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AmbiViz Project Presentation at DoCoMo Eurolabs in Munich

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In the AmbiViz project we investigate how context information (explicitly or implicitly collected) can be provided to the user. The aim is that the display of context is meaningful to the user but at the same time abstract and privacy preserving. For context collection we integrated the IYOUIT platform as well as an application that runs as an app in facebook. Examples of abstract presentations are implemented for the Nabaztag and for digital picture frames. More details will be available soon in a WIP paper at Percom 2010. Currently we run a longer term study and are already curious about the results.

Recently launched TVs with Web browsing capabilities include special widgets for certain services (e.g. Philips Net TV offers widgets for youtube, ebay, etc.). This is a first step in the market towards the switch-over of traditional TV we discussed some time ago in Seoul. I wonder what other information services may become hype as widgets or Web channels on TVs.

Book chapter on Teaching Beyond the Classroom

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Kati Mäkitalo-Siegl, Jan Zottmann, Frederic Kaplan and Frank Fischer organized a workshop that resulted in the book: Classroom of the Future. The book gives a very good overview and is in my view very well suited to run a seminar

We have one chapter in the book that talks about teaching beyond the classroom and outside a typical classroom using pervasive computing technologies [1]. Our chapter includes some of the work on tangible interaction we did in Munich, e.g. [2] and earlier experience where we did a school garden blog (in German only http://www.hcilab.org/albrecht/flachs-web/).

Details about the book and a free preview are available at the publisher’s side. The free preview includes an article on the classroom of the past – which I found quite interesting. If you are interested in our article, drop me a mail and I may find the draft.

[1] Paul Holleis, Albrecht Schmidt, Heiko Drewes, Richard Atterer, Petra Dollinger. Teaching Beyond the Classroom: Pervasive Computing Technologies for the Classroom of the Future. Classroom of the future. SensePublisher 2010, pp 63-85. ISBN:978-9460911026 (book at amazon)

[2] Terrenghi, L., Kranz, M., Holleis, P., and Schmidt, A. 2006. A cube to learn: a tangible user interface for the design of a learning appliance. Personal Ubiquitous Comput. 10, 2-3 (Jan. 2006), 153-158. DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00779-005-0025-8

Multi-touch on Ice

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I thought I have seen all possible multi-touch installations 😉 but here is a new one: Ubice installation.

Jonna and her group at NRC in Finland have built a multi-touch wall made from ice (frozen water – they seem to have plenty of it up there).

Even though it is on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbtrI6GjBsk) we still hope to see a paper on this project – do the user study before it melts 😉

The Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces 2010 conference is this year in Germany in November 2010: http://www.its2010.org/

Energy Harvesting – wireless power?

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Since a wireless charger (RCA Airnergy) was announces at CES that harvests energy from wifi signals that are around the topic is everywhere in the (tech) news. It is an exciting prospective to imagine mobile devices that will recharge themselves from the environment they are in. However I am not sure how well harvesting energy from RF will worked in regular environments – not saturated with radio signals.

The topic is really exciting – and in the end people probably do not care much if the energy is harvested from their movement, from light, temperature or RF – as long as it works. There is a introductory article to energy harvesting by Joe Paradiso and Thad Starner [1] which is worthwhile to read.

[1] Joseph A. Paradiso, Thad Starner, „Energy Scavenging for Mobile and Wireless Electronics,“ IEEE Pervasive Computing, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 18-27, Jan.-Mar. 2005, doi:10.1109/MPRV.2005.9

Article on Driving Automotive User Interface Research in IEEE Pervasive

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We wrote an article on the automotive user interface conference that took place in Essen in September 2009. In the current issue of the IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine this paper is published and gives an overview of the conference [1]. We hope our article highlights the key ideas that were presented at the conference.

Abstract. Cars offer an interesting but challenging microcosm for pervasive computing research and, in particular, for interaction with pervasive computing systems. Increasingly, researchers are looking at interactive applications in the car and investigating human-car interaction from a computer science-rather than an ergonomics or mechanical engineering-perspective. This article reports on the International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications, wherein participants shared presentations on topics such as aesthetics, user interaction and distraction, safety, and driver monitoring.

[1] Albrecht Schmidt, Wolfgang Spiessl, Dagmar Kern, „Driving Automotive User Interface Research,“ IEEE Pervasive Computing, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 85-88, Jan.-Mar. 2010, doi:10.1109/MPRV.2010.3.

Seminar on Pervasive Display Networks in Dagstuhl

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From the 4th to the 8th of January we (Nigel Davies, Antonio Krüger, Marc Langheinrich, Martin Strohbach, and I) organized a Seminar on Pervasive Display Networks in Dagstuhl. The timining was less not perfect but we go a really good team together.

Working on the topic we identify an interesting set of dimensions to classify public display, collected a large set of scenarios, and compiled a bibliography as well as a reading list. As soon as the material is publicly available I will post it.

The first time I have been to Dagstuhl was in September 2001 (the seminar was on during 9/11) on Ubiquitous Computing (http://www.vs.inf.ethz.ch/events/dag2001/). This previous seminar really helped to create a vibrant community. Perhaps Pervasive Display Networks will grow in a similar way.

