Category Archives: pervasive

Pervasive 2012 – Doctoral Consortium



The Pervasive 2012 doctoral consortium provides a collegial and supportive forum in which PhD students can present and defend their doctoral research-in-progress for constructive feedback and discussion. The consortium is guided by a panel of experienced researchers and practitioners with both academic and industrial experience. It offers students the valuable opportunity to receive high-quality feedback and fresh perspectives from recognized international experts in the field, and to engage with other senior doctoral students.

Applicants should be far enough into their PhD research to have identified the salient issues and appropriate research methodology, as well as achieved some results. Preference will be given to applicants who are at a stage where they have completed some portion of the research but are still at a stage that will still permit them to incorporate feedback received at the consortium into their planned PhD research.

Format

The doctoral consortium will be a seminar-style event taking place the day before the main Pervasive 2012 sessions. Time will be allotted to each student for a brief research presentation, and for in-depth, constructive discussion amongst the panellists and other participants. In order to allow for sufficient depth of discussion, the number of accepted participants will be limited to ten.
For the 2012 Pervasive doctoral consortium we aim to include a number of new features including a panel session. The short “Ask a PhD” panel session is a free-form question-and-answer discussion in which the consortium panellists will share their advice and experiences regarding such topics as going on the job market, international career paths, academic versus industry career paths, post-docs versus permanent positions, job offer negotiation, and other topics of relevance to PhD students. This session will serve as a capstone event to the consortium, allowing students to reflect and consider important career issues together.

Submission

Submissions (of up to 5 pages) should be formatted according to the guidelines of Springer’s LNCS format. A maximum of 4 pages should be devoted to the Research Summary, described below and 1 page for the students biographical sketch, also described below. The topic scope for submission to the doctoral consortium is the same as those listed in the Pervasive 2012 call for papers. Submissions should consist of the following:
  1. Research summary describing the work in progress, and including a 100 word abstract. Things to consider for inclusion in the research summary are:
    • the expected contribution to the field;
    • the original idea or thesis statement;
    • the problem domain and the specific problem addressed;
    • a brief overview of related work;
    • the methodological approach;
    • research carried out and results so far.

    All research summaries should also outline what work remains to be done for the dissertation and indicate the plan for completion.


  2. Student biographical sketch, including the names and affiliations of the research advisor(s), the date that the student began the PhD programme, and the expected date of completion.
All submissions should be made using the PCS submission system.
All submissions will be reviewed by the DC chairs and consortium panellists. If accepted, an applicant may be asked to make minor clarifications and edits to their research summary before the final camera-ready version is due. The accepted doctoral consortium submissions will be published in the adjunct proceedings of the Pervasive 2012 program.

Critical Dates

Doctoral Consortium Chairs

  • Elaine M. Huang, University of Zurich, Switzerland


  • Aaron Quigley, University of St. Andrews, UK

Sept 2009 Ubiquitous Computing Fundamentals

I have a chapter on UbiComp User Interfaces in a new book called “Ubiquitous Computing Fundamentals” Edited by John Krumm in Microsoft and published by Chapman & Hall/CRC; 1 edition (September 18, 2009) ISBN: 978-1420093605. [ Amazon ]

The user interface represents the point of contact between a computer system and a human, both in terms of input to the system and output from the system. There are many facets of a “Ubiquitous Computing” or ubicomp system, from the low-level sensor technologies in the environment, through the collection, management and processing of the context data through to the middleware required to enable the dynamic composition of devices and services envisaged. These hardware, software, systems and services act as the computational edi ce around which we need to build our Ubicomp User Interface, or UUI. The ability to provide natural inputs and outputs from a system which can allow it to remain in the periphery is hence the central challenge in UUI design.

