Kingscross

Spot the user interface.

How many user interfaces can you see below

I have 

Ticket machines

Cash points 

The big digital departure board

The animated displays

The computers on the help desk

The led read out on help desk

Mobile phones

Smart till in shop

Virtual architecture idea of the day.

Virtual architecture idea of the day.

1. Get two cameras to view scene in a remote location - in real time.
2. Using something like a Kinect find out where people are walking past a large display. 
3. Warp the two images so that the moving person sees the virtual location change perspective as they might expect to do so when walking past a 'hole in the wall'. 
4. does this give the impression of hole or is it seen as some kind of visual break down?
5. Does this make you feel like the other place is more there than the flat case ? 

CHI workshop proposal got in

To day as a good day. 

The CHI workshop bid got OKed !

Here is my internal press release. 

Dr  Sheep Dalton and Professor Gerd Kortuem  ( members of the pervasive computing group) along with an international team of fellow academics have be successful in a bid for a workshop the CHI2012 conference.  The ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) series of academic conferences is generally considered the most prestigious in the field of human–computer interaction. It is hosted by ACM SIGCHI, the Special Interest Group on computer–human interaction. CHI has been held annually since 1982 and attracts thousands of international attendees. CHI 2012 will be held in Austin, Texas, USA.

The workshop Ar-CHI-tecture seeks to examine the growing relationship between the fields of human computer interaction and Architecture. 

The rise of ubiquitous computing leads to a convergence between the areas of architectural design and HCI. Human-computer interaction is a type of human-artefact interaction, and its research is characterized by analysing human behavior, cognitive processes and task structures. Buildings can also be understood as artefacts and people interact with them in numerous ways. We believe that the methodological toolbox of HCI researchers/practitioners can be valuable for understanding the challenges of designing buildings that meet users’ needs. Conversely, architectural knowledge is essential for HCI professionals and researchers designing interactive technologies for architectural settings. This workshop will bring together these communities to explore the benefits of architecture envisioned as integral to an expanded CHI community and identify fundamental differences, similarities and synergies between design and research approaches that use architecture in different ways in HCI.

I actually got this yesterday - but I was too busy with finalising another experiment to notice!

PS notice the bit shamelessly stolen from wikipedia ? 

And this is worth a look two.

Crowd computing interaction I'm going to CHI.

Horray!

Congratulations! We are happy to accept your submission for the CHI

2009 workshop on Crowd Computer Interaction.  We hope you are as excited about

this workshop as we are.  Included in this email is some feedback on

your submission. Please use the comments you receive to make changes

to your submission as you see fit. If you choose to do any revisions,

final submissions are due Monday, December 15.

more ethernet sensors

PIC MAXI-WEB Server (60 proper dhcp)

Arduino shieild

Tables and chairs

Very excellent talk from Gonzalo Garcia-Perate yesterday. He of ArtifcalTrousisum and Making Sense of Space He had some nice chairs he was working on plus some lovely building based stuff not to mention advice on how to get ZigBee working with Aduino. 

I should email him to get info about the Arups group innovation somethign and foresight they sounded quite cool. 

Demoed the table to Yvonne looks quite cool now. I'm definitely leaning towards using Reactorvision as the primary engine. 

Looks like the Putnam visit will be a big deal. Some curiosity in the visualisations and floor stickys. 

The Audon sensor turned up looks good but needs a PC to operate.

A methodology begins

Had one of those excellent chats with Ruth 

Ruth thinks that doing the persuasive technology front could form a good basis for a grant application to either ESRC (Economic/Social Science Research council) or the MRC (Medical research council). Medical research is interesting, they have lots of money but they have lots of very top notch people applying for it too. Still the point was I got quite excited. 

Then I had an inspired chat with Paul. 

Clearly I want to play to my syntactical strengths so the most natural response here is where to put the display to have most effect. Paul suggested that I pick four locations  (A,B,C,D) with 2 equal or identical isovist properties ( A,C) and (B,D). Run the experiment and check to see if the response ( what people do ) goes up and down in pairs.  (up A,C, down B,D). Clearly there will be some learning effect ( but how much), but the return to previous state should be obvious if people are responding to the technology. 

This would both establish the utility of a syntactical analysis while also doing some persuasive info. Also leaves some legitimacy for doing a grant application (making this the pilot) later on. Thinking about two weeks per state ( 8 weeks in total + 2 weeks for without action comparison). Paul suggested doing  8 + different locations and trying to correlate results against syntactical factors. 

Problems Problems Problems (sun spot)

I had a quick chat with Yvonne On the way back I wanted to check if I could send something from the other side of the other door ( answer no). 

 With a stick I probed under the floor and found that there was something softish ( feels like wool insulation to me) under the door to the bridge.  This would make putting a USB cable to the spot nearly impossible. Did I mention that the guy in charge of the building is away for 3 weeks? 

Looking at the problem again I had another thought. I could run VERY VERY long cables under the carpet ( which I can lift up ) and run the along the side of the bridge all the way to the floor box were I could put a MacMini/Adui/connected sunspot.  

