Plan for autumn 2008 – 1st Thursdays every month, 13-15, room 2A08
Three different seminar types are proposed.
• PhD seminars in which one or more PhD students outline their research agenda, current challenges or problems. It could also be in the format of presenting a contribution to a journal or a conference. The idea is to see the seminar as inspiration for other researchers as well as supplementary supervision and constructive criticism for PhD students.
• Resarch project seminars / conference reports in which one or more project members present the current status or an interesting aspect of a specific research project. It could also be in the format of presenting a contribution to a journal or a conference.
• Guest seminars in which external guests are invited to give a presentation. These could either be from industry or from other research environments. Hot shots or just interesting people.
For all seminars hold that they are open seminars and that external guests are welcome. Introductions and material are uploaded to the InC-blog one week in advance.
Preliminary time schedule and content
11 Sept (postponed from 4 Sept since all Eye-tracking people are away that day).
Resarch project seminar:
Gitte Stald, Lisbeth Klastrup, Jeppe Jensen: DR project
Susana Tosca: fashion in online worlds
Rich Ling: current research ideas / projects
Discussant: ?
2 Oct PhD seminar: New PhD students in InC and DOIT presenting their research proposal
Tanja Andersen (report from IFA conference + research methodology)
Julie Thiesen (project plan + research methodology)
Martin Tall (project plan + research methodology)
Discussant: Lone Malmborg
6 Nov Conference reports: CHI/NordiCHI 2008
Tomas Sokoler: ipTV paper
Anna Vallgårda: PLANKS: A Computational Composite
Anker Helms: Interface history
Lone Malmborg: Interaction design: Bauhaus manifestos and the substance of style
Discussant: John Paulin
4 Dec Research project / PhD seminar:
Simeon Keates: current research ideas / projects
Sune Johansen: New findings from PhD project stay in US
Tanja Andersen: Report from Epic conference
Javier Lopez: Recent results from the Eye-tracking area
Discussant: ?
8 Jan Guest seminar?:
Discussant: ?
Mid Jan Research group seminar? (from lunch to lunch)
Title: Affective Computing and the Communication Technologies
Time: Friday August 15 from 11:00 to 12:00 at IT University of Copenhagen
Room 3a08.
Abstract:
Affective Computing is leading to a deeper understanding of people’s emotional relationships with educational products, environments, and experience. Through exploratory design and user testing of smart systems, embedded technologies, and collaborative environments researchers are developing a new framework for learners’ interactions with educational technologies. Real-time affective sensing is being used to measure and interpret elements of user experience such as physiology, contextual actions, and social interactions. This awareness enables dynamic tailoring of function and focus, to affect user experience and outcome. For example, an expressive Affective Learning Companion sensing user interest through patterns of posture, facial expression, pressure exerted on a mouse, and skin conductivity might choose to delay intervention to allow the user to continue exploration. On the other hand, if frustration were sensed, the companion might display concern through appearance and body posture as it engages in non-verbal expression as a form of empathy. This interaction could provide social support and draw attention to the user’s affect, to facilitate self-awareness and mitigate the negative impact of frustration. These interactions form relationships between learners, products, environments, and experiences that are enhanced because they take into account emotions and context. Investigations at the confluence of affect, experience, and usage are transforming the design of educational products and the role of collaborative information systems. These products and systems are empowering learners, teachers, researchers and designers to better understand and promote learning, collaboration, creativity, and innovation.
About the Speaker
Winslow Burleson is an Assistant Professor of Human Computer Interaction with a joint appointment in the School of Computing and Informatics and the Arts, Media, and Engineering graduate program at Arizona State University. He received his PhD from the MIT Media Lab, working with the Affective Computing and Life Long Kindergarten research groups. He has also worked with the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at the Harvard Business School on creativity research methodologies and frequently serves on National Academies of Science organizing committees and NSF Review Panels. At IBM’s Almaden Research Center he was awarded ten patents for inventing educational and assistive technologies and novel forms of human-computer interaction. He holds a bachelor’s degree in bio-physics from Rice University and a Master of Science in Engineering degree from Stanford University’s Mechanical Engineering Product Design Program where he taught brainstorming, creativity, and visual thinking skills. His research is supported by awards and gifts from NSF, NASA-JPL, Deutsche Telekom, iRobot, and LEGO Group. He has been a Curriculum Developer at the NASA-SETI Institute, Co-Principal Investigator on the Hubble Space Telescope’s Investigation of Binary Asteroids, member of the LEGO Learning Institute, and Consultant to UNICEF and the World Scout Bureau on Healthy Lifestyles for Youth.
