DIS paper accepted!!!

We are happy to inform you that your paper

 207 - Kolab: appropriation & improvisation in mobile tangible collaborative interaction

has been accepted to DIS 2012 Long and Short Papers .

We received 449 papers which is about 150 more papers than DIS 2010, and many more than anticipated. We were able to accept only 89 papers due to the time and venue restrictions (so, the acceptance rate was just less than 20%).


This is a good day. 

The Seattle experiment

Sounds like the Seattle experiment went really well. 


Lots of very positive responses to iPfad's use and keen noises in using it more.  I'm going to look at the results of the user testing and then put a new version up on Apple's IStore. Only 4 direct users ( 20 indirectly as subject) so I'm going to have to run a second test with more users probably in a more ubicompy situation. 


Very pleasing. 

Paper 2 down

Paper 2 is down, 2 to go - I'm off to a conference in Oxford tomorrow so I can get some time to get the next paper down.

Power dive a new beginnings

In the final power dive before Chi 2012 submission, One paper down and three more to go.  Plus architecture workshop proposal and neurodiversity Alt.chi submission ( which is later ).

Just restarted the cloud - I think there was a power failure or something. So some data gone - but there is few people around to notice still irritating.

Talked to Gerd Kortuem ( www.kortuem.com ) the new pervasive professor - not an Yvonne replacement ( that will be someone else ) was supposed to work in parallel .Nice bloke and I think we got on well.

 He told me they have a system at Lancaster which might let me return the ambient displays experiment again for more data.  I think we have enough of an overlap to do something. He is interested in  visualisations, hospitals and work flow ( in hospitals ) which is handy.


Invited to a multi-touch do at Oxford ( by Eva I suspect)  and invited to review a journal paper ( by Jeff I suspect ).

The punch bag kids seem to be going well.

for the record amazon associates still doesn't work

So back to paper #2.

Silicon.com reviews the lab

Apparently this was sent round Warwick university saying what a cool research group is like.

Photos: Can tech change your behaviour? The Open University investigates | Page 10 | Hardware | silicon.com

Back to the grind

Finally back in the lab - I haven't escaped M255 ( introduction to Java) exercises  but just postponed it ( deadline for TMA is 6th Jan). 




Got back to lab and the sensor network was down - I've managed to fix it, I think but needs some recalibration. I'm now working on sorting out the cloud display. Then I can get data for the paper. 


Also spent today looking for drivers for the Diamond Touch for Khaled Bachour and we found them ( kind of ) . The new bulb is in so I've managed to run it with the Mac OK. 


I wonder if I have time to do the ecology of devices before Yvonne takes the cool tables with her to UCL ? 


PANIC 

For the iPhone study - 12 participants!

I have a few more in the works plus at least one other left handed person.

If his/her results are like mine then I think it might be worth trying to recruit more.

You might be glad also to learn my Amazon book linkng service has stopped working ( like I made any money from it).

the sensor net is back on line

Yah! Proper research here we come!

Cloud Disaster

New controller arrived to drive the cloud R had it up and running this morning.

Looks like the weight of the balls cause them to strip the gears. Very Very Low moment.

Table Progress 2

This afternoon was mostly getting the sock to look smooth stretchy with out wrinkles enough.I've figured out that starting from the bottom and working up the excess can over the top and then be hidden under the felt. The big advantage of this is that I don't have to paint the edges of the table ( Tuur I still could do but would have to staple/velcro  the nylon to the bottom of the table.

From Tabletop

 This is the table in blue screen mode,in a dark space it would look quite elegant and inviting.  If we have time I might get Dave to smooth out the bits jutting down.  I also need to pull the power cable down ( does look a bit like a vein at the moment). 

Friday I'll need to get Mary to help sow on all the velco to keep stuff in place. 

From Tabletop

Mirror Mirror

We began fitting the new mirrors today and the image quality looked very good.

We kept trying things out to make it that bit better - centring, enlarging getting rid of rotations. During this, the mirror chipped while it fell off the glue on mount ( normally the glue should stick). Dave has gone off to re-stick the mirror over night things, we should be repeated over night. There is a back up emergency mirror - it might cause a few hassles but good enough to demo/show off/deveople with while a new mirror is ordered.

