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July 31, 2008
3rd International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare 2009
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"Call for Papers Pervasive healthcare is an emerging research discipline, focusing on the development and application of pervasive and ubiquitous computing technology for healthcare and wellness. Pervasive healthcare seeks to respond to a variety of pressures on healthcare systems, including the increased incidence of life-style related and chronic diseases, emerging consumerism in healthcare, need for empowering patients and relatives for self-care and management of their health, and need to provide seamless access for health care services, independent of time and place. Pervasive healthcare may be defined from two perspectives. First, it is the development and application of pervasive computing (or ubiquitous computing, ambient intelligence) technologies for healthcare, health and wellness management. Second, it seeks to make healthcare available to anyone, anytime, and anywhere by removing locational, time and other restraints while increasing both the coverage and quality of healthcare. The Pervasive Healthcare conference aims to gather together technology experts, practitioners, industry and national authorities contributing towards the development and application of human-centered pervasive and ubiquitous computing technology for healthcare and wellness. " More info here |
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July 29, 2008
NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
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"The National Science Foundation invites you to apply for the 2009 Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF-GRFP) competition. This program offers up to 3 years of graduate school support worth over $120,000 to each awardee - last year 913 awards were granted. Benefits include a $30,000 annual stipend, a $10,500 annual cost of education allowance, a one time $1,000 travel allowance, and access to TeraGrid supercomputing facilities. U.S. citizens, nationals, and permanent residents at or near the beginning of their graduate study seeking research-based Master's and/or PhD degrees in NSF-supported science (including social science and psychology) and engineering disciplines are eligible to apply. The application process is expected to open in August 2008 and close early November 2008. We encourage interested applicants to review the attached brochure and visit www.nsf.gov/grfp/ or www.nsfgradfellows.org for additional information concerning benefits, eligibility, and tips on apply ing. Interested applicants should strongly consider preparing their applications as early as possible to help increase their chances of winning. The GRFP is sponsored by the NSF, which is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 "to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…" With an annual budget of about $6.06 billion, NSF is the funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America's colleges and universities. In many fields such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences, NSF is the major source of federal backing. NSF funding opportunities can be found at http://www.nsf.gov/funding/. The NSF-GRFP Operations Center is administered by the American Society for Engineering Education (http://www.asee.org/fellowships). |
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Congratulations Silvia and Bonnie! (CSCW Paper)
 Photo courtesy of paulworthington |
Congratulations to Informatics graduate student Sylvia Lindtner and faculty member Bonnie Nardi on getting a paper published in CSCW 2008: Lindtner, S., Nardi, B., Wang, Y., Mainwaring, S., Jing, H., Liang, W., "A Hybrid Cultural Ecology: World of Warcraft in China", to appear in Proc. of CSCW 08. |
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July 28, 2008
Semantic Integration of Geospatial Information
 
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"Dear all,
Regards, |
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July 22, 2008
Surveillance: The Film Series
 Photo courtesy of drp |
Programmed by Thomas Stubblefield, Ph.D. student, UCI Visual Studies Program Thursdays in August at 7:00 pm in HIB 100. |
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Straight to Voicemail
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via slashdot: Slydial Voicemail Service Offers “The Illusion of Communication” | Xconomy "Here’s the paradox that Boston-based MobileSphere is exploiting: We all want to own a cell phone. But a lot of the time, we don’t actually want to talk with our friends, family, co-workers, and all of those other people who are just trying to suck the life out of us. So when we absolutely have to reply to a message they’ve left, or tell them we’re too busy to meet them for lunch, or offer some other minimal gesture of recognition, calling them is far too risky: they might actually pick up, forcing us to interact. It would be far better if we could simply leave a voicemail message, without ever causing their phone to ring. That way, there’d be no muss, no fuss; no dealing with an actual human and all their demands and sensitivities. And that’s exactly what you can now do with MobileSphere’s new Slydial service, launched yesterday. If you call 267-SLYDIAL (267-759-3425) and enter the phone number of any U.S. mobile subscriber, MobileSphere will connect you directly with their voicemail inbox, where you can leave a message that is as sincere or as noncommittal as you like. The service is free; all you have to do in return is listen to a 10-second audio advertisement." |
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July 20, 2008
Congratulations Irina! (CSCW 2008)
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Photo courtesy of paulworthington |
Congratulations to Informatics post-doc Irina Shklovski on getting a paper published in CSCW 2008: Shklovski, I., Palen, L. & Sutton, J. Finding Community Through Information and Communication Technology During Disaster Events. . Proceedings of Computer Supported Cooperative Work, San Diego, CA, 2008. |
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July 18, 2008
Congratulations Lilly, Gillian and Paul! (CSCW Paper)
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Photo courtesy of paulworthington |
Congratulations to Informatics graduate students Lilly Irani and Informatics faculty Gillian Hayes and Paul Dourish on getting a paper published in CSCW 2008: Irani, L., Hayes, G., and Dourish, P. Situated Practices of Looking: Visual Practice in an Online World. Proceedings of Computer Supported Cooperative Work, San Diego, CA, 2008. |
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July 14, 2008
Congratulations Eric K. and Amanda! (Butterworth Grant)
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Photo courtesy of paulworthington |
Congratulations to Informatics graduate students Eric Kabisch and Amanda Williams on receiving "Paul Butterworth Student Awards" to support their work on Datascape and trans-national mobility research, respectively "In 2006, Paul and Jo Butterworth created the Paul Butterworth Student Award support and foster entrepreneurial and creative student projects that may lead to the development of new products, with an emphasis on products that possess potential for commercialization. Preference is given to projects pursued independently by student teams and projects that are interdisciplinary in nature. Student-led projects in which faculty are collaborators are also considered for this award." |
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July 11, 2008
Anti-Surveillance Hack
To round out the week, here's a hack to flare out the video on surveillance cameras. Another LUCI lab challenge - validate it!
