PhD position at the lab

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We're looking for a PhD student at our lab: PROJECT Group mirrors provide users with a reflection of their collaborative processes. The noise sensitive table is an example of interactive furniture based on the concept of group mirror (http://craftsrv1.epfl.ch/research/interactivetable/). Its matrix of LED, embedded in the physical table, provides users with a representation of their social interactions. The table namely reflects turn-taking patterns when students work collaboratively. The peripheral perception of this feedback allows them reflecting on the group verbal interaction or on individual contributions and, finally, deepening learning and regulating their collaboration. The first prototype of the noise sensitive table showed the interest of the concept. Continuing this project now requires improving the software detecting speech configuration and develop adequate visual grammars for the feed-back. This project overlaps the domains of roomware and computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL).

POSITION A PhD position, for 3 years is offered. The gross salary is approx. 3600 Swiss Francs per month. The PhD candidate will participate into a doctoral program at EPFL (12 credits).

PROFILE The candidate will join the EPFL doctoral program in computer science. He must have a strong background in computers science and interest for research in collaborative activity, roomware or human-computer interaction. Knowledge in signal processing would also be appreciated. Working language is English.

FUNDING This project in funded by an internal source for three years.

START Spring 06 (as soon as possible).

TEAM CRAFT (http://craft.epfl.ch ) is a learning technology lab, with a focus on technologies for collaboration. Related current projects focus on mobile technologies, locative media and interactive furniture. CRAFT is an interdisciplinary research team, combining computer science, educational research and cognitive psychology. EPFL (http://www.epfl.ch ) is the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. It has about 6000 students a 5000 staff and about the 10th European University for the quality of its research and as the 1st university worldwide with respect to the geographical diversity of its staff. The campus is located on the beautiful lake side, in front of the mountains. You may ski in the morning and sail in the afternoon.

APPLYING? In order to postulate for this job, you should first be accepted by the EPFL doctoral school. You can get the application forms there: http://infowww.epfl.ch/Imoniteur/doctoral_web.htm (Choose the ´ Computer, Communication and Information Science ª doctoral program).

For more information: jean-baptiste.haue (at) epfl (dot) ch

About cell phones' future

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In the last issue of Receiver, there is an insightful article by James Katz (Professor of Communication and founder of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University) about cell phones and the changes telephony encounters. When giving his take about cell phones' future, he highlights an interesting point:

In terms of anticipating what future users will want of their future phones, an important consideration is that the categories by which one orders the universe today are not necessarily good guides to understanding the way the world will be seen in the future. A brief anecdote may illustrate the principle using a perspective of a phone's operating functions: a bright 9-year old American boy I know downloads mobile phone games and ringtones at every opportunity. He is also adept with videogames and online games, joysticks and controllers. Yet the first time he encountered a fancy 1970s "Empire" style wireline telephone, which had a rotary dial, he was baffled. He simply did not know how to use the phone because he was unfamiliar with a rotary dial and he had never seen one operated before. In effect, the digital dial pad had de-skilled an entire generation. It is easy to imagine that within a few generations knowledge of the rotary dial's operation will become nearly extinct. So one important lesson that could plausibly be extracted from this anecdote is that future users are likely to have a different sense of how communication technology should operate.

Why do I blog this? This is relevant in terms of future forecast since it shows how different systems could operate, through various affordances and interactions.

[James Katz also has another cross-generational anecdote about an 8-year old girl who exclaimed to her grand-mother using a bulky cordless phone "Gee Grandma, does that phone of yours have a phonebook?" when the grandmother informed the little girl that she needed first to look up the telephone number in the phonebook.]