While this chapter surveys the current state of the art to the user beyond the classical keyboard, screen and mouse, it is important to also acknowledge that UUIs represent a paradigm shift in human computer interaction with input and output technologies not yet envisaged. UUIs are built around a next generation technological paradigm which in essence reshapes our relationship with our personal information, environment, artefacts and even our friends, family and colleagues. The challenge is not about providing the next generation mouse and keyboard but instead making the collection of inputs and outputs operate in a fuid and seamless manner.

Chapters
1. Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing Roy Want
2. Ubiquitous Computing Systems Jakob Bardram 
and Adrian Friday
3. Privacy in Ubiquitous Computing Marc Langheinrich
4. Ubiquitous Computing Field Studies A.J. Bernheim Brush
5. Ethnography in Ubiquitous Computing Alex S. Taylor
6. From GUI to UUI: Interfaces for Ubiquitous Computing 
Aaron Quigley 7. Location in Ubiquitous Computing 
Alexander Varshavsky and Shwetak Patel
8. Context-Aware Computing Anind K. Dey
9. Sequential Sensor Processing John Krumm

July 2009 Upcoming Conferences of interest.

My upcoming move has me thinking about conferences in areas of interest to the HITLab Australia.


The International Symposium on Wearable Computers 2009 will be held in Sept in Linz Austria. I aim to attend ISWC 2009 as well as visiting Vodafone research in Munich enroute to meet some colleagues and one of my students undertaking an internship there.

The Eighth International Conference on Pervasive Computing 2009 will be held in May in Helsinki Finland. Along with my role as workshop co-chair I’m planning with some of my students and colleagues to submit some papers. Pervasive is one the premier events showcasing state of the art research in Pervasive Computing. It’s a very good event to attend both to understand the developments within our field but also to engage the entire research community through workshops, demos, posters etc.

Along with colleagues I ran a Workshop on designing multi-touch interaction techniques for coupled public and private displays at AVI 2008 in Naples. AVI 2010 the biannual 10th International Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces will be held in Rome in May 2010. I intend to run another workshop with colleagues to follow up on PPD08 along with submitting research papers based on our current and ongoing research.

Due to prior travel commitments one conference I cannot attend but would like to is this year’s International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2009) in Florida from October 19-23. I do however hope to attend ISMAR 2010 in Korea.

May 2009 Workshops Pervasive 2010

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Pervasive 2010
The Eighth International Conference on Pervasive Computing

Call One: Workshop Proposals Pervasive 2010
Submission Deadline: June 26, 2009

Helsinki, Finland
May 17 – 20, 2010
http://pervasive2010.org/
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——————————————————–
Call One for Workshop Proposals
——————————————————–

Pervasive 2010, the Eighth International Conference on Pervasive Computing will be held in Helsinki, Finland on the 17 – 20 May.

The workshop program for Pervasive 2010 will be different than in past years as invited projects, invited topics and regular workshops form part of the program. This call represents the first opportunity for anyone to submit a regular workshop proposal. Two topical and two project workshops have already been invited. The invited workshops include:

1 Energy Awareness and Conservation through Pervasive Applications
2 Multimodal Location Based Techniques for Extreme Navigation
3 Workshop on Pervasive Personalization
4 Workshop on Ubiquitous Virtual Reality

Contrary to previous years, there will be two calls for workshop proposals. Workshops will be selected from both calls. The deadline for this first call is *June 26, 2009*. Interested parties should submit 1-2 page workshop proposals that include the following details:
– Title and abstract/description for the workshop
– Format of the workshop
– Motivation for the relevance of the workshop to Pervasive computing
– Names and affiliations of the organisers

The workshop calls will be evaluated considering the (i) quality of the proposal, (ii) relevance of the workshop topic and (iii) overall span of workshop topics. This first call is targeted at groups who which to establish a longer lead time to promote and develop their workshop program than is typically the case with Pervasive workshops. Clearly, topics for workshops should differ substantially from the topics of the invited workshops.

The notifications will be sent by the end of July. Accepted workshops are expected to finalize their workshop program (call for papers, PC, website etc.) at the latest by October 2nd, 2009.

