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The 50th edition of the annual SIGGRAPH show took place in Los Angeles. Alongside the usual theme tracks on computer graphics, visual computing, immersion, and media automation, this year’s event commemorated five decades of CGI history. A timeline showcasing the developments in visual computing was set up in a walkable time tunnel installation, which included interactive features related to pattern recognition

Berlin’s annual festival of playful interactive media got a special spot in this year’s event calendar. While other interactive media events did not make it into 2023, like canceled E3 for professionals or sunken Berlin Games Week for the public, A Maze expanded on several platforms for more performance oriented topics. The core event took place at the Silent Green cultural center with the game exhibition

Pandemic aftermath deflation, consumer price inflation, a looming recession and financial insecurities in tech driven business areas also affect the game industry’s actual development perspectives. The general economic outlook for the industry remains slightly diminished compared to the pandemic heydays of the past. But Virtual Reality seems to become one of the few market segments of moderate growth. Circumven

Nvidia‘s virtual conference GTC and the in-person Game Developer Conference in San Francisco ran on separate tracks after two years of crossover presentations on virtual platforms. The technical GTC continued elaborations on digital twins and virtual cooperation mainly in industrial application areas, while GDC celebrated the reestablished opportunity for personal meetups and caught up with the latest trends in

The annual Consumer Electronic Show returned to Las Vegas in 2023 as a full-fledged trade event. Like before the pandemic, the show floors were crowded with people, booths, and gadgets. Some digital leftovers from the virtual interregnum broadcasted daily events from the show, streamed keynotes and panel discussions from the conference, and offered an expo space with digital company profiles and product portfolios. A

Formerly known as VR Days Europe, the annual European XR convention moved from Amsterdam to Rotterdam under the new title of Immersive Tech Week. The program structure did not change too much. You got the same tracks for lectures and panels, trade exposition, art work installations and special events like before, all centered around the latest trends in XR research and applications. The 5 days started with 2 days of

IFA came back to life in 2022 on the Berlin fair ground after a cancellation in 2021 and a digital edition in 2020. The pandemic worries now make way for other critical developments in global trade reorganization. The fair ground was not as busy as in pre-pandemic years, although the program made quite a complete impression. In general, the whole show was shifting from a consumer event to a more concerted trading con

The reenactment program of the world’s most popular game event was surprisingly complete in comparison to the original editions before the pandemic break. Gamescom 2022 warmed up with the developer conference Devcom, launched as a business event on media day with the Opening Night Live Show, restarted the next day with the political discussion platform Gamescom Congress and continued the consumer show until the

Hybridity makes it possible to seamlessly slide from virtual into real presence and vice versa. My embarking at this year’s Devcom gave a perfect example: I started the developer’s conference on the virtual platform while sitting in a train to Cologne. Upon my arrival at the conference’s site, I had already followed this day’s lectures in the live video stream, and I now entered the lecture ro