriter, and a part-time consultant to the entertainment industry.

The conference committee will award a prize to the best scientific paper. This 2000 Euros prize, sponsored by the Immersion company, is composed of:

A SpaceMouse 3D controller	A CrystalEyes Stereoscopic Kit

The criteria for the prize include the originality, significance and technical strength of the paper.

"Learning in Character: Synthetic Characters that Learn from Experiences".

Pr Bruce M. Blumberg directs the Synthetic Characters Group at the Media Lab of MIT. He joined the faculty in 1996 after completing his PhD under Prof. Pattie Maes.
Prior to coming to the lab, he held senior positions with NeXT Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. His work focuses on building models of learning, behavior, and development for Synthetic Characters that are inspired by learning, behavior and development in real dogs.