Critical dates:

* June 26, 2009: Submission deadline
* July 31, 2009: Notification
* October 2, 2009: Deadline for final workshop descriptions and workshop webpages

The deadline for the second call is October 16, 2009. This will be the standard call our research community has for each Pervasive conference.
Participants submitting to the second call are expected to submit full proposals (4-6 pages). More details about this call will be sent at a later stage.

Please visit the workshops page at
http://www.pervasive2010.org/workshops.htmlfor up to date information.

Best regards,
Petteri Nurmi & Aaron Quigley
Pervasive 2010 Workshop Chairs
pervasive2010-workshops-list@cs.helsinki.fi

May 2009 Pervasive 2009

Workshop –
Papers –
Session Chair –

Two weeks ago I was at LoCA 2009 where we had a
presentation from the CEO of http://www.koozyt.com/
(pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/loca2009/)

They have spun out a LBS technology (placeengine) from
Sony. They spoke of their many applications and systems developed
to date.
They are a company based in Tokyo, Japan,
a spin off from Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.,
that provides PlaceEngine, a locationware platform
that estimates a user’s location by sensing nearby wireless
LAN signals.

At the time they didn’t have any apps in the US iPhone store
but now they do. “Oedo Yokai” is a book on the Japanese
“Yokai” (Sprites and Spirits). It is a collection of “Yokai” stories
associated with the areas near the subway stations of the Oedo
Line in Tokyo, Japan. You can also summon Netsuke sculptures
of each “Yokai” in the book and collect them at your leisure.

*Press*
Tokyo, JPN – May 19, 2009 – Koozyt announced today the release of
their new iPhone/iPod touch application called “Oedo Yokai” on the
App Store as of May 15, 2009. Oedo Yokai is an application that
introduces stories of the Japanese Yokai. The contents were created
under the supervision of Dr. Hiro Kubota and art direction was
provided by graphic arts designer Atsushi Morioka. The application
supports both Japanese and English.

Oedo Yokai will be showcased at the O’Reilly Where 2.0 2009 Conference
that will be held in San Jose, CA.

http://www.koozyt.com/press/2009/pr090519en.html

May 2009 “Haptic Jingle” and Pervasive Advertising 2009

Earlier this week I attended a Pervasive 2009 workshop on Pervasive Advertising I organized with Jörg Müller, University of Münster, Albrecht Schmidt, University of Duisburg-Essen and Bo Begole, PARC. My postgraduate student Ross Shannon presented two papers on our ideas and developments in this space. There were some very interesting and thought provoking presentations and all the participants fully engaged with the full program of events from presentations to actual working sessions.

During Pervasive Advertising 2009 we discussed not only means of showing dynamically updated content, but also means to react implicitly and explicitly to the audience in its vicinity. In order to interact with the target audience, technologies need to be explored that are capable of identifying the user or their interests/needs. It’s clear (for good or bad) advertising is becoming one of the major deployers of pervasive computing technology for many end-users (e.g. mobile ads, digital signs, context awareness, RFID etc.).

On a side note, given a quick survey online I am going to lay claim to coining a new term, namely “Haptic Jingle”. This is a pretty simple but I think powerful idea.

Consider all the products we know and use on a regular basis. There are now many products which have well known catch phrases or audio jingles. Typically when we hear such phrases or jingles we automatically recall and associate this with the product or service. Now, I’m not making a value judgment on if this is a good or a bad thing but it did give me the idea for what I call a “Haptic Jingle”.

A Haptic Jingle is a particular shake or pulse pattern which we physically experience when we touch a particular object and hence associate with a product/company/service. A company could build such haptic feedback into their products or sales spaces e.g. “I’m loving it” translates to a low key vibration with two or three pulses which match with the inflection points in the associated audio or written phrase. This haptic pattern can then be embedded into physical objects we interact with in public space such as door handles. In the future imagine the scenario of moving into a store, you pull the handle, feel the haptic jingle and then think, yes, yes, I do want a Starbucks Latte. If this strikes you as a worrying idea then stay informed and advocate against it happening!

