Sig August 2019

sig@dgp.toronto.edu

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Meeting
by Tovi Grossman 29 Aug '19

29 Aug '19

Will start in 10 min... Tovi

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Meeting Today
by Tovi Grossman 29 Aug '19

29 Aug '19

Today's meeting will be 4:30pm - 5:30pm. Thanks, Tovi

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[location and time changed] HCI meeting Tue Aug 27th
by Jiannan Li 26 Aug '19

26 Aug '19

Hello all, We will have our bi-weekly HCI group meeting at *11 am* on Tuesday Aug 27th, in *BA 5256*. Karthik Mahadevan, an incoming PhD student who will join the lab this September, will give a talk on interaction with autonomous vehicles. Please see more details below. Title: Exploring the Design of Autonomous Vehicle-Pedestrian Interaction Abstract: In today's interaction with vehicles at crosswalks, pedestrians rely on cues originating from the vehicle and the driver. Vehicle cues relate to its kinematics such as speed and stopping distance while driver cues are concerned with cues such as eye gaze and contact, head movement, and hand gestures. In autonomous vehicles, however, a driver is not expected to be on-board to provide cues to pedestrians. We attempted to tackle the problem of designing novel ways to facilitate autonomous vehicle-pedestrian interaction at crosswalks. We propose interfaces which communicate an autonomous vehicle's awareness and intent as a means of helping pedestrians make safe crossing decisions. Bio: Karthik Mahadevan is an MSc candidate at the University of Calgary’s Department of Computer Science, where he is currently wrapping up his research on autonomous vehicle-pedestrian interaction. Karthik is an incoming DGP PhD student this Fall and will be supervised by Dr. Tovi Grossman. His research interests are primarily in human-robot interaction and human-computer interaction. Food will be served. Look forward to seeing you there. Thanks, Jiannan

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Anyone mind sharing info about the grad research skills seminar, any links to relevant resources, any suggestions?
by Joseph Jay Williams 26 Aug '19

26 Aug '19

I'm chair of the grad research skills seminar, and I'm trying to figure out what it is and how it works before semester starts next week. E.g. It seems to meet weekly (1h,2hh and involve first year grad students. do I always have to be there? And I'm guessing it's optional for students. Anyone mind sharing info about the grad research skills seminar,any links to relevant resources, like last syllabus or readings? Also feel free to make any suggestions for things you think I should add in this year. Thanks! Joseph [Sent from smartphone] Joseph Jay Williams www.josephjaywilliams.com Assistant Professor Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto Calendar: Send invitations to josephjaywilliams(a)gmail.com Office: Bahen Centre 4238

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HCI meeting (Tue Aug 13th)
by Jiannan Li 12 Aug '19

12 Aug '19

Hello all, We are having our HCI meeting on Tuesday August 13th. The time and location is 12.30 - 2.00, at the DGP seminar room, as usual. We will have Cosmin giving a practice conference plenary talk on designing conversational voice interfaces. Please see more details below: My dearest Alexa, would you be so kind as to let me know what the bloody weather may be today? Oscar Wilde once said: “Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” This suggests that, for more than four decades, the design and development of interfaces that allow humans to interact more naturally with machines had a significant creativity deficit. While in the early days of dialogue systems and interactive voice responsive applications this could have been largely attributed to engineering limitations, our current expectations and needs challenge our views of what (speech-based) conversational interfaces can and should do for us – beside informing us about the weather. In this talk, I argue that, while currently available interfaces do indeed demonstrate technological progress, inertia in both design and engineering efforts has lead to interfaces that have yet to reach the holy grail: seamless interactions with new media, information, and devices, through natural modalities that transcend the confines of conventional interfaces. The consequences of this are particularly evident within contexts where natural, conversational interfaces may help marginalized users that stand to benefit the most from such technologies, yet fail to sustainably do so. Grounded in more than two decades of research in this space, I deconstruct in this talk some of the claims and myths about spoken conversational interfaces that hold us back from designing truly useful applications. I then discuss how we may approach the design of such interfaces in ways that are not only more imaginative, but that will also lead to the emergence of interactions that are more meaningful and more inclusive to a broader range of users and contexts. Look forward to seeing you there. Food will be served. Thanks, Jiannan

