It looks like liftoff for the paperwork mired Avatars project, which has been a victim of half term holiday.
If this week gives time to complete all the forms, we should be in go mode
A colleague in New York is touting it for the social media industry at Ad Tech conference
Here's a background spiel
Z/Yen Group, a London technology and finance consultancy, is leading a UK Government-funded strategic research collaboration to create Avatar-style interfaces as a screen-based application for automated marketplaces. In media technology, the prime application will be a new approach to algorithmic trading in ad exchanges and RTB markets. This market in the UK is estimated to be worth £ 130mn by end of 2010[1]. There will also be applications for automated execution in larger sectors such as online gaming and robot-based financial trading.
The Avatars project at Z/Yen will enable trading algorithms in any automated market to be programmed by changing the characteristics of an “Avatar” animated character. Changes to Avatars’ appearance will alter their trading scripts and thus their market strategy. Vice-versa, market participants will also be able to “read” the strategies of other market-playing avatars intuitively from their facial expressions. The experience of playing a market will become more like that of playing a game simulation on X-box. Research shows that animated avatars can reliably and effectively convey many types of information to viewers through facial expression, gesture, clothing etc[2].
The usage scenario is that a market participant will create an Avatar as an additional control interface for their automated trading algorithms in the online marketplace. Today, a market trader views his/her automated trading scripts purely in terms of numerical parameters, typically on a dashboard of read-outs and data inputs. The aim of this research, is that traders will also be able to view their market tactics intuitively through an Avatar.
We believe at Z/Yen that Avatars will allow a more direct, dynamic and personality-based view of a market – and in our research we will test the evidence for this. For real-time markets in media inventory, with microsecond decisions executed by algorithm, the ability to instinctively understand a trading tactic will yield commercial advantage as well as gains in usability and transparency.
The Avatars research project will be delivering a set of APIs for linking an animated character GUI to core trading algorithms, and to animation platforms. It will also be delivering evidence of trading performance and advantage. The Avatars project builds on several successful Z/Yen Group projects in financial innovation, use and display of trading information and managing market risk[3].
By project close in August 2011, this will be near-market research, and Z/Yen is interested in media trading applications with commercial exploitation partners. Parties interested in finding out more, should contact Project Leader Stephen Haggard at stephen_haggard@zyen.com.
[1] Exchange Wire 10 Sept 2010
[2] For example: Recognition Profile of Emotions in Natural and Virtual Faces, Dyck et al 2008
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