However, as a scientist I am curious about the range of modalities and multi-modalities which can be employed for information delivery. Be this for advertising or other important elements of information.


During the workshop we were all acutely aware that our physical environment is becoming ever more overloaded with man made objects. At one point our sub-group moved to sit and work in the Nara park where we were based for Pervasive 2009. This inspired us to recall what the late Mark Weiser said. “Ubiquitous computers will help overcome the problem of information overload. There is more information available at our fingertips during a walk in the woods than in any computer system, yet people find a walk among trees relaxing and computers frustrating. Machines that fit the human environment, instead of forcing humans to enter theirs, will make using a computer as refreshing as taking a walk in the woods.”


This motivated us to consider this question. Could we weave pervasive advertising into the current park environment as a source of information you might want? Could Pervasive Advertising provide information so the overall experience was “refreshing”? As described in our call for papers in this session we took a positive view to envision advertisements that precisely match a person’s interests and fit the current situation so well that people enjoy receiving them and see advertising as relevant information or a pleasant distraction. During the course of the workshop we also came across many concerns shown in the negative view. One can easily imagine a world where people cannot escape from advertisements, where we are continuously tracked and where advertisements reduce the quality of life.

The overall outcomes from the workshop include, areas of concern from the scientific to the social issues, a number of positive and negative scenarios, a set of small scale research projects and a set of large group projects. The workshop organisers have decided to put together a book on Pervasive Advertising with sections on the various technologies, social and legal issues which will be documented and discussed.

The workshop was an excellent venue for a full and frank discussion on both positive and negative issues and key scientific research challenges.

May 2009 Program Co-Chair LoCA, Tokyo Japan


Last week on May 7-8 I attended LOCA 2009 in Tokyo as one of the Program Co-Chairs for the 4th International Symposium on Location and Context Awareness. We started the symposium with a very engaging keynote from Dr.Shionozaki of Koozyt. He spoke about moving from PlaceEngine to Location Amplifier i.e. their experience with rolling out commercial Location Based Services. This was a very relevant keynote as LBS are now going main stream in certain countries and ramping up in many others. They provide exemplars and cautionary tales for those looking to explore, develop and commercialize location and context aware systems.

During LoCA presentations were of a very high quality and the papers have made some very impressive contributions to both location and context awareness. Our proceedings were published, more or less, in the Lecture Notes series in Computer Science in their Subseries: Information Systems and Applications, incl. Internet/Web, and HCI , Vol. 5561. LOCA 2009 has published new and significant research on systems, services, and applications to detect, interpret and use location and other contextual information. With context, we can expect computers to deliver information, services, and entertainment in a way that maximises convenience and minimises intrusion. Developing this awareness involves research in sensing, systems, machine learning, human computer interaction and design.

Prior to the conference the International Program Committee and Chairs selected the best paper from the submitted and reviewed papers. The award for the best paper was awarded to Sasank Reddy (University of California Los Angeles, US); Katie Shilton (University of California Los Angeles, US); Jeff Burke (University of California Los Angeles, US); Deborah Estrin (University of California at Los Angeles, US); Mark Hansen (University of California, Los Angeles, US); Mani Srivastava (University of California, Los Angeles, US) for their paper, “Using Context Annotated Mobility Profiles to Recruit Data Collectors in Participatory Sensing”.

Three papers were nominated for the best paper award:

  • Using Context Annotated Mobility Profiles to Recruit Data Collectors in Participatory Sensing
  • Multi Activity Recognition based on Bodymodel-Derived Primitives
  • Where Will They Turn: Predicting Turn Proportions At Intersections


During the course of the symposium John Krumm from Microsoft Research Seattle was awarded the best presentation award for his presentation on his paper “Where Will They Turn: Predicting Turn Proportions At Intersections”.

