Co-creation workshop with Nokia Research during Lift 11

During Lift 11 in Geneva, researchers from Nokia Research Center Lausanne organized a co-creation workshop with a small group of conference participants.

The session focused on understanding how the contextual insights of users could contribute to the evolution of the mobile user experience:

“With the increase in popularity of smart phones as well as mobile Internet services, the pace of change in the mobile industry will be rapid in the coming years. One of the driving forces behind development is an increased understanding of the needs of mobile users, brought about by aggregation of big data sets pertaining to mobile usage and the contextual behavior of consumers. Such insights are expected to lead to the emergence of context aware services, wherein the user interface as well as the content displayed to the user is highly personalized and tailored to the given context of use.“

In the light of the above, the goal of the present workshop was to define how contextual insights of mobile users, especially across the physical and social layers, could contribute to the evolution of the mobile user experience. In order to achieve this goal, the workshop focused on two sub topics:

1. The kinds of insights that big data sets focusing on mobile usage and behaviour might lead to.
2. A list of potential mobile services that could benefit from these data.

We recently completed a report [PDF, 6.93 Mb] of the workshop results containing a catalogue of the concepts that emerged during the session.

Hardware in, hardware out

Back here

Back from Peru

Where magic is also used as a teaser to make you employ technological artifacts (such as Internet/TV cable in this case).

The Economist on why you don’t have a supa interconnected ubiquitous pervasive world right now

Some quotes from this week issue of The Economist, on ubiquitous computing (which I started bloggin here), I took them from various articles in the special issue. I find that they nicely exemplify common problems with ubiquitous computing and its slow user-adoption:

“Connecting machines requires giving up control to users, observes Tim Whittaker of Cambridge Consultants, which designs wireless systems. In fact, Orange M2M is criticised for trying to prevent customers from working with other operators. Thus even when mobile firms fall in love with M2M, the technology is suffocated by their embrace. Wireless innovation is more likely to come from smaller companies with a computing background. They are beginning to give machines eyes, ears and a voice.
(…)
Expectations were so high because much of the technology exists already. Yet it is being held back by non-technical factors: the lack of integration among different parts of the industry and the need for companies to change the way they operate. (…) Components from different firms may not work together (…) Mobile network coverage is inconsistent, so relying on just one operator is risky, and for movable things such as vending machines and cars, which may cross national borders, it is unthinkable.
(…)
The list goes on. Back-office software to manage the system has to work with existing corporate software. Someone has to take care of billing and managing the devices. And as everyone takes their cut, the expense grows. “It is a very long value-chain for people to bring this together,”
(…)
But things have not gone as planned. In Japan, where much has been made of vending machines that accept payment via mobile phones, the vast majority are in fact unconnected.
(…)
Part of the reason is the sheer difficulty of getting all the relevant businesses together
(…)
Another question that inhibits take-up, even among those who are interested, is who should pay for the installation“

Why do I blog this? because it’s the first time I read in a broader-audience journal (as opposed to tech journal or scientific publications) a so comprehensive and clear overview of the ubiquitous computing problems. The analyses in this special issue are spot-on the main shortcomings: technological messiness, different business models, different regulations, complex situations, etc.

The Economist on ubicomp

“When everything connects” is the latest special edition of The Economist… a survey of the telecom industry that deals with ubiquitous computing and the so-called “wireless revolution”. There is a ten or so articles on that topic, which are good read if you’re interested in this area.

When everything connects is a good overview of the current situation and what can be expected in terms of domains (motoring), problems (standards!), regulation (government?), privacy concerns. The author concludes with the following statement:

“Wireless technology will become a part of objects in the next 50 years rather as electric motors
appeared in everything from eggbeaters to elevators in the first half of the 20th century and computers colonised all kinds of machinery from cars to coffee machines in the second half. Occasionally, the results will be frightening; more often, they will be amazingly useful.“

What is interesting in the survey introduction is the warning “Still, the general direction is clear (…) This survey will explain how this will come about, and why it will not be easy.“

Handheld printer

Via Mr. Watson, this very curious Handheld printers:

The printer has the length of a normal ball-point pen while its width and height are more or less equivalent to the width of a modern mobile phone. The total volume is less than 300 c.c. and weights around 350 grams. This first version of PrintBrush was designed to fit into a shirt pocket.

Internet content, SMS, pictures and other information is downloaded to the PrintBrush from PDAs, mobile phones and laptop computers via a Bluetooth wireless link. Then, by following the RMPT principle the device is hand operated by sweeping it across any type of print media, no matter what its shape, size or thickness. The printout will then start to appear right behind the sweeps. The device takes into account all the parameters of the hand movement, including rotation and sudden changes of speed and acceleration. The resulting image on the printed media is very much like its digital counterpart.

