Advanced research in gaming technologies, led by one of Canada's advanced networking and technology pioneers, is among the $94 million in new research funding recently announced by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.

The University of Ottawa's Dr. Nicolas D. Georganas is lead researcher at the new MESSAGEs: Media-Server and Support for Advanced Gaming Environments project, which is receiving $1.2 million in support from the Ministry of Research and Innovation's Ontario Research Fund.

Gaming technology has many significant applications in many sectors: the entertainment industry, industrial and government training, education and services development and testing.

In this project, a team of eight researchers will focus on the technical and creative challenges involved in combining high mobility and high performance in mobile wireless handsets, automobile technological systems and other applications.

Private sector partners include IBM, which is contributing expertise and the project's main computer server. The team will also be working with Larus Technologies of Ottawa, a systems integrator.

A previous ORION Leadership Award recipient, and one of Canada's most celebrated research scientists in the fields of advanced networking, computers, cellular and multimedia networking, Dr. Georganas has helped make Ontario and Canada a global leader in information technology. It is perhaps no mystery that he and his colleagues are turning their attention to gaming technologies.

"Gaming technologies are advancing very fast. We expect haptics, gesture recognition, advanced 3D visualization... to be introduced to gaming very soon," said Dr. Georganas.

"Ontario is one of the Canadian gaming industry leaders, and can become a leader on a world scale. There is a lot of talent in Ontario," he said.

The team expects that the research will yield specific technologies that support gaming on cell phones with advanced haptic interaction, gesture recognition and media adaptation.

Learn more at www.discover.uottawa.ca/people.