I'm going to try making a longer cable and seeing if the current will pass detectable. 

Floor sensor

got the Sunspot working as a floor sensor. Then before I could put the thing in the floor it ran out of power. I'm going to leave recharging over weekend - but don't know how long it will last.

I'm not sure if this big box will fit through the holes in the floor either... 

Results from the first Pilot study

1. flat power supply so can close box. 
   
2. longer vibration sensor cabel.
3. add temp./light sensor ( fans come on when its hot) 
4. wireless mouse/keyboard good. 
5. enable ethernet point and run everything remotely. 

Generally went quite well but I'm not sure about the vibration  (stair case) data. Need to enegage this fully on Monday.  

We now have about 2 hours worth of data. 

Slow computing

Odd conversation on the bus. We where talking about the days in computing when your compiler would take a few mins to compile and you had to pause and reflect. Or the times when a computation would take a day or two to run. There was something about the sense of liberation that begin forced NOT to use your computer but still feeling like you where working gave you. This required big computation and a non multitasking computer. At my university they had a period when all the computers where switched off on Friday the 13th to stop a particular virus. Again it was quite nice to have a day without machine, no email and no guilt. 

I used to get my students to send in essays in text format so I would get my Mac to read them out - while I listened I would tidy my office and desk and wish I had more regular essay deadlines so I could organise stuff more than twice a year.  

Generally you hate waiting though. Apple have announced a new Mac with a 64 Gb Flash drive. Lower power plus I'm told very fast on the boot up, Someone mentioned a Linux lap top that boots in 2-3 seconds and how this changes the way you think/use the machine.   

People take time to boot up as well. I often wondered what would happen if the operating system took a picture of the desktop just before you switched off and then used the image as the start up screen image. Giving you a chance to pull your thoughts together put your mind back in the state it was in - with the image possibly greyed until it was ready for interaction. Moments later the real (same desktop would return). We do need more automatic open window in open application mechanisms ( Safari 3.0 has restore all last windows which I like alot). 

So sometimes we need speed and hate interruptions - games, while working to a deadline and when having the machine disappear completely and getting a desktop back would be good. 

Like most people I think I was taken by MW's ubicomp paper where he mentioned peripheral or ambient computing a necessity when 1000s of devices are vying for attention  but this appears to be something which hasn't emerged. Doursh had a paper saying this was effectively an economic impossibility - how can you sell a new device that you buy and forget for example mobile phone/ipod. Computing as pumping, heating or electricity, but look at the number of services that have fallen by the wayside - pneumatic air, the failure of widespread garbage disposal in the UK (we recycle/compost). 

Yvonne has mentioned thinking about slow computing - taking things like slow food campaign ( the opposite of fast foot ) which has been applied to slow cities and thinking about what slow computing might mean. 

well thats my 10 mins of reflection over time to get back to doing a paper. 

Yesterday’s tomorrows:Genevieve Bell Æ Paul Dourish

I'm reading an paper called '

where paul dorish says 

The first possibility is that the ubiquitous computing

vision can never come to pass. The proximate future is a

future infinitely postponed; when we are continually

about to enter a new age, when we are continually

anticipating what happens next, and when our attention

is continually directed over the horizon, then by definition

ubiquitous computing is never about the here and

now. Indeed, within this particular model of a technological

future, it is hard to imagine how we could ever, as

a community, say, ‘‘There. It is done.’’

The second possibility is that ubiquitous computing

already has come to pass. Clearly, of course, we do not

live in ‘‘Sal’s world,’’ as described in the scenario outlined

in Weiser’s paper. But perhaps ubiquitous computing

is already here, but took a form other than that

which had been envisioned. Arguably, and as we will

explore at more length below, our contemporary world,

in which mobile computation and mobile telephony are

central aspects not just of Western commercial endeavors

but also facets of everyday life in the developing

world, is already one of ubiquitous computing, albeit in

unexpected form

Which is kind of irritating. Clearly there is a third possibility that the general view of ubiquitous computing has become too vague and nebulous to permit any thing to be clearly seen as a success or failure. That is if the original paper carries through a nice feeling about what would like to see but in such a permissive way that practically any interpretation goes. At this point it becomes impossible to point to a particular technology as an exlampar of the success or failure of the technology. 

Secondly while there have been a few attempts at what might be clearly inspired by ubicomp ( the orb tech and the rabit thing) you actually need a large number of attempts to create a business to get it right. 

That is just because a business fails you cannot blame the technology ( Pan Am failed and I don't think this proves the failure of air flight, Tower records failed and this does no prove the failure or record or CD, Enron failed but this does not prove that electricity and gas is an irrelevant technology). 

Personally as an outsider I think that ubicomp as a paradigm has failed to deliver any useful technology in exactly the same way that say virtual reality failed. That is not enough people in the field where inspired enough to get the backing to form a company and make sure that the customer got something they would find value in. To get this right takes a large number of start-up people with the right connections, time, commitment, even then most will fail ( think of the number of early computers with only the Commador Pet,Sinclar spectrum and Apple II as profitable survivors. 