Why do I blog this? making printing portable is an interesting step towars the mixture of virtual/real world.

Risk evaluation of pervasive computing

A quote from Jürgen Bohn, Vlad Coroama, Marc Langheinrich, Friedemann Mattern, Michael Rohs
Living in a World of Smart Everyday Objects – Social, Economic, and Ethical Implications. Journal of Human and Ecological Risk Assessment, Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 763-786, October 2004

Today’s technical infrastructures, such as the phone system, television, and electricity, are relatively easy to use, even for people with no special qualifications. This also entails the ability to detect malfunctions: for example, if you lift a telephone receiver and do not hear a dial tone, it is immediately evident that the phone (either the handset or the landline) is not working properly. However, this type of predictability of system behavior can no longer be taken for granted in an ambient-intelligence landscape, as systems are expected to function without users noticing their presence. This will make fault detection and diagnosis fundamentally difficult, especially for the layman (Estrin et al. 2002). Additionally, users might continue to rely on a failed service (e.g., an automated backup service or the self-diagnostics of a smart product) without noticing, thus increasing the damage done until the problem is finally discovered.

Why do I blog this? the articles describes a pertinent risk evaluation of pervasive computing. I was hooked on that one (originally I was looking for references about predictability of applications), other risks are important too.

Visual marker recognition

Yesterday, I attended to Enrico‘s rehearsal presentation about tagging and he made an interesting list of existing visual markers:

	AR toolkit
	visual codes
	spotcode
	QR code
	Datamatrix
		d-touch
	mytago

Why do I blog this? to have a kind of list of such technology, just in case one ask… there are the visual representations and the links

Using origami to augment displays

Some design studio are envisionning the use of origami displays: as attested by this Origami Cell Phone and this Origami DVD player

This is a future cell phone concept developed at Inventables. The concept was inspired by the e-paper developed by Mag-Ink and the Popout Map. The map uses origami paper folding technique to expand and collapse automatically as it is opened and closed. This concept addresses the need for larger displays on cell phones without sacrificing a small form factor.

The Origami DVD Player is a portable DVD player concept that could be manufactured with a new e-paper (a full-color flexible display technology) being developed by Mag-Ink in Israel. As a product, it would target the business traveler who wants a convenient way to watch DVD movies. For this user, portability is a key requirement, but they are not interested in sacrificing their viewing experience and are willing to invest extra money for a higher quality product.

Why do I blog this? this is an intriguing way of taking advantage of a small device to expand the display through e-paper…

Another origami-related tech: it may help cellphone cameras to focus. (via emily)

Sensecam, Collaborative Reflection and Passive Image Capture

This afternoon at COOP2006, I enjoyed a short paper by “Supporting Collaborative Reflection with Passive Image Capture” by Rowanne Flec and Geraldine Fitzpatrick.

Her PhD research is about how the a technology such as Microsoft’s Sensecam can support reflective thoughts in different situations (teacher’s practices, everyday reflections… learning from experience).

The SenseCam is a digital camera that has a light sensor and a temperature sensor (allows to trigger images to be taken)… a passive images capture tool. Then you can get a storyboard of the pictures taken.

She ran an expriment in which students when to an arcade to play games with the SenseCam. They played the game and then went back to their HCI class in which they had to discuss some HCI questions. Some groups had the images, some others not (two experimental conditions). She looked at the “goodness” of answers and the number of issues raised in discussion.

Results:
- discussion-led use of images: to ground the conversation (referential communication), as an objective record, to talk about something missed by partner or “just in case”
- image-led discussion: trigger memory, confirm/disconfirm memory, reveal something missed at time (“it’s quite useful for getting a look at what you’re actually because we did not use those buttons in the game”.

Why do I blog this? I am actually interested both by the study and the tool. I would be super happy to have this sort of tool for my research project about location-based applications and about video games. It would be a nice way to get some traces of the activity that I’d be able to use to get back to the users and discuss them.
Here is how it’s described by MS:

SenseCam is a badge-sized wearable camera that captures up to 2000 VGA images per day into 128Mbyte FLASH memory. In addition, sensor data such as movement, light level and temperature is recorded every second.

Sensors trigger a new recording. For example, each time the person walks into a new room, this light change transition is detected and the room image is captured with an ultra wide angle or fish-eye lens.
(…)
The sensor data (motion, light, temperature, and near infrared images) is recorded for later correlation with other user data, for example in the MyLifeBits system. (…)MyLifeBits will allow the large number of images generated daily to be easily searched and accessed. Future SenseCams will also capture audio and possibly heart rate or other physiological data.