Hello Inc’ers
Well, today is the last day of the conference and people are definitely tired and filled up with info, contacts and impressions. During the past two days I have had some really interesting meetings (and some extremely boring ones). One of the interesting ones was the one where I was on the panel for EU KidsOnline together with people from the Australian government, the European Safety awareness node, and the biggest Spanish telecompany,, Telefonica. The topic for the session was online child protection. The room was full which was great because there has been a consequent tendency for participants to either “work” in the lobbies of the conference site or circulate between the concurrent sessions. The presentations went well and I think all had some interesting points even if the time is always short. But, our American chair (from the small Family Online Safety Institute) had his own agenda for what the meeting/ the area we were discussing was about – he was primarily interested in filters (he apparantly sells them), control and monitoring which provoked quite a lot into pointing out that we were talking musch too much about filters and much too little about the very complex issues about literacy, social competences, behaviourm, normativity and chidlrens’ own values and experiences. Good to see the audience nodding their heads off and good to have an interesting but too short discussion and that so many came up afterwards to hear more about the EU KidsOnline project and my own workk at the ITU. Again, the flyers I brought have really done their job. It would be fun to see if our ITU website has more hits from abroad, also from Asia, Africa and South America than usual these days.
Another interesting session was set up on Tuesday by the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) about accessability and opportunities. The interesting part was that several of the speakers focus on disabled people and IT uses and that the general focus was on IT as a resource, a tool to be empowered. The somewhat depressing thing was that almost all the speakers based their talks and suggestions on data and developments that was so much late 90ies. The ITU (our ITU) is developing and studying and evalueting much more complex technological solutions and opportunities than those we heard of here. All the speakers exceeded their time by 100% som there was no time for comments – but after the meeting I talked to some of the ITU people and invited them to our ITU. A much closer relation between research, developers, industry and the policymaking levels is much needed, that much becomes obvious here.
And now to something different. Yesterday afternoon I simply had to have a break and joined a guided tour to two of the Favelas – the huge “shanty-towns” in Rio and other Brasilian cities. We visited the largest one (80.000 people officially) and a smaller one, both ruled bye one of the three leading gangs in Rio.They are build from on the mountain sides, houses on top of each other, only one road leading into the areas, all other traffic is by foot through the very narrow “alleys” formed by steps from the bottom to the top, like a labyrinth in between the strange little buildings that are clinging to one another. It is very dark and damp at the bottom, but everywhere little pots with excotic plants try to survive, the houses are decorated with leftover stones/cheramics from construction sites, tine shoops emerge the stranges places – I even found an internet café, which I got the permission to take photos off. They actually have wireless internet and e.g. their own local television station – even if it is impossible to imagine how it all works. The infrastructure simply doesn’t exist – I’ll show you some pictures when I get home.
The Favelas are as mentioned by gangs – drug dealers – and the police is not allowed in the area, which is why there is a strich self regulation regarding criminal actions – everything must take place outside of the favelas, in downtown Rio. We felt quite safe climbing around between the “houses” because our guide was local and clearly paid some of the miney we paid her to the local bosses. Another thing is that the richest parts of Rio and the favelas are neighbours – completely strange to have the boarder of a favela on one side of the street and enourmous rich vilas and the American school with huge cars with private drivers and massive security on the other side. But the people in the favelas have the best view …. Much more can be said about this – but I’ll just finish this part of the chronicle by mentioning that the contrasts in Rio somehow match the contrast at this conference…
The concluding session is about to begin, it is raining (again) and I have a few informal meetings left. And a sightseeing tour in Rio tomorrow just before I leave for the airport.
See you,
Gitte
Last week five people from ITU attended the third COGAIN Camp in Leicester, England. There was a conference on Monday with the theme “Gaze-based Creativity, Interacting with Games and On-line Communities”, and an exhibition on Tuesday where an award ceremony for the student competition on gaze creativity was held. ITU had the pleasure of being represented in both events.
Jakob Schantz, a master student at ITU, participated in the Creative Gaze student competition with his StrongEyes game, a 3D space arcade where the user controls a spaceship using only their gaze. The game was awarded the second prize, and reviewers praised its great potential of gaze control for both disabled and non-disabled users. Jakob got the opportunity of attending to the Camp and showing his game. Some eye tracking companies were interested in incorporating his game to their software packages, which might open up some job possibilities for Jakob in the near future. You can see a video of the ceremony and the exhibition here (originally uploaded by John Paulin Hansen).
On Monday Javier presented the paper that was written together with Jakob and John. In this paper we studied the performance of 6 input devices (mouse, joystick, touch screen, head tracker and 2 different eye trackers) in two common tasks in videogames, target selection (aim and shoot) and target tracking. During the Q&A’s the audience provided feedback on issues that could be further investigated in student projects and master theses.
TIME: TUESDAY MARCH 13 AT 13:00
VENUE: ITU AUDITORIUM 3
CONTACT: KOFOD@ITU.DK
Tobias Lau worked for 3 years on the Massive Change project ( http://www.massivechange.com ) at Bruce Mau Design in Toronto. He will talk about the project, book and exhibition “Massive Change – the future of global design”.
Massive Change
Massive Change explores the legacy and potential, the promise and power of design in improving the welfare of humanity. It originated as a collaboration between Bruce Mau Design and the Institute without Boundaries in which we researched the capacities and limitations of human efforts to change the world for the better.
- The lecture is organized in relation to the Social Software course