Generally I'm fairly positive about Wednesday.

Projector needs more mount points.

Its done.

19-Nov-2008 12:23:16  the time I moved the final sensor mat on the stairs. This should be getting some good 'gold' records from now on. I'm thinking of leaving the sensor in for another week of testing.

Final sensor installed

I took out the sunspot sensor and replaced it with an arduino using Firmata and processing to capture the data and post it to the central server. 

I was expecting things to take a while and for a moment had a problem with what I thought was a cable not working - but I think it was something else.  

Some conversation about new vidieo wall. 

Nexus sensor integrated.

I managed to integrate the Nexus sensor into the system - this meant simply re-loading code. The problem with this was that people kept stopping and asking me what I was doing ( I did have the floor up). 

I spent ages trying to get the think working and kept getting connection not accepted. Eventually I discovered the code had the wrong port. 

Finally I found I didn't reboot sleepless so the laptop fell asleep. 

Tommorow I'm going to replace the sunspot with a clone of the ardiuno sensor + move the second pad. 

Need to get a good process running for the update visualisation. 

Floor stickies and more

I think I have a mild cold or flu. Had bad head ache this mornining so didn't stop off to get the wire for the third footfall sensor. Did spend most of the morning doing a review of a nice paper for Chi. 

Did discover I could use aurdio as ethernet device. Down side is it needs a static IP address - which can be organised but is a pain not to have DHCP.

Lent Tsous spair Aurdio for a week or two to experiment with, but might use it to replace the mac-mini in the floor. 

Afternoon was spent bringing Tasous and supervisors Cat/Theo up to date with developments of the projector. Tasous has got to grips with my image processing code. We had a lot of nice ideas of possible interfaces. Everyone seems happy with Putham deadline followed by children and learning paper deadline in Jan. 

Machines under the floor

I've switched to adunios and despite having problems getting the aduino to talk to Processing via Firmata on the old iBook I think I have something collecting enough data. Do I have enough for the making off paper for processing. I'm not sure. 

I need to talk to Paul about experimental procedure.  

Under floor devices.

I'm building the new circit and have found out why the PC version didn't work. The USB on the PC is very very dicy and unreliable. 

Meanwhile booting old mac up for sunspot but sun claims you need 10.4 (upgrade time) but you also need 10.4 with all the updates... ( slow down load over internet time).

Floor system.

Another couple of small set backs for the floor sensors. 

1. Paul went off with his old laptop - hard to set up the other sensors with out it.

2. I lost my key's today so I couldn't get into the lab - not a really bad day did other work but tomorrow is a big staff meeting followed by possible PHD meeting. This slows everything down.

3. I'm short of money other wise I would order the web based sensor stuff.

On the good news front I've put in 2 abstracts for the Space Syntax conference. 

Choices

The old PC is behaving weirdly ( strange things happen when screen closes). I'm thinking I would like to get some form of Linux working on it. But then do I use an audio to do the data collection?

I want to get something working quickly so I can work on another method to get the floor sensor working. I'm  tempted to get the MacMini started then think about getting another box (Eze-PC I've borrowed) going.

Success

I finally got the Spot and PC configured and in the floor.  PC was so slow to install but its configured and now running a recording program. More importantly it is suppling the Spot with power (most expensive power supply ever). I'm going to leave this recording while I work on getting the visualisation working.

I'm hoping PC will continue to work with lid shut (I've configured it this way but its a PC who knows). 

I was trying to explain what I was doing to Jeff when I realised my big mistake. If I am trying to persuade people to do something I should be trying to get people to not walk down the corridor chatting on the ground floor and use the other route instead. Eva pointed out this would make a much better paper (doing diffrent  2 experiments not just one).  The technology would have to count people going via the atrium vs those talking while walking through the work space to the meeting room. I think I could measure people with IR monitor and microphone then look for people + noise. This looks moderately simple.  Will think about this when I get back.