25,556 research outputs found

    The Office of the Future: Virtual, Portable, and Global.

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    Virtual reality has the potential to change the way we work. We envision the future office worker to be able to work productively everywhere solely using portable standard input devices and immersive head-mounted displays. Virtual reality has the potential to enable this, by allowing users to create working environments of their choice and by relieving them from physical world limitations, such as constrained space or noisy environments. In this paper, we investigate opportunities and challenges for realizing this vision and discuss implications from recent findings of text entry in virtual reality as a core office task

    Emerging technologies for learning report (volume 3)

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    Seamless mobility with personal servers

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    We describe the concept and the taxonomy of personal servers, and their implications in seamless mobility. Personal servers could offer electronic services independently of network availability or quality, provide a greater flexibility in the choice of user access device, and support the key concept of continuous user experience. We describe the organization of mobile and remote personal servers, define three relevant communication modes, and discuss means for users to exploit seamless services on the personal server

    How a Diverse Research Ecosystem Has Generated New Rehabilitation Technologies: Review of NIDILRR’s Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers

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    Over 50 million United States citizens (1 in 6 people in the US) have a developmental, acquired, or degenerative disability. The average US citizen can expect to live 20% of his or her life with a disability. Rehabilitation technologies play a major role in improving the quality of life for people with a disability, yet widespread and highly challenging needs remain. Within the US, a major effort aimed at the creation and evaluation of rehabilitation technology has been the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers (RERCs) sponsored by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research. As envisioned at their conception by a panel of the National Academy of Science in 1970, these centers were intended to take a “total approach to rehabilitation”, combining medicine, engineering, and related science, to improve the quality of life of individuals with a disability. Here, we review the scope, achievements, and ongoing projects of an unbiased sample of 19 currently active or recently terminated RERCs. Specifically, for each center, we briefly explain the needs it targets, summarize key historical advances, identify emerging innovations, and consider future directions. Our assessment from this review is that the RERC program indeed involves a multidisciplinary approach, with 36 professional fields involved, although 70% of research and development staff are in engineering fields, 23% in clinical fields, and only 7% in basic science fields; significantly, 11% of the professional staff have a disability related to their research. We observe that the RERC program has substantially diversified the scope of its work since the 1970’s, addressing more types of disabilities using more technologies, and, in particular, often now focusing on information technologies. RERC work also now often views users as integrated into an interdependent society through technologies that both people with and without disabilities co-use (such as the internet, wireless communication, and architecture). In addition, RERC research has evolved to view users as able at improving outcomes through learning, exercise, and plasticity (rather than being static), which can be optimally timed. We provide examples of rehabilitation technology innovation produced by the RERCs that illustrate this increasingly diversifying scope and evolving perspective. We conclude by discussing growth opportunities and possible future directions of the RERC program