Thanks to my co-chair Tanzeem Choudhury from Dartmouth College, our local chair Koji Suginuma from Sony Corporation who did an amazing job with local organisation and to our general chair Thomas Strang from DLR.

April 2009 – Four invited Pervasive 2010 Workshops

[ Download PDF ] [ Visit Workshop Website ]


Pervasive 2010, the 8th International Conference on Pervasive Computing will be held in Helsinki, Finland, 17-20 May.

As workshop chairs for 2010 we have decided the program will be different than in past years as invited projects, invited topics and a call for workshops will all form part of the 2010 program:

  • A number of leading and relevant large pan-European FP7 projects have been invited to host a targeted workshop during Pervasive 2010
  • Leading research groups have been targeted to develop workshops in areas that have been underrepresented in past Pervasive programs
  • A two-phased call for workshop proposals will be made across the research community.

If you would like to be added to the mailing list for this call, please email:
pervasive2010-workshops-list@cs.helsinki.fi

At this stage four targeted groups will be developing workshop programs for 2010. These workshops represent an opportunity for the Pervasive community to reach into new yet related areas while also connecting into large EU funded Pervasive projects.
Up-to-date information about the Pervasive workshops is available at http://www.pervasive2010.org

Workshop Co-Chairs

  • Aaron Quigley, University College Dublin, Ireland
  • Petteri Nurmi, Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT, Finland

Invited Workshops

Energy Awareness and Conservation through Pervasive Applications

Energy conservation is a growing area of interest for pervasive computing. Recently the problem of conserving energy through involvement of consumers has become topical. The multidisciplinary challenges for pervasive applications are numerous, including pervasive sensing of energy consumption, energy efficient infrastructures for sensing energy and users, and designing engaging applications that do not disrupt but support everyday activities.

This workshop follows a number of previous workshops on sustainability as a general theme at Ubicomp and Pervasive conferences. This is the first workshop focused on energy awareness and conservation that brings together research excellence from Far East (Japan) and Europe.
Organizers

  • Adj. Prof. Giulio Jacucci, Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT, Finland
  • Prof. Tatsuo Nakajima, Waseda University, Japan
  • Prof. Marko Turpeinen, KTH, Sweden
  • Prof. Luciano Gamberini, University of Padova, Italy
  • Prof. Anna Spagnolli, University of Padova, Italy

Multimodal Location Based Techniques for Extreme Navigation

Location-based data and services for geographical and navigational information (such as electronic maps and GPS directions) are usually presented using visual displays. With the increasing complexity of information, and the variety of contexts of use, it becomes important to consider how other non-visual sensory channels, such as audition and touch, can be used to communicate necessary and timely information to users. Activities such as running, rock-climbing and cycling, are all examples of activities where navigational and geographical information may be needed, but where the visual modality is unsuitable. Additionally, there are a number of user groups such as visually impaired people and the emergency services, who also require non-visual access to geo-data. This workshop will provide a forum for sharing research
ideas and findings about new interaction and perceptualization metaphors, novel application contexts, multimodal and context-aware technologies for mobility – thereby creating a solid foundation for further exploration of pervasive extreme navigation.

Organizers

  • Assoc. Prof. Charlotte Magnusson, Lund University, Sweden
  • David McGookin, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
  • Margarita Anastassova, CEA, LIST, France
  • Wilko Heuten, OFFIS, Germany
  • Arantxa Rentería, Robotiker-Tecnalia, Spain
  • Prof. Susanne Boll, University of Oldenburg, Germany

Pervasive Personalisation

Personalisation is intrinsic to many of the core goals of pervasive computing. The workshop will address the broad range of issues around pervasive personalisation that is based on an explicit user model. One set of key areas concerns the ways that pervasive computing can inform the content of such a model which may be used in the long term for a range of personalised applications. Another set of important topics concern the ways that the model is used for personalisation within a particular application. Common to both of these are the issues of privacy and security of the user model.

