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October 31, 2006
UBICOMP Reading List v1.0
The LUCI faculty proudly present the UBICOMP reading list version 1.0. This reading list is necessary for graduate students advancement to candidacy.
See it for yourselves here.
Understand that there are a whole host of qualifications about what this represents. It is not the UBICOMP canon. It is a bunch of good work. It is papers that we think all UBICOMP students in LUCI should be able to contextualize their work to. It is not the best UBICOMP papers. More qualifications can be delivered in person if necessary.
There are also lots of papers that should be on this list that don't exist yet. Go write them!
Posted by djp3 at 5:42 PM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2006
Affective Computing Systems and the Design of Enhanced Relationships Between Products, Environments and User Experience
Speaker: Winslow Burleson, Arizona State University
Location: Calit2 Building, Room 3008
Time: Refreshments at 3:30 p.m.; Talk at 4 p.m.
Date: Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2006
Abstract:
Affective computing is leading to a deeper understanding of people’s emotional relationships with 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 interaction design.
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 people, 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 products and the role of collaborative information systems. These products and systems will empower users and design engineers to better understand and promote their own creativity and innovation.
Posted by djp3 at 2:26 PM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2006
IEEE Pervasive Computing: Urban Computing: Call for Papers
IEEE Pervasive Computing (http://www.computer.org/pervasive/)
Call for Papers
Urban Computing special issue
Also available online at http://tinyurl.com/yfxlvs
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 15 January 2007
Author guidelines: www.computer.org/pervasive/author.htm
Submission address: http://cs-ieee.manuscriptcentral.com
WIP Deadline: See below
Publication date: June 2007
IEEE Pervasive Computing invites articles about urban computing: the integration of computing, sensing, and actuation technologies into our everyday urban settings and lifestyles. Successful integration requires taking several facets of the urban environment into account at once. Urban settings frame social behaviors; they encompass architectural forms and features that may or may not be harmonious with given technologies; and they are increasingly but variably permeated by wireless networks and fixed and mobile devices. A key challenge is the great diversity and density of people, devices, and built artifacts found in urban places. Urban computing ranges from city-wide transportation-sensing infrastructure, to services embedded in a cafe, to the bluetooth "aura" of an individual's mobile phone as he or she walks down a street.
Posted by djp3 at 1:12 PM | Comments (0)
October 23, 2006
Infrastructure, Technology and North Korea
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One of the themes of UBICOMP 2006 was "the power of infrastructure." As Bruce Sterling put it, and I paraphrase, infrastructure has power that is more subtle and more pervasive than politics, ethnicity and culture. A living experiment exists in North Korea which has chosen, by fiat, to live "off-the-grid" (another theme of previous UBICOMPs). They have no legal Internet. The New York Times has a thoughtful description of the current situation in North Korea, but leaves any prediction of the future state of the country to others.
The Internet Black Hole That Is North Korea - New York Times: But how long can North Korea's leadership keep the country in the dark? Writing in The International Herald Tribune last year, Rebecca MacKinnon, a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, suggested that North Korea's ban on cellphones was being breached on the black market along China's border. And as more and more cellphones there become Web-enabled, she suggested, that might mean that a growing number of North Koreans, in addition to talking to family in the South, would be quietly raising digital periscopes from the depths." I wonder if any of the technologies that are being developed for disaster recovery and first response will find their ways into the black market cell-phones on the Chinese border of North Korea? Maybe the internet will come to North Korea in the form of ad-hoc networks of anonymous cooperating parasitic mobile micro-servers. (More buzzwords please). Maybe it's already happening. |
Posted by djp3 at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2006
LUCI Website V1.2 is live
LUCI website V1.2 is live. This release includes projects and bios.Posted by djp3 at 8:00 AM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2006
Ubiquitous Underground Power (sort of)
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One of the few credible reports of scavenged power I have seen in the wild. This is trying to solve the same problem as Josh Smith at Intel Research Seattle. Tokyomango: Commuter-generated electricity. JR East's new experiment consists of energy-generators under ticket wickets, a milliwatt-tracking counter, and 700,000 daily commuters. For the next two months, the railway company will be using using the vibrations of human foosteps at Tokyo Station to generate up to 100 milliwatts per second per person that walks through. The idea is to be able to generate enough electricity to power the wickets themselves and their display panels regularly. |
Posted by djp3 at 1:16 PM | Comments (1)
October 9, 2006
Interference in Deployed Ubiquitous Computing Systems
This week's Informatics speaker is Ricardo Morla a post-doc researcher in the University of California, Irvine, Department of Informatics
Abstract: Future ubiquitous computing environments are likely to consist of numerous interacting components, many of which will have been developed in isolation from each other. Unless appropriate measures are taken, interference (where a component's behaviour in a deployed system differs from its behaviour when in isolation) is likely to be commonplace. In this talk I will discuss the problem of interference in future ubiquitous computing systems and how it can affect many levels of a ubicomp system and be a concern for all ubicomp developers - ranging from those working on hardware and system support to those developing interfaces for user interaction and models of user understanding. I will also present two contributions that provide support for researchers addressing issues of interference in their systems. The first is a conceptual framework that includes a model of interference and generic solutions for preventing interference; the second is a simulation-based toolkit for helping researchers test their applications for interference prior to deployment. Finally, I will show the results of a formative evaluation that we conducted for informing the design of future user studies on conceptual interference frameworks.
