« July 2006 | Main | September 2006 »

August 31, 2006

CHI 2007: Call for Participation

chi2007Logo.jpg

INTERACTIVITY

CHI 2007, 28 April - 3 May, 2007, San Jose, California, USA http://www.chi2007.org/submit/interactivity.php

Submission deadline: October 20, 2006

"Interaction (n): a cyclic process in which two actors alternately listen, think, and speak." - Chris Crawford, from The Art of Interactive Design

Computer-Human Interaction is grounded in action. There is a limit to how well we can understand any interactive system without experiencing it first-hand. Interactivity at CHI is your opportunity to share your work directly with your colleagues in a high-visibility setting, which combines both a hands-on demonstration during the entire conference and a presentation in the technical program.

The CHI 2007 Interactivity exhibition is where the CHI community can experience the year's most exciting interactive works. If you've got a working prototype, device, or system to bring to San Jose, we want to know about it!

For instructions on how to submit, go to: http://www.chi2007.org/submit/interactivity.php

Lars Erik Holmquist, Viktoria Institute Tom Igoe, ITP, New York University Interactivity co-chairs

Posted by djp3 at 9:03 AM | Comments (0)

August 21, 2006

Car buyers must be told about black boxes

survellance cameras
Photo courtesy of pinelife

CNN is reporting in this article, that regulations have been put in place that require U.S. car manufacturers to inform owners about the presence of sensor suites in vehicles which record context in the moments before a crash:

"Some privacy advocates have expressed concern that the data, which can be used as evidence in court cases, is being collected without the knowledge of vehicle owners and drivers.

The devices are virtually impossible to disable because their functioning is so tightly integrated with vehicle safety systems such as airbags and anti-lock brakes."

I wonder if this solution can actually scale to all the environments in which future recording will take place? How can someone be effectively informed of all the different types of surveillance which are being performed on them? Furthermore, what can someone who objects to the surveillance really do? In this case it is still possible to buy a car without a recorder, but what about where alternatives aren't available? If you don't want to be video-captured when withdrawing cash from an ATM, do you have a choice?

Gaetano Borriello has a well-thought out solution to this problem. It requires all surveillance technology to broadcast meta-information about where they are, what they are collecting and the actual information being captured. I can't find a link to his manifesto, but the version I read was pretty compelling. If you are being surveilled you also get to use the surveillance data while you are an object of surveillance.

Such a solution would address the concerns associated with the car-recording device by broadcasting its presence on a universal broadcast medium. A concerned individual would be able to verify the existence, properties and accuracy of the car data recorder on their own. They still don't really have a choice about the surveillance, but at least they have knowledge.

Posted by djp3 at 3:05 PM | Comments (6)

August 4, 2006

UBICOMP 2006 : Call for Participation

ublogo.jpg

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

UbiComp 2006 - The Eighth International Conference on Ubiquituous Computing

*** Early registration deadline: August 18, 2006
Conference Date: 17. - 21.09.2006
Conference Venue: Marriott Newport Beach, Orange County, California

*** Keynote speakers:
Bruce Sterling, sci-fi author and journalist
Brenda Laurel, Sun Microsystems Labs

*** The pigeonblog: live pigeons released during the conference, carrying
instrumentation that measures and blogs air pollution. (Invited demo)

*** 30 research presentations and additional thought-provoking sessions

*** 75+ posters, demos and videos

UbiComp 2006 hosted by:
Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
University of California, Irvine

In cooperation with the ACM (SIGMOBILE, SIGBED, SIGCHI, and SIGSOFT)

Posted by djp3 at 10:10 AM | Comments (0)