Multi-user navigation: a 3D mobile device interactive support

Multi-User navigation within an environment with the aid of 3D mobile support provides end users with additional mobility thought and improves mobility services’ efficiency. A necessary approach of using mobile device for navigation aid is to display only a section of the view-front and to let users control the portion shown by conceptually moving on the orientation. There is a need for multiple users to be able to interact with themselves when they are within an environment and navigating with the aid of 3D mobile devices support, in order to meet-up with an appointment or to be aware of the locations of each other. Unfortunately, the predominant 3D mobile navigation system does not provide multi-user interactive services. Users cannot be aware of other users navigating within same environment using the same system on their mobile devices at the same time. This paper presents multi-user 3D mobile navigation system for providing multiple user awareness. The analysis of the results provides a unique visualization of multiple users using mobile devices to help them navigate to a target location by being aware of their whereabouts

SoundXY4: supporting tabletop collaboration and awareness with ambisonics spatialisation

Co-located tabletop tangible user interfaces (TUIs) for music performance are known for promoting multi-player collaboration with a shared interface, yet it is still unclear how to best support the awareness of the workspace in terms of understanding individual actions and the other group members actions, in parallel. In this paper, we investigate the effects of providing auditory feedback using ambisonics spatialisation, aimed at informing users about the location of the tangibles on the tabletop surface, with groups of mixed musical backgrounds. Participants were asked to improvise music on "SoundXY4: The Art of Noise", a tabletop system that includes sound samples inspired by Russolo's taxonomy of noises. We compared spatialisation vs. no-spatialisation conditions, and findings suggest that, when using spatialisation, there was a clearer workspace awareness, and a greater engagement in the musical activity as an immersive experience

Supporting Collaborative Multi-User Interactions in a Video Surveillance Application Using Microsoft Tabletop Surface

This report examines the progressing exploration done on my chosen subject, which is A Multi-touch Interface in a Video Surveillance System. It discusses method of early prototype interacting with security surveillance footage using natural user interfaces instead of traditional mouse and keyboard interaction. Current project is an evidence of idea on exhibiting that multi-touch interfaces are helpful in a video surveillance system to specifically control the surveillance videos, both of the live or of recorded. In case of any occurrence, this proposed system of interaction may require the user to spend an extra time amounts time obtaining circumstantial and location awareness, which is counter-beneficial. The framework proposed in this paper show how a multi-touch screen and natural interaction can empower the surveillance observing station users to rapidly recognize the area of a security camera and proficiently react to an occurrence. One of the main objective of this project is to engage more than 1 user to perform moving, scaling, rotating ,highlighting and recording on a surveillance video in the meantime, particularly during emergency periods. Furthermore, the scope of study for this project is to improve user collaborative interactions on Microsoft tabletop surface .A methodology was developed based upon a combination of the available literature and the experiences of the authors, who are actively involved with the development of multi-user interactions. This will cover many parts such as surveys, data gathering from respective Subject-Matter Experts, focal points, and analyzing information. It is intended to have a Surveillance application with user friendly collaborative touch on surface and eye-catching interface to reflect the quick paced nature of today's correspondences and better advertise its new activities and accessible assets. The future improvements and plans have been recommended and discussed in the recommendations section. Up to now, this research report has been run for twelve (12) weeks and going to be continued running for sixteen (16) weeks with a specific end goal to attain project primary objectives

Multi-Sensor Context-Awareness in Mobile Devices and Smart Artefacts

The use of context in mobile devices is receiving increasing attention in mobile and ubiquitous computing research. In this article we consider how to augment mobile devices with awareness of their environment and situation as context. Most work to date has been based on integration of generic context sensors, in particular for location and visual context. We propose a different approach based on integration of multiple diverse sensors for awareness of situational context that can not be inferred from location, and targeted at mobile device platforms that typically do not permit processing of visual context. We have investigated multi-sensor context-awareness in a series of projects, and report experience from development of a number of device prototypes. These include development of an awareness module for augmentation of a mobile phone, of the Mediacup exemplifying context-enabled everyday artifacts, and of the Smart-Its platform for aware mobile devices. The prototypes have been explored in various applications to validate the multi-sensor approach to awareness, and to develop new perspectives of how embedded context-awareness can be applied in mobile and ubiquitous computing