Organizers

  • Prof. Judy Kay, University of Sydney, Australia
  • Assoc. Prof. Bob Kummerfeld, University of Sydney, Australia

Ubiquitous Virtual Reality

This workshop on Ubiquitous Virtual Reality aims to bring together researchers working in both pervasive computing and mixed reality to explore the convergence on the two domains. Emerging new computing paradigms accelerate the convergence among different technologies and thus make the border between the real and virtual worlds indistinguishable. In addition, mobile (or handheld) devices with integrated sensors have been established as an important platform for both Pervasive Computing and Augmented Reality that have become part of our daily lives. The goals of the workshop are to: (1) better understand the concept of “mobile AR life in dual spaces” (2) identify research issues that are unique to “mobile AR life in dual spaces” (3) aid those developing possible new applications by sharing ideas and designs.

Organizers:

  • Prof. Mark Billinghurst, HITLabNZ, New Zealand
  • Prof. Woontack Woo, GIST, Republic of Korea

Mar 2009 Session Chair Pervasive 2009

I’ve been asked to be a session chair on Navigation during Pervasive 2009. This is the Seventh International Conference on Pervasive Computing which will be held May 11-14, 2009 in Nara, Japan. This session includes papers I’m looking forward to hearing more about including, “Realistic Driving Trips for Location Privacy” by John Krumm, “Enhancing Navigation Information with Tactile Output Embedded into the Steering Wheel” by Dagmar Kern, Eva Hornecker, Paul Marshall, Albrecht Schmidt, Yvonne Rogers, “Landmark-Based Pedestrian Navigation with Enhanced Spatial Reasoning” by Harlan Hile, Radek Grzeszczuk, Alan Liu, Ramakrishna Vedantham, Jana Kosecka, Gaetano Borriello.

This annual conference is the premier forum for researchers to present their latest results in all areas related to architecture, design, implementation, application and evaluation of pervasive computing. My colleague Albrecht will chair the session our paper is in on the final morning of the conference.

Read more about the program or register for the conference.

Mar 2009 Pervasive Advertising. “A sin by any name”?

Myself and my co-chairs Jörg Müller, Albrecht Schmidt and Bo Begole are currently busy reviewing the submissions to our Workshop on Pervasive Advertising in conjunction with Pervasive 2009 to be held on May 11, 2009 in Nara, Japan.

I’ve been amused by one of the negative reactions the idea for this workshop has already generated. The aim of this workshop is to allow people to come together to “build a community to forecast and create the upcoming era of advertising in pervasive information environments.”

This community will allow for the full and frank discussion of all aspects of advertising both positive and negative which will be possible as further advancements in pervasive information environments come to pass. As people knew Spam would come with email, banner/blinking/adwords with the web we can clearly predict advertising, in some form will come hand in hand with the wide-spread deployment of devices, displays, services which form the edifice of future pervasive computing environments. Ignoring this fact won’t make it go away, discussing it to ensure appropriate measures to allow us to opt-in or out, government regulation, self-directed policy etc. is the responsibility of our research community.

The trend toward such infrastructure is already taking place. This article drew my interest as it states that “The market for Digital Signage is set to grow rapidly over the next few years. A recent report by MultiMedia Intelligence predicts that the digital signage market will more than double in size by 2012 to consume 2.3 million displays, having grown by 34% from 2007 to 2008 to 1.1 million displays.” [1] “Digital Signage” is a clear example of the ubiquitous infrastructure required to realise many of the pervasive computing scenarios we envisage for the future. However, without a discussion aorund their use, first and foremost in advertising we cannot hope to understand how they might be used in alternate contexts.

If this topic is of interest to you I encourage you to submit by May 1, 2009 one-page submission to allow you to join the workshop as a participant.

  1. IBC points the way in digital signage