Last week we were pleased to receive our Microsoft Surface hub which was awarded to us by Microsoft Research and Microsoft based on our Academic Research Request Proposal for the “Intelligent Canvas for Data Analysis and Exploration”. The SACHI website has more details
Next week I presenting a seminar in the University of Konstanz, Germany as an invited speaker by Professor Harald Reiterer
Abstract:
The computational and contextual edifice around which we will build our ubicomp user interfaces is complex and constantly changing. This context include physiological, environmental and computational state. In this regard, can we model the physiological differences between people and use the models to adapt and personalize designs, user interfaces and artefacts? Can we model, measure and predict the cost of users altering their gaze in single or multi-display environments? If so, can we personalize interfaces using this knowledge. What about when moving and while the distance between user and screen is varying. Can this be considered a new modality and used to personalize the interfaces along with physiological differences and our current gaze. In this talk we seek to answer some of these questions. We define Ubicomp User Interfaces and introduce an Individual Observer Model of human eyesight, which we use to simulate 3600 biologically valid human eyes. We also report on controlled lab and outdoor experiments with real users. This is to measure both gaze and distance from the screen in an attempt to quantify the cost of attention switching along with the use of distance as a modality. In each case, for distance, gaze or expected eyesight we would like to develop models which can allow us to make predictions about how easy or hard it is to see visual information and visual designs, along with altering the designs to suit individual users based on their current context.
a program committee member for the 7th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context, CONTEXT’11, which will which will be held in Karlsruhe, Germany from Sept 26th to 30th, 2011
a program committee member for the 3rd International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications, AutomotiveUI’11, which will be held in Salzburg, Austria, from Nov 29th to Dec 2nd, 2011
a program committee member for the 8th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services, MobiQuitous 2011, which will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark from Dec 6th to 9th, 2011
a program committee member for the 6th International Conference on Tangible, embedded and embodied interaction, TEI 2012, which will be held in Kingston, Canada from February 19th to 22nd, 2012
a program committee member for the10th IEEE Pervasive Computing and Communication, PerCom 2012, which will be held in Lugano, Switzerland from March 19th to 23rd, 2012
I am co-chairing with Elaine Huang from the University of Zurich the Doctoral Consortium at the 10th International Conference on Pervasive Computing, Pervasive 2012, which will be held in Newcastle, UK from June 19th – 22nd, 2012
“The aim of this conference is to bring together researchers, engineers and practitioners interested on information technology and software development. The conference tracks are “Software Engineering”, “Information Systems and Data Management”, “Programming Languages”, “Distributed and Parallel Systems” and “Knowledge Engineering”.
Software and data technologies are essential for developing any computer information system, encompassing a large number of research topics and applications: from programming issues to the more abstract theoretical aspects of software engineering; from databases and data-warehouses to the most complex management information systems; knowledge-base systems; Distributed systems, ubiquity, data quality and many other topics are included in the scope of ICSOFT.”
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.
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:
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.
CFP:
***** AutomotiveUI’09 http://auto-ui.org *****
***** Conference: Mon/Tue 21-22 Sep 2009 *****
***** Submission Deadline: 02 June 2009 *****
*** The conference is in-cooperation with ***
*** ACM SIGCHI and the proceedings will be ***
*** included in the ACM digital library ***
Topics
—
* new concepts for driving interfaces
* multi-modal car user interfaces
* methods and tools for automotive user interface research
* approaches for the evaluation of novel car user interfaces
* user interface issues for assistive functionality
* novel multimedia interfaces and in-car entertainment
* text input and output while driving
* speech interfaces for in-car use
* user interfaces for information access while driving
* user interfaces for navigation systems
* user interface frameworks and toolkits for vehicles
* development tools and methods for car user interfaces
* biometrics and physiological sensors as a user interface component
* detection and estimation of user intentions
* detecting user distraction and driver state
* new display, visualization and interaction techniques for car UIs
* novel interactive car applications
* using sensors and context for interactive experiences in the car
* applications and user interfaces for inter-vehicle communication
* in-car gaming
* interactive applications for drivers and passengers
Theme
—
Advances in technology have transformed cars into
complex interactive systems. Drivers interact with
a variety of controls and applications to operate
a vehicle. Besides mastering the primary driving
task drivers make use of entertainment, information
and communication systems in the car. The technical
basis in modern cars includes means for communication,
sensing and media provision. With these novel
technologies many opportunities arise for creating
attractive in-car user interfaces. Nevertheless the
challenge of creating such interfaces in a compelling
and safe to use manner has grown ever greater.
Especially in the automotive context users expect
interfaces that are intuitive and straightforward to
use, without the need to read a manual. The overall
experience in driving a car is more and more
influenced by the man-machine interface, and hence
creating attractive user interfaces is of great
importance for a successful product.
Traditional means for user interface development as
known from desktop computing are often not suitable,
as many other conditions have an influence on the
design space for automotive user interfaces. In
comparison to many other domains, trial and error
while the product is already in the market is not
acceptable as the cost of failure may be fatal.