Supporting air traffic control collaboration with a tabletop system

International audienceCollaboration is key to safety and efficiency in Air Traffic Control. Legacy paper-based systems enable seamless and non-verbal collaboration, but trends in new software and hardware for ATC tend to separate controllers more and more, which hinders collaboration. This paper presents a new interactive system designed to support collaboration in ATC. We ran a series of interviews and workshops to identify collaborative situations in ATC. From this analysis, we derived a set of requirements to support collaboration: support mutual awareness, communication and coordination, dynamic task allocation and simultaneous use with more than two people. We designed a set of new interactive tools to fulfill the requirements, by using a multi-user tabletop surface, appropriate feedthrough, and reified and partially-accomplishable actions. Preliminary evaluation shows that feedthrough is important, users benefit from a number of tools to communicate and coordinate their actions, and the tabletop is actually usable by three people both in tightly coupled tasks and parallel, individual activities. At a higher level, we also found that co-location is not enough to generate mutual awareness if users are not engaged in meaningful collaboration

Mobile-awareness:designing for mobile interactive systems

In recent years, we have witnessed a significant increase in the availability and adoption of mobile devices with wireless communications capabilities. Such devices can be used as the end-system in network-based (single or multi

Quality assessment technique for ubiquitous software and middleware

The new paradigm of computing or information systems is ubiquitous computing systems. The technology-oriented issues of ubiquitous computing systems have made researchers pay much attention to the feasibility study of the technologies rather than building quality assurance indices or guidelines. In this context, measuring quality is the key to developing high-quality ubiquitous computing products. For this reason, various quality models have been defined, adopted and enhanced over the years, for example, the need for one recognised standard quality model (ISO/IEC 9126) is the result of a consensus for a software quality model on three levels: characteristics, sub-characteristics, and metrics. However, it is very much unlikely that this scheme will be directly applicable to ubiquitous computing environments which are considerably different to conventional software, trailing a big concern which is being given to reformulate existing methods, and especially to elaborate new assessment techniques for ubiquitous computing environments. This paper selects appropriate quality characteristics for the ubiquitous computing environment, which can be used as the quality target for both ubiquitous computing product evaluation processes ad development processes. Further, each of the quality characteristics has been expanded with evaluation questions and metrics, in some cases with measures. In addition, this quality model has been applied to the industrial setting of the ubiquitous computing environment. These have revealed that while the approach was sound, there are some parts to be more developed in the future

Context-awareness for mobile sensing: a survey and future directions

The evolution of smartphones together with increasing computational power have empowered developers to create innovative context-aware applications for recognizing user related social and cognitive activities in any situation and at any location. The existence and awareness of the context provides the capability of being conscious of physical environments or situations around mobile device users. This allows network services to respond proactively and intelligently based on such awareness. The key idea behind context-aware applications is to encourage users to collect, analyze and share local sensory knowledge in the purpose for a large scale community use by creating a smart network. The desired network is capable of making autonomous logical decisions to actuate environmental objects, and also assist individuals. However, many open challenges remain, which are mostly arisen due to the middleware services provided in mobile devices have limited resources in terms of power, memory and bandwidth. Thus, it becomes critically important to study how the drawbacks can be elaborated and resolved, and at the same time better understand the opportunities for the research community to contribute to the context-awareness. To this end, this paper surveys the literature over the period of 1991-2014 from the emerging concepts to applications of context-awareness in mobile platforms by providing up-to-date research and future research directions. Moreover, it points out the challenges faced in this regard and enlighten them by proposing possible solutions