[UbiComp] Big Urban Game

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Big Urban Game allows you to turn your city in a huge board game. You play with big inflatable game pieces.

The Big Urban Game (B.U.G.) is a five-day city-wide event that transformed the Twin Cities into a 200-square-mile game board. Three B.U.G. teams raced 25-foot-tall Red, Yellow and Blue inflatable game pieces through the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul each day. As players in the B.U.G., the public chose which routes the pieces raced along, and followed the day's progress on the B.U.G. website. B.U.G. checkpoints were the start for discovery walking tours based on specially commissioned KNOWLEDGE MAPS — nine interpretive maps of the Twin Cities — available now through the Design Institute.

[Research] What is a phd in HCI

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Lately, at our lab, we've been discussing the would-be content of our phd thesis: is it social science (social/cognitive psychology? sociology?), computer science... Well, it is abourt Human Computer Interaction definitely, that was where we reached in the discussion. HCI because it is really interdisciplinary. But what is a phd in HCI. I googled a bit and I found this paper: What is a PhD in HCI? by Chris Johnson (1996). Few quotes:

The criteria imposed in the field of Psychology cannot easily be applied to assess the quality of work in the field of Computer Science or Sociology. In consequence, external and internal examiners from individual disciplines cannot easily judge the quality of work that may draw upon several different fields.(...) Many Universities require that PhD candidates contribute to their field of research. (...) A second criteria for a doctorate in HCI is that the candidate shows a proper grounding in experimental techniques. (...) A third criteria that might be used to judge a 'good thesis' in HCI is whether the candidate contributes to the design and implementation of interactive systems. (...) An Understanding of Inter-disciplinary Research

[Locative Media] RDF/Geospatial workshop in October

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A workshop about RDF and locative media is likely to happen in Budapest, 4/5 October.

The goal of these workshops is to bring together a group of developers (the FOAF workshop recently completed in Galway had over 100 participants, but we are generally looking for something in the order of 20 or so) working on different aspects of a topic. It would include some semi-formal presentations, some discussions of difficult or interesting issues, and some informal discussion and meeting people whose expertise is in a different aspect of the problem.

The results of the workshop are a formal report, listing presentations, topics of discussion, interesting tools mentioned, and so on, as well as the sharing of knowledge among a group focussed on a particular area but with some different perspectives.

[MyResearch] Comments on CatchBob

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At the workshop about game analysis in Leeds, CatchBob received a good interests and some comments: - cbob definitely need a better communication tool: VoIP, chat... - (paper in ACM about visualization of maps in quake... released this month) - messaging system: broadcast to everyone or to a specific player? - john asked how to deal with frustration/anger with our communication tool - VoIP: barry advised to use 3 ipaqs running skype and a desktop computer that runs a skype session and record the conversation? is it possible to do multiple conference with skype? - oskar made comments about my paper: + the 'spatial feature' thing is unclear (it could be spatial arrangements of chair, topology...), I should really explain this sentence "we are interested in ubiquitous computing games in order to use it as a platform to study how people rely on spatial features in terms of collaborative interactions." + why using ubicomp for this research question? He asked this because he did not understand what I meant with spatial features (so he said that I could use normal psychological task withouth any tech) + he advised me to reformulate my research question, something like: the world can be augmented with information (like location awareness), how this augmentation modifies collaboration? impacts collaborative processes. + he questioned the fact that we extracted lots of data and the unclear research question: we got lots of data, so what? how this relates to the research question. the paper is certainly too dense. + put more references to uncle roy or can you see my now

[Research] Analyses factorielles et HCI

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Lu dans la mailing list ergo-ihm:

pour les études utilisant les analyses factorielles et plus largement des techniques de ce genre, l'équipe CHristol et CFH en ont réalisé quelques unes. Notamment une sur les accidents du travail à la RATP avec un étudiant de F. Hubault(publié dans Performances H&T, je peux vous retrouver le n° si vraiment ça vous interesse). On a utilisé ça avec Eric Hermann (CFH) pour la réalisation d'une méthodo de retour d'expérience FH dans la Marine Nationale avec dépouillement des données textuelles avec ces techniques (mais rien de publié, sinon communication orale Lambda mu Montpellier.

On utilise aussi ca beaucoup pour l'analyse des communications ( par exemple entre pilote, remorqueur, Stocker et autres lors du remplissage offshore de superTankers)en confrontant les résultats de ce qu'on observe sur le terrain et en simulateur. Rien de publié.

Dans les systèmes un peu complexes, c'est vraiment remarquable comme technique en confrontant terrain et simulateur : rien de nouveau sous le soleil, depuis le fameux article de jacques leplat. les outils sont plus pratiques, les terrains plus accessibles, mais la méthodo de nos ainés tient la route (et comment !). SI intéressé, expliquez moi ce que vous cherchez. Pour l'ergo dans les SI, il n'y a aucune position commune a tous les concepteurs, (a ce propos, une étudiante a fait un méméoire de DESS sur la représentation de l'ergo chez les informaticiens, et a mis en évidence des classes différentes, la aussi gros effort de recherche a faire pour le retrouver).

[Research] Programing and with starlogo

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Digging into the world of modeling and simulation, I tried the starlogo tutorial: programing ants to search for woodchips and place them into piles: This is cool but I am wondering if I can program more complex behavior. The other issue is that what I want to simulate is not a decentralized behavior. 3 agents collaborating might have a leader. Furthermore, I am in a context where I want to investigate the behavior or 3,4,5 agents and not 1000...

[Weird] Micro-encapsulating odors

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If you had the chance to see the movie entitled "Polyester" (by John Waters) in its odor-mode. It was interesting scratching those capsules that release horrible odors. This is made by a french company called Euracli. They put odors thanks to micro-encapsulation in lots of stuff: headscarf, lingerie, ribbons, tights, mailings, wine... Any creative ideas? Some kind of location-triggered odor management system?

[LifeHack] A screen turned into a todo list

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Since once my screen is out of order, I turned it into a cool to-do list. Actually, I did not take any advantage of its size and just duct-taped the todo list I had in my pocket (which is a fake one-sided dollar bill)

The to-do list is simple: - Run Catchbob experiments - Rewrite my Journal of CSCW paper taking the reviews into account - Rewrite my Journal of Multimedia paper taking the reviews into account - Write my phd research plan (gosh) that should include CatchBob experiment design - Write an article for the CSCL Symposium workshop about space - Write my literature review oultine + references

[Weird Tech] DNA swabbing kits to crack down anti-social behaviour

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A train operator (First North Western, which run services in Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Lancashire and Cumbria) is handing out DNA swabbing kits to its staff in an attempt to catch people who spit at them. London Police is also heading in this direction with their 'Gobstopper' operation (is this a psy-op operation of the 21st century?).

First North Western say it is part of an initiative to crack down on anti-social behaviour and improve safety for their staff. It has previously been impossible to catch or convict those responsible for spitting attacks. But with the DNA kits, saliva is taken from the victim's skin and used to search for the offender on the national DNA database.