Edirlei Soares de Lima, a PhD candidate of the Department of Informatics/PUC-Rio, under the supervision of Prof. Bruno Feijó, won an "Honorable Mention - Interactivity" from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in the "2nd ITU IPTV Application Challenge" competition, with the interactive narrative called "Little Gray Planet". The ITU is the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies..
"Little Gray Planet" is an educational interactive story that tells the importance of preserving the environment and teaches how bad habits can easily cause serious harm to the environment. The application is presented in a format called "Interactive TV Comics" by the Logtell research group, which is a new form of interactive content designed for digital TV. It combines the traditional style of comic books with interactivity, creating a new experience for TV viewers. Other stories can be easily created using the system developed by Edirlei Soares de Lima.
The story of "Little Gray Planet" is set in an indefinite future, where the world is plagued by massive pollution caused by human interference. The main character, Pauline, is a girl who is always curious about the times when "the sky was blue" instead of the gray sky of her time. She wonders if it would be possible to have the world reverted to that previous condition.
The user follows Pauline as she walks through different scenes, having the opportunity to interact with certain elements. When an ecologically friendly choice is made, it will help improving the natural environment and the user will be able to see the enhancement in the environment's quality (otherwise, the bad consequences of not choosing the right actions are shown in the same way). Further information is also available about the distinct topics addressed in the different scenes. In this way, the user can learn (or remember), in an entertaining fashion, facts and practices about our environment and how to take care of it.
The prototype was developed using Ginga, the ITV middleware developed by PUC-Rio. The development team of the "Little Gray Planet" also includes Fabio Guilherme da Silva, Paula Ceccon, and Aline Saettler.
Last year Edirlei Soares de Lima also won an "Honorable Mention - Innovation" from the ITU in the "1st ITU IPTV Application Challenge" with another invention developed for interactive TV and cinema..
Honorable Mention from ITU - (December, 2012)