User interface design in the automotive domain is
relevant across many areas ranging from primary
driving control, to assisted functions, to
navigation, information services, entertainment
and games.
Submission
—
Authors are invited to submit papers that are
2, 4 or 8 pages long, formatted to follow the two
column ACM SIGCHI format. We are happy to consider
a variety of styles for inclusion in the proceedings,
such as academic papers, design sketches,
interaction concepts, and industrial case studies.
The papers will be selected using a peer-review process.
All accepted submissions will be included in the
conference proceedings, which will be available
through the ACM Digital Library.
Conference Chairs
—
Albrecht Schmidt, University of Duisburg-Essen
Anind Dey, Carnegie Mellon University
Program Chairs
—
Thomas Seder, GM
Oskar Juhlin, Interactive Institute & Stockholm University
Daniel Cutting first got me interested in P2P computing with implicit group messaging while in Australia. We recently published a new book chapter together entitled Serendipity reloaded: fair loading in event-based messaging in the Handbook of Research on Advanced Distributed Event-Based Systems, Publish/Subscribe and Message Filtering Technologies together [5].
My new graduate student Neil Cowzer in UCD Ireland continues this research in new and interesting ways. His current focus is on addressing the needs of location based services across a P2P network. This is an area of cross over research for me between P2P and location and context awareness [4].
A Peer to Peer system consists of a number (typically very large) of networked computers (peers) which collectively perform an operation where each peer typically has equivalent capabilities and responsibilities. Given the proliferation of peer-to-peer file sharing systems, starting with Napster and more recently the BitTorrent protocol the term has become synonymous with just this activity.
However, the concept of peer to peer computing goes far beyond mundane file exchange. It is the subject of global research and development. These efforts are exploring the use of P2P systems for intensive tasks, globally scalable services and novel applications, that would typically be supported by central servers only. Examples of such applications include Joost (TV), Chinook, PAST, IGM (messaging), Skype (telephone) and SETI@home(research).
I wanted to pass on my congratulations to Neil Cowzer on having his first paper accepted at the 5th International Workshop on Collaborative Peer-to-Peer Systems (COPS 2009) for his paper on GeoIGM: a Location-Aware IGM Platform. In recent years, peer-to-peer systems have gained traction in a number of important areas including; file-sharing, VoIP and scientific research vehicles such as the Grid. In this paper we argue that this merely scratches the surface of the potential of peer-to-peer systems. We propose a novel peer-to-peer system, GeoIGM, well suited to the highly collaborative style of tagging and development of context-aware services, particularly with location[4]. With the provision of two fundamental operations; geographically-scoped multicasting and queries, GeoIGM eases the development of next-generation location-aware systems[1].
I also wanted to note the upcoming deadline in April for the Ninth International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Systems from the 8 – 11 September 2009 to be held in Seattle, Washington, USA [2]. It’s an excellent conference series with a range of research presented, from the highly theoretical in systems demonstrated though simulation alone to clearly applied, real-world results. I’m on the PC again this year and I look forward to an exciting range of papers to review. I’d also like to mention the deadline of next month for AP2PS the First International Conference on Advances in Peer-to-Peer Systems to be held on 11-16 October 2009, in Sliema, Malta [3].
The range of small focused workshops along with leading international conferences demonstrates the strength of research interest and activity in this area beyond the mundane applications noted before.
Myself and one of my Masters students Florian Bodea from last year had a chapter on our research on Face to face collaborative interfaces published recently in the book on Human-Centric Interfaces for Ambient Intelligence by Elsevier [1]. This is edited by Hamid Aghajan, Stanford University, USA, Juan Carlos Augusto, University of Ulster, UK and Ramon Delgado, University of Granada, Spain.
Their description of the book states:
To create truly effective human-centric ambient intelligence systems both engineering and computing methods are needed. This is the first book to bridge data processing and intelligent reasoning methods for the creation of human-centered ambient intelligence systems. Interdisciplinary in nature, the book covers topics such as multi-modal interfaces, human-computer interaction, smart environments and pervasive computing, addressing principles, paradigms, methods and applications.
This book will be an ideal reference for university researchers, R&D engineers, computer engineers, and graduate students working in signal, speech and video processing, multi-modal interfaces, human-computer interaction and applications of ambient intelligence.
The Abstract of our chapter:
The presentation of information on large displays and their use to support collaboration in face to face activities has long been commonplace. Computationally enhanced displays relying on the form-factor of whiteboards, surfaces, tables, benches and desks now afford forms of face to face computer supported interaction and collaboration not possible with classical desktop or mobile computing. This chapter provides an introduction to the research and developments of multitouch input technologies which can be used to realise large interactive tabletop or “surface user interfaces”. Such hardware systems along with supporting software allow for applications which can be controlled through direct touch or multi-touch. Further, a review of gestural interactions and design guidelines for surface user interface design for collaboration are provided.
Key words: Tabletop, HCI, Surface User Interface, Gestural Interface, Design Guidelines
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:
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
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
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
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
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:
