191 research outputs found
Human-to-Human Interaction: the Killer Application of Ubiquitous Computing
Twenty-five years past the Weiser\u2019s vision of Ubiquitous Computing, and there is not a clear understanding of what is or is not a pervasive system. Due to the loose boundaries of such paradigm, almost any kind of remotely ac-cessible networked system is classified as a pervasive system. We think that that is mainly due to the lack of killer applications that could make this vi-sion clearer. Actually, we think that the most promising killer application is already here, but we are so used to it that we do not see it, as a perfect fitting of the Weiser\u2019s vision: the Human-to-Human Interaction mediated by com-puters
Sound based social networks
The sound environment is an eco of the activity and character of each
place, often carrying additional information to that made available to the eyes
(both new and redundant). It is, therefore, an intangible and volatile acoustic
fingerprint of the place, or simply an acoustic snapshot of a single event. Such
rich resource, full of meaning and subtleness, Schaeffer called Soundscape.
The exploratory research project presented here addresses the Soundscape
in the context of Mobile Online Social Networking, aiming at determining the
extent of its applicability regarding the establishment and/or strengthening of
new and existing social links. Such research goal demanded an interdisciplinary
approach, which we have anchored in three main stems: Soundscapes,
Mobile Sound and Social Networking. These three areas pave the scientific
ground for this study and are introduced during the first part of the thesis. An
extensive survey of the state-of-the-arte projects related with this research is
also presented, gathering examples from different but adjacent areas such as
mobile sensing, wearable computing, sonification, social media and contextaware
computing. This survey validates that our approach is scientifically opportune
and unique, at the same time.
Furthermore, in order to assess the role of Soundscapes in the context
of Social Networking, an experimental procedure has been implemented
based on an Online Social Networking mobile application, enriched with environmental
sensing mechanisms, able to capture and analyze the surrounding
Soundscape and users' movements. Two main goals guided this prototypal
research tool: collecting data regarding users' activity (both sonic and kinetic)
and providing users with a real experience using a Sound-Based Social Network,
in order to collect informed opinions about this unique type of Social
Networking. The application â Hurly-Burly â senses the surrounding Soundscape
and analyzes it using machine audition techniques, classifying it according
to four categories: speech, music, environmental sounds and silence. Additionally, it determines the sound pressure level of the sensed Soundscape
in dB(A)eq. This information is then broadcasted to the entire online social
network of the user, allowing each element to visualize and audition a representation
of the collected data. An individual record for each user is kept
available in a webserver and can be accessed through an online application,
displaying the continuous acoustic profile of each user along a timeline graph.
The experimental procedure included three different test groups, forming each
one a social network with a cluster coefficient equal to one.
After the implementation and result analysis stages we concluded that
Soundscapes can have a role in the Online Social Networking paradigm, specially
when concerning mobile applications. Has been proven that current offthe-
shelf mobile technology is a promising opportunity for accomplishing this
kind of tasks (such as continuous monitoring, life logging and environment
sensing) but battery limitations and multitasking's constraints are still the bottleneck,
hindering the massification of successful applications. Additionally,
online privacy is something that users are not enthusiastic in letting go: using
captured sound instead of representations of the sound would abstain users
from utilizing such applications. We also demonstrated that users who are
more aware of the Soundscape concept are also more inclined to assume it
as playing an important role in OSN. This means that more pedagogy towards
the acoustic phenomenon is needed and this type of research gives a step
further in that direction.O ambiente sonoro de um lugar Ă© um eco da sua atividade e carĂĄcter,
transportando, na maior parte da vezes, informação adicional àquela que é
proporcionada Ă visĂŁo (quer seja redundante ou complementar). Ă, portanto,
uma impressĂŁo digital acĂșstica - tangĂvel e volĂĄtil - do lugar a que pertence,
ou simplesmente uma fotografia acĂșstica de um evento pontual. A este opulento
recurso, carregado de significados e subtilezas, Schafer chamou de
Paisagem-Sonora. O projeto de investigação de caråcter exploratório que
aqui apresentamos visa o estudo da Paisagem-Sonora no contexto das Redes
Sociais MĂłveis Em-Linha, procurando entender os moldes e limites da
sua aplicação, tendo em vista o estabelecimento e/ou reforço de novos ou
existente laços sociais, respectivamente. Para satisfazer este objectivo foi
necessĂĄria uma abordagem multidisciplinar, ancorada em trĂȘs pilares principais:
a Paisagem-Sonora, o Som MĂłvel e as Redes Sociais. Estas trĂȘs ĂĄreas
determinaram a moldura cientĂfica de referĂȘncia em que se enquadrou esta
investigação, sendo explanadas na primeira parte da tese. Um extenso levantamento
do estado-da-arte referente a projetos relacionados com este estudo
é também apresentado, compilando exemplos de åreas distintas mas adjacentes,
tais como: Computação Sensorial MĂłvel, Computação VestĂvel, Sonificação,
Média Social e Computação Contexto-Dependente. Este levantamento
veio confirmar quer a originalidade quer a pertinĂȘncia cientĂfica do projeto
apresentado.
