New people at FAL

We have been joined by two new people who will work in the LIREC project: Anders Green and Elena Márquez Segura. Here is how they introduce themselves!

Anders: My research is focused on Human-Robot Interaction with semi-autonoumus service robots. I have a background in computational linguistics and a special interest in communicative quality in relation to interaction with embodied devices. Topics of interest include user-centred interaction design and evaluation for advanced human-robot interaction and challenges related to increasing usability in multimodal dialogue systems for human-robot communication. My thesis is entitled Designing and Evaluating Human-Robot Communication: Informing Design through Analysis of User Interaction.

Elena: I did my bachelor and master in Telecommunication Engineering, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros, Sevilla, Spain. I am currently studying a second master in Interactive Systems Engineering at KTH, with expected graduation in June.I am really interested in tangling up technology and design, in balanced bottom-up/ top-down design processes, aiming creative, fun, and engaging experiences. I am particularly interested in full body, gesture-based interactions to create embodied and aesthetic experiences.

Back from South By South West!

A group from FAL went to the South By South West Interactive festival in Austin, Texas, to talk to start-ups and hear about the latest in mobile and location-based services. Among the companies we interviewed were Bump, TangoTab, MapDing, Yobongo, View.io, HeyTell, Locaii, Ditto and Skylines. And some of us also made a splash at the SXSW fashion scene!

Open post-doc position, 1yr, available now!

The Future Applications Lab is looking for a new post-doc! We are looking for recent Ph.D. graduates from all over the world with a strong interest in robotic artefacts and interaction design.

You'd be working with us in creating practical guidelines that can be used in the design and evaluation of long-term robot ’companions’. You can contribute in many different ways: creating novel concepts for robotic interactions; by investigating the ethical and sociological ramifications of robots and robotic artefacts in everyday life; by performing user tests and ethnographic studies; and much more. The post is for one year. More info in this pdf.

New Master Thesis Student

We welcome Javier Jiméndes that will write his master thesis in the LIREC project, during the Spring 2011. Javier has a background in interaction design, and will conduct an experience centred study on a robotic eating aid.

'Ethics, logs & videotape'. Large-scale ethics workshop at CHI2011

App stores have made distribution of research apps to thousands of users incredibly easy. There is more user-generated content around than we can manage to analyze; Millions of tweets, public status updates and shared locations are waiting for us. These are huge opportunities, but researchers now also run into some interesting ethical questions.

Procedures, regulations and ethics - especially in an international and intercultural setting - are unclear and the notion of informed consent is changing. Can we just use all data that is out there? Is someone's tweet intended to be quoted in a research paper? How do we deal with permissions if we use data from users of freely available applications? Do we need to tell people about all our research plans? Is anyone downloading our app a participant?

Asking a million users for a signed consent form is not a feasible option. Notices and messages in apps telling people about our research plans will probably be skipped. If they are read, there is no guarantee they are actually understood. Sometimes researchers cannot even know who the people providing content for their studies are.

Not studies would be missing a huge opportunity, but a discussion is in order. Do we have added responsibilities if we log people’s actions? Can we always be sure there will be no adverse effects for our unwitting ‘participants’?

Join us for a discussion at the CHI2011 workshop we're co-organizing in Vancouver, Saturday May 7th: ETHICS, LOGS, and VIDEOTAPE: Ethics in Large Scale User Trials and User Generated Content.

Position papers due January 14, 2011.
Co-organised by Donald McMillan, Alistair Morrison, Matthew Chalmers (Univ. Glasgow), Henriette Cramer, Mattias Rost (Mobile Life), Wendy Mackay (Univ. Paris Sud) and Adam Greenfield.

Meet us at NordiCHI'10!

Alex Taylor (Microsoft Research), Mattias Jacobsson, Ylva Fernaeus and Sara Ljungblad are organizing the:
2nd International DESIGNING ROBOTIC ARTEFACTS WITH USER- AND EXPERIENCE-CENTRED PERSPECTIVES We look forward to have lively discussions about existing myths in robotic designs, and what we as researchers and designers consider to be down-to earth research in the field! The Workshop is held on Oct 16, Sunday, at Reykjavik University.

SHORT PAPER presented on Tuesday Oct 19 at 15:00 in room H:
Blue-Sky and Down-to-Earth: How Analogous Practices can Support the User-centred Design Process, (Sara Ljungblad and Clint Heyer, ABB)
See you at NordiCHI'10!

Robots as our future companions?

32 robot researchers met up at Mobile Life Centre and SICS to discuss their current research on how people can live with robots and interactive agents in the future. The meeting is held within the EU project LIREC (Living with Robots and Interactive Companions), a collaboration between six universities, two research institutes and two companies spread across 7 European countries. The project also includes experts in etology, studying peoples relations to dogs and how this knowledge can be transferred into robot design.

Mattias Jacobsson, Ylva Fernaeus, Henriette Cramer, Lars Erik Holmquist and Sara Ljungblad (WP10 leader) from Mobile Life are contributing to the project. We are conducting studies of robots in naturalistic environments, collaborating with swedish startup robot companies, and are exploring user-centred robotic design. Read more about  LIREC activites at SICS.