Paper about user's expectations when using LBS

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Lately I am more and more returning to my earlier reading about location-awareness from 2 years back, maybe it's because I am writing journal papers and I need some connections with my work. This morning I re-read this paper from Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing: User needs for location-aware mobile services by Eija Kaasinen (Pers Ubiquit Comput (2003) 7: 70–79). A paper I blogged about in 2004 I guess. The paper is interesting with regard to the user's expectations and usage of location-based services. Here some excerpts I found relevant. First about the goal:

We have carried out several empirical studies to study user attitudes, needs and preferences for location-aware services. We started with scenario evaluations in group interviews. The aim of this evaluation was to study broadly the attitudes of the potential users towards different personal navigation services (...)We have also evaluated with users different commercial location-aware services in Finland: Benefon Esc! used together with a Yellow Pages short message service (SMS), the user can get information on nearby services as well as their location, which the Benefon Esc! can display on the map screen. (...) Sonera Pointer services that utilised cell-based positioning. Pointer Bensa (Gasoline) gave information on the cheapest gasoline stations in the vicinity of the user. Pointer Opas (Guide) offered information about the district around the user...

Then some of the results:

criticism of new technology was brought up in many group interviews. A predestined and over-controlled environment was seen as dubious, and the interviewees did not accept the rational and purpose-oriented attitude to life that they identified in the scenarios. In addition, some of the scenarios, for instance proactive shopping and exhibition guides, were seen as going too far beyond the real needs of people. (...) Our interviews with potential users and the user evaluations of some of the first location-aware services point out that user expectations are high and that the users in Finland at the time of the evaluations trusted current service providers and policy-makers for issues related to privacy protection. This constitutes a good starting point for location-aware services. It did not occur to most users that they could be located when using location-aware services. This puts additional responsibility on the service providers and policy makers. (...) The users need seamless service chains that serve them throughout their mobile activity, e.g. planning, searching services, finding the route as well as visiting and storing information.

Why do I blog this? The article raises important concerns, especially about users' expectations and how they feel being tracked (or not feeling it!). However, I am quit skeptical about the last thing: I don't really think a seamless service is really possible and it's maybe better to design applications that take advantage of seams (Ã la Chalmers) or to educate users.

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Smash my XBox

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An intriguing performance organized by smash my xbox:

After we collect $430 in donations, we will take that money to a local unspecified retailer, which opens at 12am on the launch date. We will purchase the Xbox 360, and destroy it in front of the other Xbox fanboys who are already waiting in line. We will try to be at the very front of the line. The whole thing will be shot on film, and displayed on this site. This is only a social experiment, for the entertainment of the donors, and visitors of this site. For more info

The blog about it gives some details like:

November 22nd 2005 - 10am - Well, after 55 hours of pain, cold, and suffering, we have got our Xbox 360 and successfully smashed it outside Best Buy minutes later, with a large sledgehammer in front of a few Xbox Fanboys who just bought brand new 360s. Short video clip will be posted tomorrow (23rd) and the longer documentary style one will be posted with the next few days. For now, enjoy these pictures!

The hate mail section is also curious.

Yahoo Answers

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Rather than being impressed by the Yahoo take-over of del.icio.us, I am more interested in the launch of Yahoo Answers (of course the del.icio.us thing is great and the synergies with flickr are interesting but some other things are going on). This service lets you ask a question and have a real person provides an answer. This new kind of webservice (“new social networking/online community/search/question answering service”) is very close to a new trend in the field of libraries and information science: asking specialists specific questions. Since libraries have to rethink their missions, this kind of service emerges (like Lyon's municipal library with their guichet des savoirs project last year). Now it's not only a matter of asking specialist through or in an institution. This is enriched with social software features plus a lazy web spin. I find this model very interesting. Let's wait a bit to see to harsh criticisms as for Wikipedia... Update: a commented list of 'ask and expert' websites is available on netsurf.ch thanks to Emily

gameboy + pedal effects = rock gameboy

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6955 is a great gameboy-hacker who is using a gameboy to do music. Of course it's very common lately but I like the way he does it: he combines gameboy with pedal effects which is amazing:

I started this project as a street–side busking thing in Toronto back in ’98. 99.9% of street musicians are irritating Bob Dylans. I wanted to do something a little more interesting. Gameboys are battery powered. So are pedal effects. I found a battery powered amp at a salvation army, threw all my gear in a suitcase and hit the streets. My setup has evolved into a solid, self–contained box housing a ton of effects, an amp and speakers. And it all runs on 12volts.