Posteriormente, a fim de avaliar o papel da Paisagem-Sonora no contexto
das Redes Sociais, foi posto em prĂĄtica um procedimento experimental
baseado numa Rede Social Sonora Em-Linha, desenvolvida de raiz para dispositivos
mĂłveis e acrescida de mecanismos sensoriais para estĂmulos ambientais,
capazes de analisar a Paisagem-Sonora envolvente e os movimentos
do utilizador. Dois objectivos principais guiaram a produção desta ferramenta
de investigação: recolher dados relativos Ă atividade cinĂ©tica e sonora dos utilizadores e proporcionar a estes uma experiĂȘncia real de utilização
uma Rede Social Sonora, de modo a recolher opiniÔes fundamentadas sobre
esta tipologia especĂfica de socialização. A aplicação â Hurly-Burly â analisa
a Paisagem-Sonora através de algoritmos de Audição Computacional, classificando-
a de acordo com quatro categorias: diĂĄlogo (voz), mĂșsica, sons ambientais
(âruĂdosâ) e silĂȘncio. Adicionalmente, determina o seu nĂvel de pressĂŁo
sonora em dB(A)eq. Esta informação Ă© entĂŁo distribuĂda pela rede social
dos utilizadores, permitindo a cada elemento visualizar e ouvir uma representação
do som analisado. Ă mantido num servidor Web um registo individual
da informação sonora e cinética captada, o qual pode ser acedido através de
uma aplicação Web que mostra o perfil sonoro de cada utilizador ao longo do
tempo, numa visualização ao estilo linha-temporal. O procedimento experimental
incluiu trĂȘs grupos de teste distintos, formando cada um a sua prĂłpria
rede social com coeficiente de aglomeração igual a um. Após a implementação
da experiĂȘncia e anĂĄlise de resultados, concluĂmos que a Paisagem-
Sonora pode desempenhar um papel no paradigma das Redes Sociais Em-
Linha, em particular no que diz respeito à sua presença nos dispositivos móveis.
Ficou provado que os dispositivos mĂłveis comerciais da atualidade
apresentam-se com uma oportunidade promissora para desempenhar este
tipo de tarefas (tais como: monitorização contĂnua, registo quotidiano e anĂĄlise
sensorial ambiental), mas as limitaçÔes relacionadas com a autonomia
energética e funcionamento em multitarefa representam ainda um constrangimento
que impede a sua massificação. Além disso, a privacidade no mundo
virtual Ă© algo que os utilizadores atuais nĂŁo estĂŁo dispostos a abdicar: partilhar
continuamente a Paisagem-Sonora real em detrimento de uma representação
de alto nĂvel Ă© algo que refrearia os utilizadores de usar a aplicação.
Também demonstråmos que os utilizadores que mais conhecedores do fenómeno
da Paisagem-Sonora são também os que consideram esta como importante
no contexto das Redes Sociais Em-Linha. Isso significa que uma atitude
pedagógica em relação ao fenómeno sonoro é essencial para obter dele
o maior ganho possĂvel. Esta investigação propĂ”e-se a dar um passo em
frente nessa direção
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Gender differences in navigation dialogues with computer systems
This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Gender is among the most influential of the factors underlying differences in spatial abilities, human communication and interactions with and through computers. Past research has offered important insights into gender differences in navigation and language use. Yet, given the multidimensionality of these domains, many issues remain contentious while others unexplored. Moreover, having been derived from non-interactive, and often artificial, studies, the generalisability of this research to interactive contexts of use, particularly in the practical domain of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), may be problematic. At the same time, little is known about how gender strategies, behaviours and preferences interact with the features of technology in various domains of HCI, including collaborative systems and systems with natural language interfaces. Targeting these knowledge gaps, the thesis aims to address the central question of how gender differences emerge and operate in spatial navigation dialogues with computer systems.
To this end, an empirical study is undertaken, in which, mixed-gender and same-gender pairs communicate to complete an urban navigation task, with one of the participants being under the impression that he/she interacts with a robot. Performance and dialogue data were collected using a custom system that supported synchronous navigation and communication between the user and the robot.
