Mattias and Ylva visited KTH on the 26th of May for a presentation of Nao - a small humanoid robot developed by a french company - Aldebaran Robotics. Nao will for instance replace Sony's canine robot Aibo as a standard platform for RoboCup and is at the same time very open source oriented. Also - if you order four of them, you get the fifth for free!
Friday, May 29, 2009
Mattias and Ylva visited KTH on the 26th of May for a presentation of Nao - a small humanoid robot developed by a french company - Aldebaran Robotics. Nao will for instance replace Sony's canine robot Aibo as a standard platform for RoboCup and is at the same time very open source oriented. Also - if you order four of them, you get the fifth for free!
Monday, May 25, 2009
Working and Living with Robots
Ylva and Mattias participated in a two days workshop at ABB in Oslo, May 14-15.
Apart from learning a lot about different kinds of robots, we also presented some of the results in LIREC, had a full day of brainstorming on novel interaction styles, and tried out two ways of programming industrial robots (during which Mattias managed to prove the fundamental difference between simulation and reality...). Very fun!
On the move – sharing music, inspiration and fun
Maria Håkansson has been invited to contribute with a text about Push!Music and mobile music sharing in issue #22 "Seizing the moment" of Vodafone receiver. Read it here!
Successful PhD defence
On February 26, Maria Håkansson successfully defended her PhD thesis "Playing with Context: Explicit and Implicit Interaction in Mobile Media Applications" in Man-Machine Interaction at Stockholm University.
Opponent was Assistant Professor Eric Paulos from the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. The evaluation committee members were Professor Jonas Löwgren, Interaction Design, Malmö University; Docent Annika Waern, Mobile Life Centre/Stockholm University; and Professor Árni Sverrisson, Sociology, Stockholm University.
Maria is currently working at SICS and in the Mobile Life Centre.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Postodoc position available!
We are pleased to announce the availability of a number of postdoctoral positions at the Interaction Design and Innovation Lab at SICS, the Swedish Institute of Computer Science. The lab is closely associated with Mobile Life, a research centre at Stockholm University in cooperation with the telecom industry.
We are looking for recent Ph.D. graduates from all over the world with a strong interest in mobile technology and interaction design, who want to work in a dynamic research environment in Sweden. You can contribute in many different ways: by inventing and implementing new and exciting technologies and interfaces; by performing user tests and ethnographic studies; by running design workshops and creating novel concepts for mobile interaction; and much more. The lab is organized in two groups: the Future Applications Lab, led by Professor Lars Erik Holmquist; and Involve, led Professor Kristina Höök. In the Future Applications Lab, we use an approach called grounded innovation to invent and test new technology that could become products in 5-10 years time, including context-aware mobile services and social robots. In Involve, we are interested in exploring affective and bodily interaction, and involving users both physically and cognitively in what we call an affective loop.
The positions are offered through the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) Fellowship Programme. Positions are typically for 12 months, or 18 months when the fellowship is split between two of the ERCIM institutes. The fellow at SICS will receive a monthly allowance of 2 580 Euro. Costs for travelling to and from the institutes will be paid.
To apply, you need to go through the ERCIM application page:
http://www.ercim.org/activity/fellows
This page also contains detailed application requirements. Make sure to mark your field of interest as "E-Mobility -> Mobile Applications and Human-Computer Interaction for mobile devices" and your desired host institute as SICS. In addition to applying through the ERCIM web page, you should also inform us of your application by e-mailing your CV and a cover letter stating your research interests to Lars Erik Holmquist (see below).
The deadline for applications is April 30; successful applicants should be able to start in the summer of 2009.
MORE INFORMATION
The Interaction Design and Innovation lab at SICS is located in Kista, Sweden, about 20 minutes by subway from the centre of Stockholm. For more information about us, please refer to:
http://www.sics.se/groups/interaction
The Mobile Life Centre is also located in Kista. For more information, please refer to:
http://www.mobilelifecentre.org
ERCIM aims to foster collaborative work within the European research community and to increase co-operation with European industry; c.f.