The sole sound maker is a Gameboy running the Gameboy Camera—it has a lo–fi music sequencer–type thing reminiscent of a TB–303 interface. I run the output of the Gameboy through a bunch of effects: filters, distortions, tremolos, delays, pitch shifters. Most of the stuff I built myself using schematics off the web. I try to modify everything… get more range on filters, more distortion, extra controls. I stumble across a lot of mods while debugging the stuff I build. For recording, I use the same gear, and record on a 4–track. I do every song in one take—I do all the effects in real time. No post–production. No computer tricks (...) there are people making Gameboy music, but I’d have to say that I sound far different than most of the Gameboy music. It’s a lot noisier, more rock. Gameboy rock.

Pervasive computing on the road

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Pervasive computing for road trips is a project by Marc Böhlen, Jesse Fabian, Dirk Pfeifer, and JT Rinker from The MediaRobotics Lab, University at Buffalo In this project, setudents had to design applications using sensors (temperature sensors, 2D accelerometers, miniature color cameras, an OBD-II diagnostic interface, and a microprocessor-based control environment) to react to the experience of being on the road. One of the project explored the possibility of using the changing scenery as an input into a massage seat:

The RGB vibrator extracted a histogram of the miniature camera’s three main color bands and mapped them to motor commands for a massage seat, resulting in situation-specific massages while driving. Blue colors will generate a lower-body massage, red colors an upper-body massage, and green colors a middle-body massage.

Another project was about soft toys collecingt image and vibrational travel data and relay it to a base station:

a student integrated the miniature camera and a 2D accelerometer into two stuffed toy animals. As the car drove around, the camera-enabled toy recorded the optical flow of the changing scenery and the accelerometer-enabled toy registered large bumps on the road. As the vehicle approached home, the toys sent their data via wireless link back to the garage where a screen greeted the returning passengers with a free-form interpretation of the data acquired during the trip.

"Le future" according to french graphists

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I do like this drawing made by Sylvain Euriot (for the graphic collective 'Kung Fu). It's taken from their special issue about "in the future". The caption says "still no flying cars": I really think it's a nice metaphor for futurism: 50 years ago we were expectin huge, visible and disruptive changes that did not happen the way we thought. In this picture everything seems very 20th century and it's the reality but in this context one can find less visible tremendous changes "behind the windows" of those buildings...

Augmented Reality Game Design

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Some lessons and insights about Augmented Reality/Pervasive games are described in this document by Bruce Thomas, Wayne Piekarski, Benjamin Avery and Joe Velikosvky. It's actually an overview with some results that concerns AR Quake, 3 Moon Lander and 3D Sky Invaders. What is interesting is that they deal with gameplay/design issues as well as human-computer interaction topics (like hardware weight or interfaces). There are some relevant information, especially with regards to feasibility issue (difference between indoor/outdoor platforms for instance).

This document is produces by a-rage (an acronym for : Augmented Reality Active Game Engine), a spin-off company from the University of South Australia. The purpose of A_Rage is to commercialise outdoor augmented reality gaming technology developed at the Wearable Computer Lab at the University of South Australia.

A non-user centered Internet of Things

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Today I perused the ITU report about "The Internet of Things" more seriously. The whole report is a compilation of fact, figures and technologies to support the idea of an ubiquitous computation platform refered to as the "Internet of Things" (some trendy person will soon call it "Das Internet des Dinges"). The point is that in the future, "most of the traffic will flow between devices and all kinds of “things”, thereby creating a much wider and more complex “Internet of Things” and "By connecting the world’s things, the internet would truly achieve ubiquity in every sense of the word." Roughly speaking the equation is something like:

ID (thanks to RFID) + Sensing/Reacting (through sensors) + Computation Power ("smartness" or "intelligence) + Miniaturization (through nanotech) = Internet of Things

Existing technologies are well described and lots of examples (drawn out from labs) are presented, which is great. Overall, the report aims at showing Telcos why this is important but somehow fails at moving forward existing scenarios like "forget-me-not-bags" or "pills that think". The user is scarcely present in this report. However, there is this:

