Towards disappearing user interfaces for ubiquitous computing: human enhancement from sixth sense to super senses

The enhancement of human senses electronically is possible when pervasive computers interact unnoticeably with humans in Ubiquitous Computing. The design of computer user interfaces towards “disappearing” forces the interaction with humans using a content rather than a menu driven approach, thus the emerging requirement for huge number of non-technical users interfacing intuitively with billions of computers in the Internet of Things is met. Learning to use particular applications in Ubiquitous Computing is either too slow or sometimes impossible so the design of user interfaces must be naturally enough to facilitate intuitive human behaviours. Although humans from different racial, cultural and ethnic backgrounds own the same physiological sensory system, the perception to the same stimuli outside the human bodies can be different. A novel taxonomy for Disappearing User Interfaces (DUIs) to stimulate human senses and to capture human responses is proposed. Furthermore, applications of DUIs are reviewed. DUIs with sensor and data fusion to simulate the Sixth Sense is explored. Enhancement of human senses through DUIs and Context Awareness is discussed as the groundwork enabling smarter wearable devices for interfacing with human emotional memories

What have they been up to in Lübeck recently

This talk will give an overview over three related research prototypes for ambient interactive systems. We start by introducing NEMO, the Network Environment for Multimedia Objects. NEMO is a smart media environment for semantically rich, personalised, and device-specific access to and interaction with multimedia objects. Next, a shared electronic whiteboard called ShareBoard is decribed. The goal of ShareBoard is to deliver a natural user interface to working with electronic whiteboards. Integrated within ShareBoard are input devices to recognise the movement of users in the surrounding space and for sensing 3D-gesture. ShareBoard can make use of media objects in NEMO. Last, we introduce the Modular Awareness Construction Kit. MACK is a framework for developing context aware, ambient intelligent systems that blend seamlessly with the users’ everyday route, enabling unobtrusive in-situ interaction and facilitating enhanced cooperation and communication. In the future, MACK is to deliver contextual information to both NEMO and ShareBoard

The Materiality of Wearable Computers – Craft and Authentic User Experience

This paper presents work undertaken as part of an ongoing research programme into wearable computers and the processes for designing personal digital artifacts that exhibit authenticity. Authenticity is discussed in its associations with contemporary craft and as a means by which tools may cease disappearing in the obsessively rational quest for the 'invisible computer' and instead become more meaningful for users as objects in interaction. Materiality is arrived at as a possible basis for further work into agentive design methodologies

The Materiality of Wearable Computers – Craft and Authentic User Experience

This paper presents work undertaken as part of an ongoing research programme into wearable computers and the processes for designing personal digital artifacts that exhibit authenticity. Authenticity is discussed in its associations with contemporary craft and as a means by which tools may cease disappearing in the obsessively rational quest for the 'invisible computer' and instead become more meaningful for users as objects in interaction. Materiality is arrived at as a possible basis for further work into agentive design methodologies

Gender issues in computer‐supported learning

Contemporary research identifies significant gender‐related differences in performance and interaction style in computer‐supported learning (CSL) environments. Evidence suggests that initial perceptions of these environments as democratic and offering equal opportunities to all students were flawed because interactions that take place through electronic channels lose none of the sociocultural complexity or gender imbalance that already exists within society. This paper presents a summary of gender‐related issues identified by international research and academic practice together with the opinions expressed by participants in a discussion forum staged at Alt‐C in 2001. Two main questions were addressed during the conference forum. Firstly, if computer access and literacy levels are assumed to be equalizing as the literature suggests, how can educational designers using CSL technologies best serve all student groups? Secondly, does the existence of gender‐based differences in behaviour and interaction style in CSL environments mean that any student group is disadvantaged? The paper concludes with suggestions about how educational designers might increase the flexibility of CSL courses to offer equal opportunities to all students. A number of issues for further research are also identified

A great disappearing act: the electronic analogue computer

One historian of technology has called the analogue computer 'one of the great disappearing acts of the Twentieth Century'. This paper will look briefly at the origins, development and decline of the electronic analogue computer .