http://www.ercim.org/
For questions, please contact:
Lars Erik Holmquist, lab manager
Interaction Design and Innovation, SICS
leh@sics.se -- +46 703 55 85 00
We are looking for recent Ph.D. graduates from all over the world with a strong interest in mobile technology and interaction design, who want to work in a dynamic research environment in Sweden. You can contribute in many different ways: by inventing and implementing new and exciting technologies and interfaces; by performing user tests and ethnographic studies; by running design workshops and creating novel concepts for mobile interaction; and much more. The lab is organized in two groups: the Future Applications Lab, led by Professor Lars Erik Holmquist; and Involve, led Professor Kristina Höök. In the Future Applications Lab, we use an approach called grounded innovation to invent and test new technology that could become products in 5-10 years time, including context-aware mobile services and social robots. In Involve, we are interested in exploring affective and bodily interaction, and involving users both physically and cognitively in what we call an affective loop.
The positions are offered through the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) Fellowship Programme. Positions are typically for 12 months, or 18 months when the fellowship is split between two of the ERCIM institutes. The fellow at SICS will receive a monthly allowance of 2 580 Euro. Costs for travelling to and from the institutes will be paid.
To apply, you need to go through the ERCIM application page:
http://www.ercim.org/activity/fellows
This page also contains detailed application requirements. Make sure to mark your field of interest as "E-Mobility -> Mobile Applications and Human-Computer Interaction for mobile devices" and your desired host institute as SICS. In addition to applying through the ERCIM web page, you should also inform us of your application by e-mailing your CV and a cover letter stating your research interests to Lars Erik Holmquist (see below).
The deadline for applications is April 30; successful applicants should be able to start in the summer of 2009.
MORE INFORMATION
The Interaction Design and Innovation lab at SICS is located in Kista, Sweden, about 20 minutes by subway from the centre of Stockholm. For more information about us, please refer to:
http://www.sics.se/groups/interaction
The Mobile Life Centre is also located in Kista. For more information, please refer to:
http://www.mobilelifecentre.org
ERCIM aims to foster collaborative work within the European research community and to increase co-operation with European industry; c.f.
http://www.ercim.org/
For questions, please contact:
Lars Erik Holmquist, lab manager
Interaction Design and Innovation, SICS
leh@sics.se -- +46 703 55 85 00
Friday, February 13, 2009
Lars Erik Holmquist appointed professor
Lars Erik Holmquist has been appointed professor in Media Technology at the Department of Communication, Media and IT at Södertörn University. Initially, Lars Erik will spend about one day per week at Södertörn while keeping his position as manager of the Interaction Design and Innovation Lab at SICS, group leader of the Future Applications Lab, and as a research leader at the Mobile Life Centre.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Forthcoming PhD thesis defence
On February 26, Maria Håkansson will defend her PhD thesis "Playing with Context: Explicit and Implicit Interaction in Mobile Media Applications" in Man-Machine Interaction at Stockholm University.
Opponent is Assistant Professor Eric Paulos from the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA.
When: February 26, 13.00 (1 p.m.)
Where: Lecture hall D, Forum-building, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV), Stockholm University
Address: Isafjordsgatan 39, Kista
Abstract:
This thesis contributes with insights into how aspects of the surrounding physical and social context can be exploited in the design of mobile media applications for playful use. In this work, context refers to aspects of the immediate surroundings – outside of the device – that can be identified and measured by sensors; for instance environmental aspects like sound, and social aspects like co-located people. Two extensive case studies explore the interplay between users, mobile media, and aspects of context in different ways, and how it can invite playful use. The first case study, Context Photography, uses sensor-based information about the immediate physical surroundings to affect images in real time in a novel digital camera application for everyday creativity. The second, Push!Music, makes it possible to share music both manually and autonomously between co-located people, based on so-called media context, for spontaneous music sharing.
The insights gained from the designs, prototypes, and user studies, point at the value of combining explicit and implicit interaction – essentially, the expected and unexpected – to open for playful use. The explicit interaction encouraged users to be active, exploratory, and creative. The implicit interaction let users embrace and exploit dynamic qualities of the surroundings, contributing to making the systems fun, exciting, magical, ‘live’, and real. This combination was facilitated through our approach to context, where sensor-based information was mostly open in use and interpretation, ambiguous, visible, and possible to override for users, and through giving the systems a degree of agency and autonomy. A key insight is that the combination of explicit and implicit interaction allowed both control and a sense of magic in the interaction with the mobile media applications, which together seems to encourage play and playfulness.
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