Exploring the use of hand-to-face input for interacting with head-worn displays

International audienceWe propose the use of Hand-to-Face input, a method to interact with head-worn displays (HWDs) that involves contact with the face. We explore Hand-to-Face interaction to find suitable techniques for common mobile tasks. We evaluate this form of interaction with document navigation tasks and examine its social acceptability. In a first study, users identify the cheek and forehead as predominant areas for interaction and agree on gestures for tasks involving continuous input, such as document navigation. These results guide the design of several Hand-to-Face navigation techniques and reveal that gestures performed on the cheek are more efficient and less tiring than interactions directly on the HWD. Initial results on the social acceptability of Hand-to-Face input allow us to further refine our design choices, and reveal unforeseen results: some gestures are considered culturally inappropriate and gender plays a role in selection of specific Hand-to-Face interactions. From our overall results, we provide a set of guidelines for developing effective Hand-to-Face interaction techniques

Interrupted Visions: Seeing and Writing the Mediterranean of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries.

Since at least Albert Camus’ novel L'Etranger (1942), vision has been a major element of literary works on and from the Mediterranean. This dissertation seeks to show how the common correlation between seeing and knowing is undone in the works of writers from around the Mediterranean, including: Anna Maria Ortese’s “Un paio di occhiali” and L’Iguana, Abdelkebir Khatibi’s La Mémoire tatouée: Autobiograhie d’un décolonisé and Triptyque de Rabat, Assia Djebar’s La Nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua, “La Femme en morceaux,” and La Femme sans sépulture, and Jean-Claude Izzo’s Total Khéops. In short stories, novels, and films from 1953 to 2002, modes of seeing that are marked by interrupted vision, in particular, figure the problem of understanding and writing the colonial past and the post-colonial present. Ortese and Djebar employ images of framed vision — through eyeglasses, doorways, and narrative frames — to write what lies just outside of them, and to highlight what is only partially seen. In Khatibi, one finds the blink and the syncope, which attempt to map visually Morocco’s liminal position as defined by a dynamic of rupture and continuity between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Finally, Jean-Claude Izzo focuses on the crime genre as a frame, which allows him to engage with the criminal and ethical problems of France’s desire for cultural homogenization. These works reveal a persistent desire and effort to “see” past the constraints of the past and the present, including those of the nation state. In so doing, they create new visual configurations and perceptual networks that imagine and reimagine the twentieth-century Mediterranean as a space defined by contradiction, liminality, and interconnected histories.PHDComparative LiteratureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/109031/1/skwin_1.pd

THE HYBRONAUT AND THE UMWELT: WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY AS ARTISTIC STRATEGY

This dissertation explores the use of irony in networked wearable technology art as a strategy to emphasise the complexity of conjunction between techno-organic human and the techno-organic world. The research addresses the relationship between technologically enhanced human and networked hybrid environment, and speculates on the impact of technological enhancements to the subjective construction of Umwelt through ironic interventions. The project employs both artistic practice and critical theory. The practice-based part of the dissertation is comprised of three wearable technology artworks produced during the study. These concrete artefacts employ irony as a means to expose the techno-organic relationship between humans and their environment under scrutiny. The works highlight the significance of technological modifications of the human for the formation of subjective worldview in an everyday hybrid environment. The theoretical part navigates between the fields of art, design, technology, science and cultural studies concerning the impact of technology and networks on human experience and perception of the world. In the background of this research is biologist Jakob von Uexküll’s concept of the Umwelt, which is a subjective perception created by an organism through its active engagement with the everyday living environment. This dissertation focuses on the Umwelt that is formed in an interaction between hybrid environment and the technologically enhanced human, the Hybronaut. 4 Hybrid environment is a physical reality merged with technologically enabled virtual reality. The Hybronaut is an artistic strategy developed during the research based on four elements: wearable technology, network ability, irony and contextualised experience for the public. Irony is one of the prominent characteristics of the Hybronaut. Irony functions as a way to produce multiple paradoxical perspectives that enable a critical inquiry into our subjective construction of Umwelt. The research indicates that ironic networked wearable technology art presents an opportunity to re-examine our perception concerning the human and his environment

Maritime expressions:a corpus based exploration of maritime metaphors

This study uses a purpose-built corpus to explore the linguistic legacy of Britain’s maritime history found in the form of hundreds of specialised ‘Maritime Expressions’ (MEs), such as TAKEN ABACK, ANCHOR and ALOOF, that permeate modern English. Selecting just those expressions commencing with ’A’, it analyses 61 MEs in detail and describes the processes by which these technical expressions, from a highly specialised occupational discourse community, have made their way into modern English. The Maritime Text Corpus (MTC) comprises 8.8 million words, encompassing a range of text types and registers, selected to provide a cross-section of ‘maritime’ writing. It is analysed using WordSmith analytical software (Scott, 2010), with the 100 million-word British National Corpus (BNC) as a reference corpus. Using the MTC, a list of keywords of specific salience within the maritime discourse has been compiled and, using frequency data, concordances and collocations, these MEs are described in detail and their use and form in the MTC and the BNC is compared. The study examines the transformation from ME to figurative use in the general discourse, in terms of form and metaphoricity. MEs are classified according to their metaphorical strength and their transference from maritime usage into new registers and domains such as those of business, politics, sports and reportage etc. A revised model of metaphoricity is developed and a new category of figurative expression, the ‘resonator’, is proposed. Additionally, developing the work of Lakov and Johnson, Kovesces and others on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), a number of Maritime Conceptual Metaphors are identified and their cultural significance is discussed

Critical Analysis and Evaluation of Interactive and Customised Applications on Mobile Television. Interactive and Customised Mobile Television Applications are Evaluated Using the Views of Consumers, Advertisers, and Telecommunications Operators with Regard to Services and Also Assessing the Usability of Mobile Devices.

The shift of media from traditional forms to new digital ones has raised the possibility of new kinds of media services, including mobile television. In today¿s communications market, mobile phones are of increasing importance to users and, since mobile devices are connected most of the time, they have a high degree of location independence. The availability of 3G technology and the mobile devices needed to implement mobile television are now established and available. Mobile television is expected to be an important new service that could penetrate the market place and provide new applications, as well as create a market for new players and new investments, if the appropriate price, content and philosophy for content design are found. This research explores the many potential application areas for mobile TV, with a particular focus on advertising. Various organisations that seek success in this market can utilise the potential for advertising on mobile TV. Ultimately, mobile device users are able to use mobile TV for entertainment and information sourcing. However, a number of challenging issues remain to be addressed. The features that appealed to the consumers were studied in this research. Surveys were conducted to obtain an understanding of consumers¿ opinions and needs regarding the mobile TV experience. Many users clearly do like to interact with video content on mobile devices. Interactive mobile TV advertising can benefit users who will be able to use an essentially ¿free¿ mobile TV service, funded by an advertising model. This research proposes an environment for interactive advertising on mobile TV and discussion of an implementation of the proposed designs

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