Invisible Mask - video powered by Metacafe
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July 9, 2008
Congratulations Amanda! (Thesis Proposal)
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Photo courtesy of paulworthington |
Congratulations to Informatics graduate student Amanda Williams on successfully defending her thesis proposal. |
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July 6, 2008
Opinion: The smart home for the homeless
 Photo courtesy of lycid |
As part of the graduate course on Ubiquitous Computing the students were asked to design a smart home for the homeless. Below is the response from Mo Monibi, posted with his permission. Here is what Mo has in mind for a homeless woman living in L.A.: "To design smart home technologies for a homeless person, we first must understand what “home” would mean for that person. There are many ways we can look at this issue, all greatly varying depending on the homeless individual. Home might be the place where they spend the night, which could be a homeless shelter, an abandoned building, or a bench in a park. Home might be the place where they go to eat, to be with people and feel part of a family, the place they go to wind down and relax. These could each be in different locations, but we could all consider them all part of a larger “home”. For many homeless individuals, home may simply be the streets. |
What we interpret to be the home will be a major factor in our design. But in designing smart home technologies, the space/place called home is not all that matters. In fact, this is overshadowed by another factor, the lifestyle of the dwellers. What matters is how people engage in and with the said space/place. So in the case of a homeless person, it’s not enough to know the places she inhabits, but we need to understand what she does in them that transform them from a generic place into “home”.
An interesting set of questions that may be of significance in talking about homes of the homeless, but might not arise in more typical studies of the home, are those that begin with “why”. Traditionally, for the general population, the space/place of home is first inhabited, and engagement and interaction are created around that. There may be some opportunity for choice initially, when making the decision to purchase or rent a specific house or apartment, but this choice doesn’t compare to how homeless people come to chose and inhabit the places that form their home. So it becomes important to ask questions like: Why is she sleeping on a bench in the park, and not seeking a homeless shelter? Why this bench over here, and not the one on the other side of the park? Why spend time in such and such streets, and not in others? And so on. This line of inquiry can extend to the lifestyle. The truth about typical lifestyles is that they are often based on generic models provided by society. The lifestyles of different middle class individuals or families living in Orange County do not differ much compared to each other, they all largely follow the same model. The same can be said of the lifestyles of upper class individuals in New York City, and of nearly any other population. But there are far fewer models for the homeless “lifestyle”, and even less incentive or enforcement for them to follow particular models. So again, we must ask question of why.
Yet another question that needs to be answered before we set about designing technologies for the homeless is what the goal is. Do we wish to provide technologies that will help support and sustain homelessness, or is the goal helping the get off the street? The homeless person may be an addict. Do we take a user‐centered approach and design technologies that help find the cheapest drugs? Do we want to focus on the homeless person’s needs, or the desires of the community she inhabits?
The above questions and issues are just a few examples of the considerations that must go into the design of technology for the homeless. For the sake of this writing, we must make some assumptions regarding these issues. I will make these assumptions based on (1) the exam question and photograph provided, (2) some of the descriptions provided by Le Dantec and Edwards in their CHI 2008 paper, and (3) my personal observations and ideas. I will assume the homeless woman we are designing for is in her thirties, is childless, is homeless because of poverty and a addiction problem, is trying to overcome her addiction, relies on medical services and prescription medicine, receives life‐assistance from some organization, has some earnings from recycling bottles and cans on a daily basis, and often spends nights in shelters, but also sleeps in public areas.
The first technology I propose is the “homeless house alarm”. This technology aims to address the need of a homeless woman for security and protection during times she spends sleeping in public non‐safe areas. The proposed device would consist of an element containing motion and proximity sensors, and an element containing the alarm speaker. When settling down to sleep in a location that has questionable security, the user would place the sensing unit in an appropriate location (e.g. on the ground in front of her, or mounted on the backrest of a bench using the optional Velcro strap), and the speaker component would be in the form of a bracelet (again made of Velcro to provide flexibility for use in different ways).
