2nd workshop on Research in the Large at UbiComp'11

We're organizing a 2nd edition of our 'Research in the Large' workshop at UbiComp 2011 on September 18th in Beijing. The workshops will deal with the shared challenges and practical strategies to deal with the challenges inherent to wide deployment and dealing with large-scale data sets. More information at the workshop page.

Organizers: Henriette Cramer, Mattias Rost (Mobile Life/SICS), Frank Bentley (Motorola Research) and David Ayman Shamma (Yahoo!).

SICS Open House

FAL is participating in the SICS open house in Kista. We are showing many demonstrations including Pic-In, SubwayArt, Mobile Mash-ups and the Flower Wall (above). Henriette Cramer talks about studies of emergent location-sharing practices and location mash-ups.

We are in the semi-final of the Ericsson Application Awards

Two applications, developed by Mobile 2.0, were selected for the semi-final of the Ericsson Application Awards (EAA). Both of our submissions are based on recent work on mobile image recognition.

In the EAA student category we entered our application "MobileArt" in the competition. With MobileArt users can receive information about art pieces in the Stockholm subway by just potining the mobile phone camera at them.

The application "Pic-In" entered in the EAA company competition is a tool for users of location-sharing service foursquare. The application can recognize places based on photos. Users can now share a location by - you guessed it - taking a photo of it.

The winners of the semi-final will be announced at May 28th, so stay tuned for further announcements.

If you want to see, how our applications work, just have a look at the videos below.

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.