Based on this empirical data, the thesis describes the key role of the interaction of gender in navigation performance and communication processes, which outweighed the effect of individual gender, moderating gender differences and reversing predicted patterns of performance and language use. This thesis has produced several contributions; theoretical, methodological and practical. From a theoretical perspective, it offers novel findings in gender differences in navigation and communication. The methodological contribution concerns the successful application of dialogue as a naturalistic, and yet experimentally sound, research paradigm to study gender and spatial language. The practical contributions include concrete design guidelines for natural language systems and implications for the development of gender-neutral interfaces in specific domains of HCI
Revealing individual and collective pasts : visualizations of online social archives
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 118-125).As mediated communication becomes an increasingly central part of everyday life, people have started going online to conduct business, to get emotional support, to find communities of interest, and to look for potential romantic partners. Most of these social activities take place primarily through the exchange of conversational texts that, over time, accrue into vast archives. As valuable as these collections of documents may be for our comprehension of the online social world, they are usually cumbersome, impenetrable records of the past. This thesis posits that history visualization- the visualization of people's past presence and activities in mediated environments- helps users make better sense of the online social spaces they inhabit and the relationships they maintain. Here, a progressive series of experimental visualizations explores different ways in which history may enhance social legibility. The projects visualize the history of people's activities in four different environments: a graphical chat room, a wiki site, Usenet newsgroups, and email. History and the persistent nature of online communication are the common threads connecting these projects. Evaluation of these tools shows that history visualizations can be utilized in a variety of ways, ranging from aids for quicker impression formation and mirrors for self-reflection, to catalysts for storytelling and artifacts for posterity.by Fernanda Bertini Viégas.Ph.D
Using natural user interfaces to support synchronous distributed collaborative work
Synchronous Distributed Collaborative Work (SDCW) occurs when group members work together at the same time from different places together to achieve a common goal. Effective SDCW requires good communication, continuous coordination and shared information among group members. SDCW is possible because of groupware, a class of computer software systems that supports group work. Shared-workspace groupware systems are systems that provide a common workspace that aims to replicate aspects of a physical workspace that is shared among group members in a co-located environment. Shared-workspace groupware systems have failed to provide the same degree of coordination and awareness among distributed group members that exists in co-located groups owing to unintuitive interaction techniques that these systems have incorporated. Natural User Interfaces (NUIs) focus on reusing natural human abilities such as touch, speech, gestures and proximity awareness to allow intuitive human-computer interaction. These interaction techniques could provide solutions to the existing issues of groupware systems by breaking down the barrier between people and technology created by the interaction techniques currently utilised. The aim of this research was to investigate how NUI interaction techniques could be used to effectively support SDCW. An architecture for such a shared-workspace groupware system was proposed and a prototype, called GroupAware, was designed and developed based on this architecture. GroupAware allows multiple users from distributed locations to simultaneously view and annotate text documents, and create graphic designs in a shared workspace. Documents are represented as visual objects that can be manipulated through touch gestures. Group coordination and awareness is maintained through document updates via immediate workspace synchronization, user action tracking via user labels and user availability identification via basic proxemic interaction. Members can effectively communicate via audio and video conferencing. A user study was conducted to evaluate GroupAware and determine whether NUI interaction techniques effectively supported SDCW. Ten groups of three members each participated in the study. High levels of performance, user satisfaction and collaboration demonstrated that GroupAware was an effective groupware system that was easy to learn and use, and effectively supported group work in terms of communication, coordination and information sharing. Participants gave highly positive comments about the system that further supported the results. The successful implementation of GroupAware and the positive results obtained from the user evaluation provides evidence that NUI interaction techniques can effectively support SDCW
The age of interactivity: An historical analysis of public discourses on interactivity in Ireland 1995 - 2009.
Interactivity is integral to media and communications and yet is a contested concept in the literature. There is little agreement on its meaning not least because of its multidisciplinary nature. Previous research, concerned with finding a single definition of interactivity, has focused narrowly on specific contexts of communication using limited methodologies. This thesis argues that several meanings of interactivity are in circulation and that the search for one bounded definition constrains understanding of its role and fails to recognise its analytical potential. The study makes an original contribution to research by presenting findings from an analysis of public discourses on interactivity, a valuable source of material neglected in research to date. It shows that at least nine thematic representations of interactivity are in circulation representing different aspects of its role in communicative events. These are identified as the Empowering, Commercial, Pedagogical, Aesthetic, Ludological, Futuropia, Hula-hoop, Sceptical and Information Society themes.
The results are based on a longitudinal content and discourse analysis of fifteen years of newspaper coverage in Ireland, an original methodological addition to research, reflecting both a unique national perspective on the concept and the flow of influential international discourses within a small state. The content analysis draws a detailed quantitative picture of how and where interactivity arises in news coverage while the discourse analysis examines qualitative aspects of the dominant, overlapping and conflicting discourses around interactivity and the discourse communities operating behind the talk.
