A mobile fitness companion

The paper introduces a Mobile Companion prototype, which helps users to plan and keep track of their exercise activities via an interface based mainly on speech input and output. The Mobile Companion runs on a PDA and is based on a stand-alone, speaker-independent solution, making it fairly unique among mobile spoken dialogue systems, where the common solution is to run the ASR on a separate server or to restrict the speech input to some specific set of users. The prototype uses a GPS receiver to collect position, distance and speed data while the user is exercising, and allows the data to be compared to previous exercises. It communicates over the mobile network with a stationary system, placed in the user’s home. This allows plans for exercise activities to be downloaded from the stationary to the mobile system, and exercise result data to be uploaded once an exercise has been completed

Multimodal agent interfaces and system architectures for health and fitness companions

Multimodal conversational spoken dialogues using physical and virtual agents provide a potential interface to motivate and support users in the domain of health and fitness. In this paper we present how such multimodal conversational Companions can be implemented to support their owners in various pervasive and mobile settings. In particular, we focus on different forms of multimodality and system architectures for such interfaces

MDraw - A tool for cooperative work in the MultiG telepresence environment

This paper will discuss MDraw, a tool that supports cooperative work in the Tele-presence environment. The Tele-Presence project lies within a Swedish research program called MultiG, wich does research on distributed multimedia applications and high-speed networks. In the Tele-Presence system, several users can simultaneously reside in a virtual world where they can see graphical representations of each other. MDraw is a simple drawing tool, shaped like a whiteboard, that can be placed in any virtual world where it can be seen and accessed by all users present. The whiteboard supports the creation and manipulation of simple objects, like lines and ellipses, and also offers a video function that gives users the ability to display a live video picture on the board. Drawing is accomplished by using a wand, which is a six-dimensional interaction device..

Using a pond metaphor for information visualisation and exploration

In this chapter we describe The Pond, a system used to search for and visualise data elements on an engaging tabletop display. The Pond uses methods of unencumbered interaction and audio feedback to allow users to investigate data elements, and supports shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration with the physical Pond artefact mediating the collaboration between those people gathered around it. The user interface is based on an ecosystem metaphor, presenting data elements in the form of shoals of aquatic creatures inside a virtual 3D pond

Information exploration using the Pond

In this paper we describe The Pond, a system used to search for and visualise data elements on an engaging tabletop display. The Pond uses methods of unencumbered interaction and audio feedback to allow users to investigate data elements, and supports shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration with the physical Pond artefact mediating the collaboration between those people gathered around it. The user interface is based on an ecosystem metaphor, presenting data elements in the form of shoals of aquatic creatures inside a virtual 3D pond. The Pond is an interactive system offering an appealing and novel way to search for and interchange information. We describe the motivation and design choices behind The Pond, the system as it stands today, details of its implementation, and observations from a study of The Pond in use

Visualising sound perception in a submarine: a museum installation

We describe a museum installation that explains the technical and mental process that sonar operators undergo when identifying underwater sounds in the surroundings of a submarine. The installation places the public in a cramped space composed of several coupled interactive stations offering different perspectives onto a virtual environment representing a part of the Baltic Sea. The virtual environment and its presentation within the installation are implemented as an application of the DIVE research toolkit. The installation has been on display in several museums on a daily basis for over a year. We describe the technical solutions that we have employed to realise the installation and some of our learning

A mobile health and fitness companion demonstrator

Multimodal conversational spoken dialogues using physical and virtual agents provide a potential interface to motivate and support users in the domain of health and fitness. The paper presents a multimodal conversational Companion system focused on health and fitness, which has both a stationary and a mobile component.Published in Proceedings of the Demonstrations Session at EACL 2009COMPANION

A space based model for user interaction in shared synthetic environments

In a distributed shared synthetic environment with provisions for high quality 3D visualization and interaction, it is possible to implement a powerful variant of a roomslspace metaphor based on the concept of presence or proximity between participants in 3D space. This kind of model can be used as an interface between the user and the computer, for overview and control of applications, tile systems, networks and other computer resources, as well as for communication and collaboration with other users in the networked environment. We model proximity with a geometric volume of the immediate surroundings, the aura, of the participant’s representation in the synthetic environment. This proximity, or aura, is used to establish presence at meetings, to establish communication channels and to provide interaction