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[Talks] Sriram Subramanian, Computational wavefront manipulation for novel user-interface design
by Jiannan Li 09 Aug '19

09 Aug '19

Hello all, Prof Sriram Subramanian, visiting us from the University of Sussex, will be giving an a talk at 2pm on Thursday, Aug 15th in the DGP lab. Please see the details below. To access the DGP seminar room, come to the front of lab, BA 5166, and head down the hallway. All are welcome. Title: Computational wavefront manipulation for novel user-interface design Abstract: Our group has been at the forefront of shaping the acoustic wave fronts to create novel mid-air displays and haptic devices. Our mid-air display is created by trapping tiny objects in the sound-field and manipulating them to create persistence of vision displays. We manipulate the wave-front by computing acoustic holograms that are delivered using phased arrays of speakers. Similarly, mid-air haptics is created by focusing the pressure wave on the palm of the user. Ultrahaptics is our haptic feedback system that uses acoustic radiation pressure to create tactile stimulations in multiple locations of the user’s hand. This feedback is created in mid-air – so users don’t have to touch or hold any device to experience it. Recently, we have begun exploring the design and implementation of reconfigurable acoustic metamaterials that augment phased arrays to create complex sound fields. In my talk, I will present some of our recent projects on these topics. Bio: Sriram Subramanian is a Professor and Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies at the University of Sussex (UK) where he leads a research group on novel interactive systems. Before joining Sussex, he was a Professor of Human-computer Interaction at the University of Bristol and prior to this a senior scientist at Philips Research Netherlands. He has published over 100 research articles on designing new and novel user-experiences through a combination of physical science, engineering and creativity. He is also the co-founder of Ultrahaptics (www.ultrahaptics.com) a mid-air haptics company that recently acquired Leap Motion Inc. Thanks, Jiannan Li

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Let me know if you're interested tomorrow (Fri) 2-4 or 4-6 pm in joining a 'grad student roundtable' for 30 mins with Andy Ko, visiting Uwashington researcher
by Joseph Jay Williams 09 Aug '19

09 Aug '19

Let me know if you're interested tomorrow (Fri) 2-4 or 4-6 pm in joining a 'grad student roundtable' for 30 mins with Andy Ko, visiting Uwashington researcher. Tell me what time works if so. To quote another faculty, "Andy Ko" is excellent person to speak to just because it's such a great opportunity to meet a top HCI person. You can come with random questions about grad school advice, doing research. https://faculty.washington.edu/ajko/ "I study effective, equitable, scalable ways for humanity to learn computing. My work contributes to the fields of computing education, human-computer interaction, and software engineering. I do this work with many outstanding students <https://faculty.washington.edu/ajko/students>on this work to publish <https://faculty.washington.edu/ajko/publications>, blog <https://faculty.washington.edu/ajko/posts>, and communicate <https://faculty.washington.edu/ajko/impact> our research with academia, industry, government, and the public. We do this work with several communities at UW, including DUB <http://dub.washington.edu/> (a community of HCI researchers), PLSE <http://uwplse.org/> (a community of programming languages and software engineering researchers), and the iSchool's Digital Youth Lab <https://digitalyouth.ischool.uw.edu/>. I also lead two communities outside the university: Sound CS Ed <http://soundcsed.org/>, a regional community of teachers, researchers, and inventors passionate about computing education, and CS for All Washington <http://csforallwa.org/>, a statewide advocacy coalition championing K-12 computing education in Washington state. I formerly directed the EUSES consortium <http://eusesconsortium.org/>, an academic and industry coalition focused on end-user programming. - Read my computing education research FAQ <https://faculty.washington.edu/ajko/cer> to learn more about the field. - Read my students <https://faculty.washington.edu/ajko/students> page to learn how to work with me." Joseph Joseph Jay Williams www.josephjaywilliams.com Assistant Professor Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto Intelligent Adaptive Interventions (IAI) research group

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Sig August 2019