The analysis illustrates how thematic representations of interactivity coexist both in discourse and in individual communicative events, suggesting the potential for layered interactivities in communication. The âage of interactivityâ describes a wide range of discourses from hype and myths around interactivity to its potentially transformative role in communication. Overall this thesis highlights the value of interactivity as a communication concept and analytical tool with rich research potential
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Social interactions of computer games : an activity framework
With the advent of computer games, the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) community has begun studying games, often with the intention of uncovering useful information to inform the design of work-based software. However, most HCI research on computer games focuses on the use of game technologies, often overlooking the fairly large amount of classic game literature. Despite the potential importance of computer game studies in HCI, there is a lack of frameworks that could guide such studies especially with regard to sociability. I believe that sociability is one of the most important criteria game developers may want to apply to game design as computer games are becoming more socialoriented due to the inception of the Internet. Therefore, the main aim of the thesis is to develop a play activity framework with an emphasis on social interactions. To achieve this, first, a comprehensive body of game literature was reviewed as a step to provide a solid foundation for the construction of the framework. Through the extensive review of literature, I chose Activity Theory as the foundation for the framework development. In order to demonstrate the applicability of Activity Theory in analysing computer-mediated social interactions, an exploratory study of online activities in a game community was conducted. Then, two studies were undertaken to formulate the framework by modelling play activities in the social game context. The first study was centred on the individual and collective play activities that take place within the game virtual world. The second study focused on games as a whole participatory culture, in which playing games is not just confined to within the game space but also includes other playful activities governed by norms and specific identities around the game. Through these studies, a play activity framework consisting of three play mode/s was developed: intrinsic, reflective and expansive play models, which are inter-related. The framework provides a vocabulary to describe the component, the motivation and the process of game play. The framework was then operationalised into methodological guidelines with a set of heuristic questions grouped into different categories. The guidelines were applied to analyse two issues, namely community building and social learning, in a Massively Multi-player Online Game (MMOG). As a conclusion, the framework has expanded conventional game studies by emphasising the socio-cultural context. It provides a different perspective on analysing computer games particularly the social aspects of gaming. Game researchers could use the framework to investigate play activities within and beyond the game and how they are related. The framework offers a theoretical explanation of various social activities observed in computer games. Finally, the methodological guidelines derived from the framework are useful as they give directions to analyse play activities particularly social interactions and game communities
Practical, appropriate, empirically-validated guidelines for designing educational games
There has recently been a great deal of interest in the
potential of computer games to function as innovative
educational tools. However, there is very little evidence of
games fulfilling that potential. Indeed, the process of
merging the disparate goals of education and games design
appears problematic, and there are currently no practical
guidelines for how to do so in a coherent manner. In this
paper, we describe the successful, empirically validated
teaching methods developed by behavioural psychologists
and point out how they are uniquely suited to take
advantage of the benefits that games offer to education. We
conclude by proposing some practical steps for designing
educational games, based on the techniques of Applied
Behaviour Analysis. It is intended that this paper can both
focus educational games designers on the features of games
that are genuinely useful for education, and also introduce a
successful form of teaching that this audience may not yet
be familiar with
Dance performance in cyberspace - transfer and transformation
The aim of this research undertaking is to understand the potential development of dance performance in the context of cyberculture, by examining the way practitioners use new media to create artworks that include audience participation, and by endeavouring in their theorization. With specific reference to cyberspace as a concept of electronic, networked and navigable space, the enquiry traces the connections such practices have with conventions of the medium of dance, which operate in its widely known condition as a live performing art. But acknowledgement that new media and new contexts of production and reception inform the characteristics of these artworks and their discursive articulation, in terms of the way people and digital technologies interact in contemporary culture, is a major principle to their analysis and evaluation. This qualitative research is based on case-study design as a means of finding pragmatic evidence in particulars, to illustrate abstract concepts, technological processes and aesthetic values that are underway in a new area of knowledge. The field where this research operates within is located by a mapping of published literature that informs a theoretical interdisciplinary framework, which contextualizes the interpretation of artworks. The selected case studies have been subject to a process of systematic and detailed analysis, entailed with a model devised for the purpose of this enquiry. From this undertaking it can be claimed that while an extensive array of technologies, media and interactive models is available in this field, the artists pursue a commitment to demonstrate their worth for specifically developing (new media) dance performance, and for dance performance to articulate technological and critical issues for cyberculture studies. The results of this enquiry also contribute to conceptual understanding of what dance can be, today, in the light of technological changes
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