Editorial: New modalities for interactive entertainment

Interaction technologies have recently become more and more robust, ubiquitous, and widespread. Their advances encompass both the enabling technologies (e.g., faster computer architectures and network communications, more powerful real-time video and audio processing, and so on) and the concept itself guiding research and development. Keywords such as user centric media, user-centered design, human-centered computing are emerging as novel directions for research. The focus on the user and on her capabilities reverts the original machine-centred paradigm and opens new perspectives for interactive entertainment. This special issue collects contributions that witness such a trend toward a novel human-centered interactive entertainment. The special issue gathers selected, extended contributions from the Intetain 2011 Conference, with a special focus on research concerning intelligent systems, applications, and techniques for interactive entertainment.