If 2016 symbolizes the year 0 of the virtual reality, with the commercialisation of the main autonomous VR helmets (Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Playstation VR) and mobile devices (Samsung GearVR and Google Daydream), 2017 will be a major year.

The word reality has become the hashtag of the third millennium. We will remember for a long time the people rushing down Central Park with their mobiles. Battle shouts, the catch of a rare Pokemon, invisible to the eye.

Reduced reality, augmented reality, virtual reality, as many keywords stamped “parallel worlds”. Technology is thirsty for alternatives. Its motto: a reality boosted by amphetamines. To accomplish this fate, the ordinary decided to make way to the computer. Soon Tron, the exploits of tomorrow, traveling inside the network, to fight or not Dillinger. The cyberspace prophet Gibson is watching us since Burning Chrome.

Can we still talk about reality? Who can now claim to discern right from wrong? This is the paradox of this century, the paradox of the species, ad vitam eternam. In the swamps of information, reality is becoming foreign to us. The massive publication of data under the pressure of financial lobbies are forcing us to be constantly refining these torrents that are splashing us. “Abre los ojos” has become our daily bread.

But behind the semantics mirages, is reality really existing?

We remember in the Matrix movie, Morpheus’ answer to Neo: “What is real? If you want to talk about what you can feel, what you can taste or what you can see and feel, the real is only an electric signal interpreted by your brain. “

Donald D. Hoffman, professor of cognitive science has spent the last thirty years studying perception, artificial intelligence, brain and evolutionary game theory. His conclusion is astounding: the world we commonly perceive is not real at all. This truncated perception is the result of the natural selection and the Darwinian evolution. What we commonly call reality is only designed to showcase our biological sensors, a user interface to simplify information of a far more complex world. The engine of this illusion? Our survival.

We understand why since the cave allegory, the quest for truth has sealed forever the destiny of Western metaphysics. Remember, even in the 90s, Mulder and Scully were walking in the footsteps of Heidegger and kept saying that “the truth is somewhere else.”

This is because this truth is somewhere else that Docler Holding has chosen to take you away from its torments this year.

Here is the story!

As with any adventure, the story of one person will perhaps build the story of all. Alice is the name of our main character, engineer and researcher in her spare times, she has developed an application to sublimate the everyday life and recover our imaginary deceased. Because the notion of objective and unanimous reality is questionable since the dawn of time, she has decided to eliminate it. When she is asked about this new technology in the press, she talks about “Dreamed Reality”.

“Distorted Reality is the name of my new application. No more prosaic world of little grey men! This application will parachute you into a bubble of light where all the impossible become possible”.

We now propose to imagine the world of tomorrow, through the eyes of Alice and to rehabilitate the dream by combining it with the digital.

In terms of technologies, everything is allowed: JavaScript, PHP, Flash, Java, Python, Unity … The list is not exhaustive, as long as the application is executable in a web page or on a mobile phone. Concerning the devices, controllers and connected objects of all kinds, no restriction either: Kinect, Wii, Leap Motion, the abacus of your great-grandmother customized by you and using a nargileh as a breath controller, or your old washing machine transformed for the occasion into a renewable energy power plant driven by a horde of hamsters fed with GMOs.

The invitation is on. Let’s sculpt together a new generation of games and applications. Join us. Form a dream team. Use your talent and imagination to draw the illustrated world of Alice. This contest is open to all. Register now.

“But she did not know if she was Alice who dreamed she was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Alice”. GOC 2016 – Distorted Reality.

Show us how you will use, remix and combine Open Data to create new, intelligent, and user focused apps and services that can:

• Support and promote social connections and civic engagement of citizens.
• Help to find a suitable job and to improve one’s work-life balance.
• Inform and reassure citizens about their personal security.
• Improve citizens’ subjective well-being and health status.
• Inform citizens about environmental quality at their homes or work place.
• Find the optimal means of transport.

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Detailed information and requirements

The overall objective for teams participating in the open data challenge is to create a seamless and functional proof of concept of their project idea, which will remix and combine open data sets to create new, intelligent, and user focused apps and services.

The project has to be coded, and the code has to be published on a public repository (ex. Github, Gitlab, svn) – mere concepts presented in a slide show are not accepted.  Prototypes have to be usable in a web browser, as a desktop app, or as a mobile app in iOS or Android.

The project has to be published as a re-use on the official open data portal https://data.public.lu. This re-use has to contain a link to the code as well as well as a link to a server where the prototype can be tested or the app can be downloaded. It is recommended to start uploading the projects from Sunday 12.00 hrs to allow the jury to take a closer look on the re-use and the underlying code. Anything pushed after 13.00 will not be taken into account.

The language of the presentation is English.

The competing projects will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• creativity & innovation
• execution
• pitch

* http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/luxembourg/