Lack of awareness among users is perhaps one of the most important constraints to the development of the Internet of Things. Since the Internet of Things is still in its nascent phase, many users might still have limited knowledge of its potential. RFID is a case in point. Despite the fact that it is currently the most mature industry in the family of the Internet of Things (and tags are used on a regular basis without the knowledge of users), a survey by Capgemini has revealed that only 18 per cent of Europeans and 23 per cent of US consumers have heard about the technology. The general public is even less familiar with the benefits associated with nanotechnologies and wireless sensor networks.

Furthermore, the lack of information coupled with unbalanced coverage may lead to misunderstandings about the advantages or disadvantages of emerging technologies, thereby creating an unfavourable consumer attitude. For example, the public perception of robots, machines whose only purpose in life is to “replace human effort”, has been largely shaped by science fiction and Hollywood blockbusters. This has led to a general lack of trust in robotics. Fears of the general public range from job losses to an invasion by tiny robots or “grey goo”. Unresolved issues related to privacy and data protection block further diffusion of technologies and even instigate active protests, e.g. in reaction to the adoption of RFID for tracking in-store goods.

They do have some concerns about user-centered design:

The question is whether technology itself will create new markets or whether market demand will determine the direction of technological research. (...). If a company is strictly technology-driven, there is an even greater risk that it will lose its investment if it does not find an audience for its technology.

But what IMO they miss is that they only think in terms of usability:

In order to make the Internet of Things an everyday reality, the core enabling technologies have to be adopted by the general public. This will be possible only if consumers are aware of the benefits and advantages of using or installing new systems and are not faced with complicated user instructions. User-centric design and usability will be particularly important features, especially when taking into account the evolution from simple to complex systems, in which the user might have to become system administrator. In all cases, innovation should occur for the benefit of end-users and not merely for the sake of innovation itself.

It's not just about usability! There are important concerns about the users' needs, their potentiel interactions with the system and of course as they mentionned their fear towards it. And I don't agree that usability is the only key of this! Nevertheless, the report presents some business ideas and scenarios of deployment. And fortunately concerns about privacy are well described.

Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methodologies

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Lately I've been very interested in having a global framework that will combine both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The following paper is interesting for that matter:On Becoming a Pragmatic Researcher: The Importance of Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methodologies by Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie and Nancy L. Leech. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Volume 8, Number 5 / December 2005, pp. 375 - 387.

Abstract: The last 100 years have witnessed a fervent debate in the USA about quantitative and qualitative research paradigms. Unfortunately, this has led to a great divide between quantitative and qualitative researchers, who often view themselves as in competition with each other. Clearly, this polarization has promoted purists, namely, researchers who restrict themselves exclusively either to quantitative or to qualitative research methods. Mono‐method research is the biggest threat to the advancement of the social sciences. Indeed, as long as we stay polarized in research, how can we expect stakeholders who rely on our research findings to take our work seriously? Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore how the debate between quantitative and qualitative is divisive and, hence, counterproductive for advancing the social and behavioural science field. This paper advocates that all graduate students learn to utilize and to appreciate both quantitative and qualitative research. In so doing, students will develop into what we term as pragmatic researchers.

Toaster prints weather forecast on bread

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I am sure this will be blogged and reblogged everywhere but I like this concept: using bread as a display device , for instance to show weather forecast (seen in The Register):

Robin Southgate's Java toaster, a device he assembled as part of his final year design project at Brunel University in England. The toaster dials a freephone number to get the weather forecast and burns the appropriate symbol on a piece of toast.