    Enhancing interaction in mixed reality

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    With continuous technological innovation, we observe mixed reality emerging from research labs into the mainstream. The arrival of capable mixed reality devices transforms how we are entertained, consume information, and interact with computing systems, with the most recent being able to present synthesized stimuli to any of the human senses and substantially blur the boundaries between the real and virtual worlds. In order to build expressive and practical mixed reality experiences, designers, developers, and stakeholders need to understand and meet its upcoming challenges. This research contributes a novel taxonomy for categorizing mixed reality experiences and guidelines for designing mixed reality experiences. We present the results of seven studies examining the challenges and opportunities of mixed reality experiences, the impact of modalities and interaction techniques on the user experience, and how to enhance the experiences. We begin with a study determining user attitudes towards mixed reality in domestic and educational environments, followed by six research probes that each investigate an aspect of reality or virtuality. In the first, a levitating steerable projector enables us to investigate how the real world can be enhanced without instrumenting the user. We show that the presentation of in-situ instructions for navigational tasks leads to a significantly higher ability to observe and recall real-world landmarks. With the second probe, we enhance the perception of reality by superimposing information usually not visible to the human eye. In amplifying the human vision, we enable users to perceive thermal radiation visually. Further, we examine the effect of substituting physical components with non-functional tangible proxies or entirely virtual representations. With the third research probe, we explore how to enhance virtuality to enable a user to input text on a physical keyboard while being immersed in the virtual world. Our prototype tracked the user’s hands and keyboard to enable generic text input. Our analysis of text entry performance showed the importance and effect of different hand representations. We then investigate how to touch virtuality by simulating generic haptic feedback for virtual reality and show how tactile feedback through quadcopters can significantly increase the sense of presence. Our final research probe investigates the usability and input space of smartphones within mixed reality environments, pairing the user’s smartphone as an input device with a secondary physical screen. Based on our learnings from these individual research probes, we developed a novel taxonomy for categorizing mixed reality experiences and guidelines for designing mixed reality experiences. The taxonomy is based on the human sensory system and human capabilities of articulation. We showcased its versatility and set our research probes into perspective by organizing them inside the taxonomic space. The design guidelines are divided into user-centered and technology-centered. It is our hope that these will contribute to the bright future of mixed reality systems while emphasizing the new underlining interaction paradigm.Mixed Reality (vermischte RealitĂ€ten) gehen aufgrund kontinuierlicher technologischer Innovationen langsam von der reinen Forschung in den Massenmarkt ĂŒber. Mit der EinfĂŒhrung von leistungsfĂ€higen Mixed-Reality-GerĂ€ten verĂ€ndert sich die Art und Weise, wie wir Unterhaltungsmedien und Informationen konsumieren und wie wir mit Computersystemen interagieren. Verschiedene existierende GerĂ€te sind in der Lage, jeden der menschlichen Sinne mit synthetischen Reizen zu stimulieren. Hierdurch verschwimmt zunehmend die Grenze zwischen der realen und der virtuellen Welt. Um eindrucksstarke und praktische Mixed-Reality-Erfahrungen zu kreieren, mĂŒssen Designer und Entwicklerinnen die kĂŒnftigen Herausforderungen und neuen Möglichkeiten verstehen. In dieser Dissertation prĂ€sentieren wir eine neue Taxonomie zur Kategorisierung von Mixed-Reality-Erfahrungen sowie Richtlinien fĂŒr die Gestaltung von solchen. Wir stellen die Ergebnisse von sieben Studien vor, in denen die Herausforderungen und Chancen von Mixed-Reality-Erfahrungen, die Auswirkungen von ModalitĂ€ten und Interaktionstechniken auf die Benutzererfahrung und die Möglichkeiten zur Verbesserung dieser Erfahrungen untersucht werden. Wir beginnen mit einer Studie, in der die Haltung der nutzenden Person gegenĂŒber Mixed Reality in hĂ€uslichen und Bildungsumgebungen analysiert wird. In sechs weiteren Fallstudien wird jeweils ein Aspekt der RealitĂ€t oder VirtualitĂ€t untersucht. In der ersten Fallstudie wird mithilfe eines schwebenden und steuerbaren Projektors untersucht, wie die Wahrnehmung der realen Welt erweitert werden kann, ohne dabei die Person mit Technologie auszustatten. Wir zeigen, dass die Darstellung von in-situ-Anweisungen fĂŒr Navigationsaufgaben zu einer deutlich höheren FĂ€higkeit fĂŒhrt, SehenswĂŒrdigkeiten der realen Welt zu beobachten und wiederzufinden. In der zweiten Fallstudie erweitern wir die Wahrnehmung der RealitĂ€t durch Überlagerung von Echtzeitinformationen, die fĂŒr das menschliche Auge normalerweise unsichtbar sind. Durch die Erweiterung des menschlichen Sehvermögens ermöglichen wir den Anwender:innen, WĂ€rmestrahlung visuell wahrzunehmen. DarĂŒber hinaus untersuchen wir, wie sich das Ersetzen von physischen Komponenten durch nicht funktionale, aber greifbare Replikate oder durch die vollstĂ€ndig virtuelle Darstellung auswirkt. In der dritten Fallstudie untersuchen wir, wie virtuelle RealitĂ€ten verbessert werden können, damit eine Person, die in der virtuellen Welt verweilt, Text auf einer physischen Tastatur eingeben kann. Unser Versuchsdemonstrator detektiert die HĂ€nde und die Tastatur, zeigt diese in der vermischen RealitĂ€t an und ermöglicht somit die verbesserte Texteingaben. Unsere Analyse der TexteingabequalitĂ€t zeigte die Wichtigkeit und Wirkung verschiedener Handdarstellungen. Anschließend untersuchen wir, wie man VirtualitĂ€t berĂŒhren kann, indem wir generisches haptisches Feedback fĂŒr virtuelle RealitĂ€ten simulieren. Wir zeigen, wie Quadrokopter taktiles Feedback ermöglichen und dadurch das PrĂ€senzgefĂŒhl deutlich steigern können. Unsere letzte Fallstudie untersucht die Benutzerfreundlichkeit und den Eingaberaum von Smartphones in Mixed-Reality-Umgebungen. Hierbei wird das Smartphone der Person als EingabegerĂ€t mit einem sekundĂ€ren physischen Bildschirm verbunden, um die Ein- und AusgabemodalitĂ€ten zu erweitern. Basierend auf unseren Erkenntnissen aus den einzelnen Fallstudien haben wir eine neuartige Taxonomie zur Kategorisierung von Mixed-Reality-Erfahrungen sowie Richtlinien fĂŒr die Gestaltung von solchen entwickelt. Die Taxonomie basiert auf dem menschlichen Sinnessystem und den ArtikulationsfĂ€higkeiten. Wir stellen die vielseitige Verwendbarkeit vor und setzen unsere Fallstudien in Kontext, indem wir sie innerhalb des taxonomischen Raums einordnen. Die Gestaltungsrichtlinien sind in nutzerzentrierte und technologiezentrierte Richtlinien unterteilt. Es ist unsere Anliegen, dass diese Gestaltungsrichtlinien zu einer erfolgreichen Zukunft von Mixed-Reality-Systemen beitragen und gleichzeitig die neuen Interaktionsparadigmen hervorheben

    The Evolution of First Person Vision Methods: A Survey

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    The emergence of new wearable technologies such as action cameras and smart-glasses has increased the interest of computer vision scientists in the First Person perspective. Nowadays, this field is attracting attention and investments of companies aiming to develop commercial devices with First Person Vision recording capabilities. Due to this interest, an increasing demand of methods to process these videos, possibly in real-time, is expected. Current approaches present a particular combinations of different image features and quantitative methods to accomplish specific objectives like object detection, activity recognition, user machine interaction and so on. This paper summarizes the evolution of the state of the art in First Person Vision video analysis between 1997 and 2014, highlighting, among others, most commonly used features, methods, challenges and opportunities within the field.Comment: First Person Vision, Egocentric Vision, Wearable Devices, Smart Glasses, Computer Vision, Video Analytics, Human-machine Interactio
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