Bio: Ricardo Morla is a post-doc researcher in the University of California, Irvine, Department of Informatics. His major research interests lie in the area of system support for ubiquitous computing, where he is committed to addressing issues in the deployment of ubicomp systems. In particular, his research has recently focused on the test of ubicomp applications in simulated environments and on providing support for addressing interference in ubicomp systems. Ricardo holds a PhD from Lancaster University, UK, where he graduated in August.
The Informatics Seminar is held on Friday at 3:00pm in ICS2 136, followed by a social hour at 4pm. See you there.
Posted by djp3 at 9:01 AM | Comments (0)
October 4, 2006
AAAI 2007 Spring Symposium: Call for Participation (updated)
Interaction Challenges for Intelligent Assistants26-28 March 2007, Stanford University, CA, USA
In an increasingly complex world, a new wave of intelligent artificial assistants have the potential to simplify and amplify our everyday personal and professional lives. These assistants will help us in mundane tasks from purchasing groceries to organizing meetings; in background tasks from providing reminders to monitoring our health; and in complex, open-ended tasks from writing a report to locating survivors in a collapsed building. Some will offer tutelage or provide recommendations. Whether robotic embodiments or software processes, these assistive agents will help us manage our time, budgets, knowledge, and workflow as they assist us in our houses, offices, cars, and public spaces.
23 October 20066 October 2006 Submission deadline
3 November 2006 Notice of acceptance
Posted by djp3 at 9:38 AM | Comments (0)
October 3, 2006
ISWC 2006 : Call for Participation
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: ISWC 2006
The Tenth International Symposium on Wearable Computers
Oct. 11-14, 2006, Montreux, Switzerland
The advance program and registration are now available at iswc.net
In cooperation with the IEEE Computer Society and ITG (The Information Technology Society).
Sponsored by Nokia.
ISWC 2006, the eighth annual IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers, will bring together researchers, product vendors, fashion designers, textile manufacturers, users, and all other interested parties to share information and advances in wearable computing. ISWC is a peer-reviewed, academic-style forum for the exchange of the most recent results, and the conference routinely attracts more than 200 attendees from industry, military, government, and academia.
The advance program is available at http://iswc.net. Advance registration ends on Oct 4.
Posted by djp3 at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)
October 2, 2006
Multi-tasking in the workplace: How fragmented is work really?
This week's speaker is Professor Gloria Mark from the University of California, Irvine, Dept. of Informatics.
Abstract:
Most current designs of information technology are based on the notion of supporting distinct tasks such as document production, email usage, and voice communication. In this talk I will present empirical results that challenge this idea and suggest instead that people organize their work in terms of much larger thematically connected units of work. I will present results from fieldwork observations of 36 information workers which show that workers experience a high level of fragmentation in their work, irrespective of their organizational role. People averaged about three minutes on a task before switching tasks or being interrupted. People interrupted themselves almost as often as they were interrupted from external sources. I discuss the concept of working spheres to explain the inherent way in which individuals conceptualize and organize their basic units of work. Working spheres are also quite fragmented: people continually switched working spheres and worked in more than two others before resuming work in the interrupted sphere. I also present experimental results which tested the disruption cost of interruptions, examining the role of context and media. I conclude with a discussion of some ideas for how IT can support people in maintaining continuity of their work, in light of such frequent task switching.
The Informatics Seminar is held on Friday at 3:00pm in ICS2 136, followed by a social hour at 4pm. See you there.
Posted by djp3 at 1:08 PM | Comments (0)