Whenever the sensing unit detects a person approaching and entering the “cautionary zone” of our user, the speaker begins emitting a low volume alarm meant to awaken the user. If the person continues to approach and enters the “alarm zone”, the speaker emits a full blown alarm, meant to attract outside attention and scare off the intruder. Deactivation of the alarm will be simple yet hidden, to prevent discovery by the intruder, but also to enable quick deactivation in case of a false alarm. The decision to separate the sensing and speaker elements was made as another precaution, to make the source of the sound more difficult to discover and disable.
The second technology I propose is a device that will quickly determine if a public trashcan contains any recyclable bottles or cans. This proposal assumes that in the near future, RFID chips will replace or complement barcodes on all merchandise and packaging, including beverage containers. The device will simply be an RFID reader with reasonable range, combined with a database of the RFID tags of common products with recyclable containers. This will allow the user to quickly “scan” a trashcan to discover if it contains anything with recycling value, instead of rummaging through the garbage and finding nothing, saving time and avoiding frustration.
Finally, the third technology I propose aims to help with addiction rehabilitation. This process frequently is done through programs such as Narcotics Anonymous, and usually includes a relationship with a counselor or sponsor. My proposal here is to automatically establish contact between the user and the sponsor in case a potential relapse is detected. This would involve the user carrying a GPS device that detects if the user is within the vicinity of known drug distribution spots, and notifies the sponsor so they could get in touch with the user immediately and provide support and talk her out of going through with it.
This idea obviously depends on many assumptions. The first is that the user actually wishes to overcome the addiction and is willingly participating in the programs. Based on this, the user would need to divulge the locations they are likely to visit to get hold of drugs in case of a relapse.The next assumption is that the user would carry the device with them at all times. This could be made further likely by including this functionality as part of a useful device, such as a cell phone. It also requires that the user answer the call of the sponsor, and be willing to discuss her situation, rather than entirely ignoring it. I believe that many relapses can be prevented if there is someone there for the user to talk to and ask for support. An important matter that needs to be noted is that the GPS device is not used for tracking the user in any way, and the location is not divulged to the sponsor or other parties through this device. The device simply notifies the sponsor that she should contact the user; everything else is left up to their own negotiations. This helps with the acceptance of the technology, as it doesn’t intrude on the user’s privacy and leaves her in control.
The relationship between our homeless user and infrastructure is a curious one. From some perspectives, one can say that our user is living “off the grid”, as she is not making use of most infrastructure services in the typical manner. But this doesn’t mean she depend on infrastructure. We will explore this relationship further based on the technologies proposed above.
The simplest example of a need for infrastructure is the power requirements of any device or technology. In this case, the user is off the grid in the sense that she is not subscribed to any power company services, and has no permanent access to such services. But she is a user in the sense that she may make use of power outlets in public locations such as libraries and hospitals, which are part of the infrastructure. This could be described as the user being subscribed not to the “power infrastructure”, but rather the “public locations infrastructure”. In any case, due to the difficulties a homeless person may have in finding a source of electrical power, it’s necessary that any devices designed for them have alternate methods of recharging, such as solar power or kinetic energy conversion.
The trashcan scanner proposed above reveals an interesting relationship. The trashcans found throughout a city can be considered as part of the municipal infrastructure, or more specifically, the municipal waste infrastructure. This infrastructure is typically relied upon for the disposal of waste and unwanted material. But our homeless user relies on the very same infrastructure in a very different way. For her, this infrastructure helps support her recycling earnings. In designing the trashcan scanner, we need to consider this infrastructure and its qualities. Even details such as the material public trashcans are built of can affect our design.
The sponsor notifier has the most obvious connection with infrastructure in that it needs a communication channel between the user and the sponsor. Given our current technologies, the cellular phone infrastructure appears to be best suited for this. Based on the studies in the Le Dantec and Edwards paper, it’s not entirely unreasonable for a homeless person to carry a cell phone. If this isn’t possible for the user, it may be possible for the organization supporting her in the rehabilitation to provide a specialized cell phone that only allows for contact with the sponsor.
In designing the three technologies described, I tried to take into account the design principles laid out by the embodied interaction perspective. I designed the technologies so they would fit in with the users existing practices as much as possible. The designs leave much of the interpretation of their interactions with the devices open, in particular with the trashcan scanner and the sponsor notifier. In the case of the sponsor notifier, even the determination of sensitive locations is left up to the user, which means that the system can be reappropriated for many other situations as the user desires. "
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July 3, 2008
Civil liberties groups sue for info on cell phone lojacking
 Photo courtesy of akbar1947 ( busy, busy, busy!) |
"We expect our cell phones to do a lot these days: make calls, check e-mail, take photographs, play music, surf Web sites, let the government track your every move. But civil liberties groups have a few questions about that last feature, and have filed a lawsuit seeking to force the Department of Justice to respond to a Freedom of Information Act Request submitted late last year, seeking documents about the practice of using mobile phones as homing beacons. More from Ars Technica |
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