Since then I have been many times to Dagstuhl – but this year I was skiing while there for the first time. There is a small „skiing resort“ close by: Erbeskopf…

PS: if you rent skis it is always good to remember what skis (e.g. color, make, size, etc.) one got 😉
I learned just taking the next pair of skis is sub-optimal…

Books – Christmas break reading

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While travelling I came across two very different books. On one of the airports I came through I came across Superfreakonimics by Levitt and Dubner [1] I had also read their earlier book (Freakonomics) as well as The Undercover Economist from Tim Harford – so I got this one. It is funny to read and I enjoyed most of it. The Geo-Engineering statements in the book received quite some critism on the net. So don’t by it for its discussion on climate ;-). Reading the books it seems one gets a good explanation of certain things in the world (and economics) – not sure if this is really true, but it is great fun to read nevertheless. I particular like the argument why emancipation leads to a lower quality of teaching in schools 🙂

A very different book (also with regard to the price; its more on a library budget than a casual airport buy), but not less interesting, is „Awareness systems“ by Panos Markopolous, Boris de Royter and Wendy Mackay [2]. So far I have had only a quick look at the book but this could be the basis for a seminar in a term to come.

[1] Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner. Superfreakonomics. 2009. http://freakonomicsbook.com/ ISBN 978-0-7139-9991-4

[2] Markopoulos, Panos; De Ruyter, Boris; Mackay, Wendy (Eds.). Awareness Systems. Advances in Theory, Methodology and Design. 2009, ISBN: 978-1-84882-476-8

PS: I came across another book that takes an extreme – but still to some extent interesting – perspective on the German society. The book is called „Die verblödete Republik“ (the republic that went gaga). In some parts I was reminded of the movie „wag the dog“ – but the book is much more serious about it – providing a lot of references…

TPC meetings in Atlanta, Palo Alto and Boston

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December was filled with travel – twice to the US and several trips in Europe – and for the first time in two years I did not really get around to write my blog…

I am still wondering what technology we require that could make physical meetings less important. Video conference is getting better and I use it a lot – but it still does not facilitate a discussion between 30 or more people well. Besides the work that is in reviewing I really emjoy that part of my job – I find it really exciting to see so much (somehow) novel work in a very short time.

Academics often complain about a lot of travel – but sometimes we need a reality check. Walking around Atlanta airport and seeing the large number of soldiers I felt that I should not complain about my travels… At the same time I asked myself what we will have first: „remote only“ wars or „remote only“ critical business meeting.

In the first two weeks of December I had the privilege to be the CHI, Pervasive and PerCom program committee meeting. Having seen more than 100 papers being discussed made the effort in reviewing worthwhile. The overview of the field one gets is amazing. And with the insight view I am looking forward to three very interesting conference programs to come in 2010. By the way Geraldine Fitzpatrick (this years paper co-chair at CHI) has move to the Vienna University of Technology.

Besides the PC meetings there was some time to visit labs. In Palo Alto at Nokia Research we were shown a communication appliance that is designed to facilitate remote interaction and communication around a book. Looks interesting and they promised there will be a paper about this soon.

In Boston I went to the new MediaLab building (and met Leah Buechley and Joe Paradiso) – really exciting – research between boxes. Seeing some a Leah’s work motivated again to look more into wearables. If you are curious too, have a look at Lilypad Arduino [1] and at the 2008 CHI paper [2].

[1] Buechley, L. Lilypad Arduino | build something. http://web.media.mit.edu/~leah/LilyPad/build.html

[2] Buechley, L., Eisenberg, M., Catchen, J., and Crockett, A. The Lilypad Arduino: using computational textiles to investigate engagement, aesthetics, and diversity in computer science education. In CHI ’08: Proceedings of the twenty-sixth annual SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (New York, NY, USA, 2008), ACM, pp. 423-432.

Enrico Rukzio visits us in Essen, projections everywhere

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On Wednesday and Thursday Enrico visited our group in Essen. He gave a part of my lecture on user interface engineering talking about mobile interaction with the real world. He include interesting examples, such as QR-code/NFC/RFID use in Asia, SixthSense project (camera projection system to wear around the neck) and handheld mobile projections. Enrico also explained some of the multi-tag work he does at Lancaster University [1].

In the lecture we talked briefly about future devices and interfaces. I mentioned one example: projection in the large – on building scale. The 3D visualization overplayed on buildings seem impressive – at least when looking at the video. NuFormer (http://www.projectiononbuildings.com/en) has created several interesting projections – but I never have seen one in the real – so far…

Looking at the 6th sense project and on the building projections we wondered how important in may become in the future to make research results in ubicomp/HCI understandable and accessible to a wide audience. Will this replace papers in the future?

[1] Seewoonauth, K., Rukzio, E., Hardy, R., and Holleis, P. 2009. Touch & connect and touch & select: interacting with a computer by touching it with a mobile phone. In Proceedings of the 11th international Conference on Human-Computer interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (Bonn, Germany, September 15 – 18, 2009). MobileHCI ’09. ACM, New York, NY, 1-9. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1613858.1613905