Telegotchi

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Another cool project developed at the Georgia Tech Mobile Technologies Group: Telegotchi

Telegotchi is an electronic pet based game for your mobile device. However, unlike tradition e-pet games, the emotional state of your pet is linked to the physiological state of other players. There are two types of players in this game, ``Pets'' and ``Adopters''. Pets wear a small, wireless sensor that measure physical/physiological responses and have a corresponding e-pet persona. Adopters are the caregivers for the e-pets. An e-pet personality is based on the stress and activity levels of the corresponding pet player. Adopters can interact with their e-pet in one of two ways: (1) SMS with the pet player directly; (2) interact with e-pet within your mobile device (allowing the pet player to influence the e-pet persona, but not be directly involved in the adopters game). Adopters should play with their e-pet when it is bored, tell the e-pet jokes when it is sad, and take the e-pet for walks when it is feeling lazy. At the end of the day, Adopters can rate how they like their e-pet, and have the option to exchange them for a new e-pet. Likewise, interactive pets can rate their owner and have the option to stay with them or run away. Thus, players can compete to be the most loved pet and/or adopter.

The culture of SMS lives among younger women users

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Richard Ling's latest paper is very pertinent with regard to sociocultural aspects of SMS usage: The socio-linguistics of SMS: An analysis of SMS use by a random sample of Norwegians by Richard Ling:

a corpus of SMS messages gathered from a random sample of 2003 Norwegians. The data was collected in May of 2002 by telephone. Along with demographic, behavioral and attitudinal questions associated with mobile and SMS use, we asked the respondents to read (and where necessary, to spell out) the content of the last three messages they had sent. This resulted in a body of 882 SMS messages from 463 (23%) of the 2002 respondents. What does all this tell us about the socio linguistic nature of SMS? The paper examines various aspects of SMS production including themes in the messages, frequently used words, word and message length, use pf punctuation, capitalization, salutations and closings, etc. A general finding is that the culture of SMS lives among younger women users. In spite of the fact that men were early adopters of mobile telephone, it is among these women that the great motor of SMS lives. Women, and in particular younger women, seem to have a broader register when using SMS. They use them for immediate practical coordination issues and also for the more emotional side of mobile communication. In addition, their messages are longer, have a more complex structure and retain more of the traditional conventions associated with other written forms than men. This competence is also extended to telephonic communication.

Playing Pong on Cell-Phones

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Gesture-based games using camera phones is a project carried out by the Georgia Tech Mobile Lab

We have developed a collection of mobile phone games that incorporate physical gesture interactions. Users interact with the game by physically moving the phone in free space. For example, in Pong, a user moves the phone left and right to control the paddle. The games do not rely on special motion sensors. Instead, they use the mobile phone's camera as the motion detector. By using computer vision techniques like motion blur detection and optical flow it is possible to detect up to 6 degrees of freedom. We have developed three entertainment applications to explore this application domain. The first is a simple single player Pong game. The second is a Doodle application that demonstrates the various degrees of freedom. The third is a multiplayer version of the Pong game that leverages the Bluetooth capabilities available on many camera phones.

Why do I blog this? their system seems to be compelling: instead of using motion sensors, they take advantage of the camera lens, through motion detection. I am curious to know the accuracy of such a system to embed the tangible interactions they describe.

Mobile gaming research at the University of Zurich

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Last week, at the Wireless and Mobile Technology Conference in Japan, I met Christoph Goeth. He is working at the University of Zurich on location-based game development and analysis.

My research focus lies on the design, implementation and evaluation of mobile applications, especially in mobile learning games. This includes the interface design, the usage of positioning systems and other context awareness systems for mobile devices but also the evaluation of usage and user adoption of such systems. I’m as much interested in the technical application and its architecture as in the social aspect of mobile systems. Currently I’m focusing on the question how to design a mobile game to improve learning effects for people who are visiting unknown and potentially complex locations such as a university campus, a museum or a whole city.

My research focus lies on the design, implementation and evaluation of mobile applications. This comprises: Designing and implementing mobile learning games / Usage of positioning and other context awareness systems / Evaluation in field experiments

This is really close to what we do here; it's good to know what they're doing up there in Zurich. A good resoruce about their work is certainly: Schwabe, G., Göth, C. (2005): "Mobile Learning with a Mobile Game: Design and Motivational Effects", Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, Vol. 21, 2005, 204-216. Fabien's note about it are relevant.