Mscape

Key takeaways

Mscape belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mscape to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mscape from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Mscape was a mobile media gaming platform developed by Hewlett-Packard that could be used to create location-based games. The development of Mscape was discontinued (and its website mscapers.com shut down) on March 31, 2010. The Mscape platform was flexible. HP encouraged 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. Mscape made a player's GPS location an element of the gameplay. Events in a game were triggered by a player's location, and the player interacted with a game by moving from place to place. Mscape was used to create mediascapes, interactive experiences made up of video, audio, images, and text. Mscape stored the digital media files in a structure that associates them with positions from a GPS system. Players could play mediascapes on a Windows Mobile device, such as a mobile phone or a PDA that is GPS-enabled. As players move daround, the device sensed their position and activated the appropriate media files.

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

Technology Mscape 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). The Mscape technology was also an example of Ubiquitous computing and a context-aware pervasive system. Three technologies were essential to mediascapes: portable computing, embedded sensors, and context-coded information and services. Portable computing. Mscape was 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 took advantage only of a player’s GPS location., However, experimental deployments of mediascapes used other types of sensors, such as short-range radio beacons and heart rate monitors. The Mscape technology enabled 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. Context-coded information. Media — images, video, audio, and Flash interactions — was triggered by the logic assigned to a specific space. The logic could not only define behavior based on a person’s presence with the space, but could also vary the behavior based on the number of times the person has entered the space. Media types include:

HTML, MP3, and WAV audio JPEG and GIF images MPEG, WMV, and SWF video and Flash interactions For future implementations, Hewlett-Packard proposed 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.

Tools

Mscape Player Mscape Player played mediascapes on Windows Mobile devices, such as mobile phones or PDAs that are GPS-enabled.

Mscape Library Developers and players used Mscape Library to manage the mediascapes they have on their computers. Players downloaded mediascapes from the Mscapers website into Mscape Library. They then used Mscape Library to copy those mediascapes to their Windows Mobile device. Developers could also use Mscape Library to launch Mscape Maker and Mscape Tester., Mscape Library also detected whether a Windows Mobile device has Mscape Player installed on it, and alerted the user and installed the player if it didn't.

Mscape Maker Developers used Mscape Maker to create mediascapes. Mscape Maker had four work areas: Place Editor. Developers used the place editor to set up the map that is 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. Once the map was set up, a developer defined areas on the map that trigger digital media and interactions with the mediascape. Simple mediascapes could be created by dragging and dropping components onto the map in the Place Editor. Script Editor. In the script editor, developers use da much simplified version of C# to script events. HP compared Mscape's scripting language to Adobe Flash ActionScript. Their intent was 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." Script Object Window. The script object window listed all the script objects that are used in a mediascape. Developers used 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 saved 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 simulateed 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.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mscape

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mscape claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mscape before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mscape ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mscape

In research: Mscape appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mscape in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mscape is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics HP software, Outdoor locating games, Video game engines, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mscape outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Mscape in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mscape means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mscape out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mscape in simple terms?

Mscape was a mobile media gaming platform developed by Hewlett-Packard that could be used to create location-based games. The development of Mscape was discontinued (and its website mscapers.com shut down) on March 31, 2010.

Why does Mscape matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mscape?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mscape.