Surely this says more about the inability of human computer interaction people to get the design of new technology right (useful or rewarding) than the failure of the vision of ubicomp per-say. 

something edgy, something collaborative, something borrowed, something blue

From the last shareIt meeting. We wanted something
1. Edgy
2. Easy and quick to do. ( no new expensive hardware)
3. Something we can do more collaborative/shareable (real time collaborate) research with.
4. Something playful but not an art work.
5. Fairly simple reliable.

here is my next idea

On the way down the the ShareIt meeting I was chatting about thinking about another kind of floor saver application. When we entered the building I realised what I wanted.

As you enter many buildings you see bits of paper stuck up with 'meeting here this way'

I wanted to make a floor stickies (RM's rather brilliant name).

As you enter the building and through out the building you see rectangles projected on the floor like sticky notes. As you walk on them the pages move and reorder to keep out of the way ( fun with crowds) or stick to you if you don't move for a bit. Some playful interaction between two people as the notes move to avoid both pedestrians. Messages can be either simple text or and image (downloaded).

To avoid annoyance messages can only live for 1-7 days. So the floor is never casually out of date(unlike paper ones you have to go and take down).

These are messages ( some including a direction arrow) that anyone in the local department intranet can add via web page.

Edgey factor.
Posts are anonymous, for example if you took pictures of peoples desks you could put them on floor stickies until controversy or boredom takes over.

Modes of collaboration: from inhabitants to visitors ( Dave - Third floor for mike ),
for inhabitants (Paul gone to Cafe see you later).
for one to many inhabitants ( meeting of OU visions group 2:30 all invited).

Pages show a walked on count ?(soft implementation of gates).

Shareable tech - capturing pages or moving/arranging.

tacky research question - is a floor sticky more noticed than a bit of A4 stuck up some where. How event aware are people?

real research question is about looking at how people adopt/ma-adopt(misuse) technology. Do a survey of what people might use a technology for in the abstract then try again a few months later. Also a probe into open space collaborative technologies ( the research question arises from the result ).

Any thoughts ?

intimate technology

Spend most of the morning talking to Jeff (its addictive) whacting videos of some strange art projects. Jeff thinks you can get a large whiteboard/screen which work with multiple pens.

WE chatted about a pen based table interface - capturing writing as text input. Can't make a pen or paper clip work on table. Jeff appears to be into methodologies more than technology( I see them as linked - technologies imply some kind of way of using them). Jeff mentioned the success of the open space technueqe.

Two things I was inspired was to make some flexible (white translucent rubber?) screen to project on to or possibly use a tactile surface( vevlet,silk) to make the table top surface with. Using guages to measure 'pressure' perhaps. Not sure.

Another demo used breath measureing devices in cloths to make one more aware of breath and how we might use that to signal to others.

I would have combined the cloths and breath together using a corset to both be the device and measure. Jeff mentined some work on weaving circuts into cloth. I like the going back to jaquard loom - does history move in cycles or are we in some strange temporal/conceptual orbit?

back to boaring TMA ( 6th revision now).

Currently thinking about large screens again

Had and intreasting chat int the group about how to do an experiment. I had the idea of an alien reactor that needed controling.

Paul pointed out that a number of screens on a wall arre just one large screen with dark lines. To be multi screen implies that they are not in the same orrienation.

I need to clarify my thoughts on this - I'm going to make a large multiscreen and single screen demo to help refine our thinking on the matter.

Ted speeks

Intreasting observation about Google being a new command line ( type data and it does not not finds it) but google is command lines done right.

Nice bit on the new physicality in interfaces too.

Table top interfaces

Another week of experiments.

I've been wondering what kinds of things we can do with tabletops (sharable/multi-interaction devices in general). That would be better then a laptop and a projector. Things were everyone doing someting could help.

I was thinking that we need to think about cases were all participants try their own thing out be we get to see them simultaniously. Like giving everyone the same pictures on the same table BUT everyone has their own layer. This way we can experiment with diffrent designs and try a multitude of things out coming to some common understanding.

I'm try to talk to Bashar about tabletop interface related to software project planning.

WINNER 4G

I'm at a conferance at the moment (CNSR) quite intreasting. I am currently in a Keynote about a system called WINNER a 4G system. The talk is about adaptive shareing the frequency response for each transmittor. So we have different transmitters shareing spectrum of frequencies but the signal can be effected at different frequencies. So adapt by sending test signals ( pilots ) and then alter data transmitted to send more information in the parts of frequency that have stronger singnals.

my idea would be would the outputs of the pilots give a sense of the environment you are in ? Might the software make the available to give a sense of where the transmitter is ?

I like idea of picking up this spare information and using it to help identify the location/orientation of the device ( and so the user).

After the talk I spoke to the guy and hay they had considerd it(groovey).