Worrying news for HCI on the new A-Level curriculm for computer science

If you check out the new

Proposed GCE AS and A Level Subject Content for Computer Science
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/252932/Computer_science_subject_content.pdf 

You might be agast to discover that anything to do with Human comptuer interaction has been exised ( removed) from the circulum leaving a big hole.

The subject content ( knowledge and understanding ) and the skills particularly design seems to be missing anything relating to state the Aims and Objectives which are

an understanding of the consequences of uses of computing, including social, legal, ethical and other issues; and
an awareness of technologies and an appreciation of their impact on society. 






I would suggest that the subject context needs to be amended.

Analysis

• Evaluate the possible need for development of a computer-based solution to a problem.
• Judge the feasibility of a computer-based solution to a problem.
• Derive the user, data and processing requirements of a system, including a consideration of the user,social aspects and context. and physical environment
• Specify and document the data and processing requirements for a computer-based solution to a problem. 

DESIGN

• Understand that a user is at the heart of any utilised system. 
• To be able to use a number of methods such as prototypes to understand how a final application would change the users approach to the problem
• To realise that Analysis and Design is frequently and iterative process 
• Specify and document, using appropriate systematic methods:
• the functions of the parts of a system;
• the interrelationships between the various parts of a system;
• the selection of an appropriate hardware and software configuration;
• the method of solving the problem including, where appropriate, evaluation of alternative proposals;
• the algorithms, data types, data structures and other requirements of the solution;
• the method of testing the solution and the selection of test data; and
• the effectiveness of the proposed solution in meeting the requirements of the problem.

0. Implementation
•   Select appropriate software and hardware, and techniques for their use.
•   Implement the design.
•   Carry out testing.
    Carry out user testing.
1. 
   
2.   Develop documentation. 
   
   
   

BBC News - Amazon testing drones for deliveries

BBC News - Amazon testing drones for deliveries

You might remember I blogged this idea last year. Now Amazon are doing it.

Nottingham have 12 PHD studentships going.

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/jobs/currentvacancies/ref/SCI1341

Good opportunity to work with some of the best in the ubicomp research bussiness.

Oh my god this could be the greatst thing ever

This is just amazing you can design your board, emulate it, get the circuit right and get it made. Stuning use of web. 

http://123d.circuits.io 

Symbolic Interactionism

Theory of the day:Herbert Blumer:Symbolic Interactionism

• Human beings act towards things on the basis of the meanings that these things have for them
• The meaning of such things is derived from, and arises out of, the social interaction that one has with one’s fellows
• These meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretive process used by the person in dealing with the thing he/she/it encounters. 

You can tell I'm reviewing all the ar-chi-tecture papers. 

Space and Interaction workshop accepted for CHI2013

Cool 


We are happy to inform you that your workshop

 150 - Interaction and the Production of Space: from Architecture to Navigation

has been accepted to CHI 2014 Workshops.

Congratulations, we're delighted to have you as part of our workshops program. We had 68 submissions this year, many of which received very good reviews. Our final acceptance rate was 49%.

3D printing building

Just looking at something else came across this revolution in Architecture - the kind of concreate you can use to do 3D printing of buildings. 

I Would like to look at the paper - how do they handle reinforcement bars ( aka rebars ) ? Could this handle agrigate ?  I've seen glass fiber in concreate with might be a rebar replacement. 




Makes you wonder if you can pre-print building as a base on Mars. 

This is a good example of the printer


There is a great deal of nivity about building - for example you don't generally have space around a site to put the printer frame down but does show a solution to the re-bar problem. Plus a good NASA base example! Architects look out! 

MIT are way ahread.  http://web.media.mit.edu/~neri/site/

beta knowledge

From beta knowledge

I guess there is a growing area of animal/computer interaction and this device which measures sheep's heart beats and then uses them to alert for wolf attacks is nice but about 100 years to late (in this country). Dog attacks are still possibilities so worth thinking about.   

 

Neruodiversity - ADHD.

I'm busy but I got sent this.You don't think of kids having to come off medication over the holidays.

So is a Ouija board a shareable or a gate keeper interface ?

I was reading about shareable interfaces and noticed an interesting part about "Manipulative access" talking about systems which either have a) one person (gate keeper) doing the manipulation or b) sharable (many people get access eg multi-touch tables) and I thought about this interface the  Ouija Board.

So is a Ouija board a shareable or a gate keeper interface ?

picture by dragonoak.

Tile - Privicy and the future of ownership.

Well you could say...

Or you could also say. 
"Worried about where your future girlfriend is really seeing? Tile helps you with that too. Discreetly pop one into her bag and you can know where she is any time. " 

I can think of numerous ways to use this for less than honorable reasons, that said we don't have any reasonable methods to assess in advance if a technology is likely to be more repressive or more liberating.  

For Tile I think I could think of more positive uses than negative. I quite like the fact you can crowdsource a surveillance system.   Although one problem with the bike example is that pretty soon the criminals will get smart and rip the tag off ( now if it was IN the bike frame... ) but the problem is if you have some kind of markers ( protected byXXX ) then this just alerts them to needing to radio isolate the bike. A friend of mine would have liked these when he got his bag stolen in a big French train station. Unfortunately he had his laptop stolen and was able to remotely log in scan his drive get the location and the name and photographs of the person who had now purchased his old laptop from the thief. Unfortunately the french police could not be bothered to follow up on such a easy win,  I guess they don't like people coming along and deskilling their job either. Perhaps if you offered this service along with access to some thugs it might work out better. In the end there were two victims. 

This does make you wonder what a future where every object is unique and has some knowledge of its owner would do for criminality. How are you expected to effectively steal something when what the purchaser can check you are the legitimate owner. Is Apple's iPhone anti theft system the future of ownership? 

To be honest I'm not sure, but I'm sure I might get one of these. 

file under: crowd sourced surveillance, the power of Bluetooth 4

You get a PHD thesis for this ?

Honestly. Don't get me wrong this is a very good masters project, the stats look good, it's reasonably referenced, clear question but basically the topic its " do people prefer automatic checkouts over real people? ". This is a 'significant contribution to knowledge in the field ?  Is this what business studies people think is a real contribution to knowledge ? This is not a PHD this is a good masters project gone horribly horribly wrong. 

I am all too clearly reminded of the time I spent in a business school course on innovation , listening in horror to business students ( all of whom were working for major companies at the time ) while they ernestly discussed the merits of investing in a perpetual motion machine. In response to my shock the response was "it's not a perpetual motion machine it's a free air energy device"  (no the patent office doesn't allow them either).

File under disappointed.