Connecting information using context: Meshstro posted 22 June 2010 | Meshstro - Chris Holmes

Let’s face it: email is ripe for innovation. We rely on folders and keyword searches to sift through thousands of emails to locate buried messages and documents… but the problem goes beyond the inbox. Today’s business processes are more dynamic, more human-centric, ad hoc, unscripted, and loosely orchestrated – they represent the framework for our interactions with team members, business partners, and customers. The information that fuels these interactions is digital: emails, documents, web site links, database records, IMs, tweets, and so on. Keeping track of all this information in the context of a person, a partner or customer, or a particular activity is a TIME CONSUMING, MANUAL, CUMBERSOME process. And it’s only getting tougher.

comments (0) posted in guest contributors, human computer interaction (HCI), social & enterprise computing

Defining ubiquitous computing vs. augmented reality posted 2 March 2010 | Bo Begole    view bio

What’s the difference between Ubiquitous Computing (“ubicomp”) and Augmented Reality (“AR”)? I hear this question often, and you could replace “augmented reality” in that question with any of the following buzzy paradigms for people-interacting-with-computers: Virtual Reality, Pervasive Computing, Mobile Computing, Wearable Computing, Multi-Device Interaction, Cloud Computing, Intelligent Systems, Ambient Intelligence, Context-Aware Computing, Adaptive Systems, Machine Perception, Social Computing, Smart Environments, Everyware, and so on. For the most part, I don’t find formal definitions useful; you can call it whatever suits your fancy. All that matters is that I understand what you mean when you use a term and that you understand what I mean when I use it. The attributes of a definition that carry lasting meaning are not technological properties (performance, cost, size, distribution, latency), but the core capabilities that the paradigm enables for usage.

comments (11) tags: ambient intelligence, AR, augmented reality, context-aware computing, everyware, mobile computing, pervasive computing, smart environment, ubicomp, virtual reality posted in glossary (our definitions), human computer interaction (HCI), our culture & processes, ubiquitous computing

The Web is finally starting to behave like a butler posted 19 January 2010 | Ellen Isaacs    view bio

When the Web was just beginning to take hold back in the mid-1990s, I remember thinking, “This is great for getting access to information, but it’s setting user interfaces back about 10 years.” It’s now 15 years later, but I’m happy to say that we’ve caught up and are finally starting to surpass where we left off. The Web has moved from a face without a brain, to just a pretty face, to a helpful butler that supports users’ tasks and anticipates their needs in an unobtrusive way.

comments (2) tags: user centered design, user experience, user interface design posted in human computer interaction (HCI)

Workshop on Technology-Mediated Social Participation: Reports posted 12 January 2010 | Sanjay Kairam    view bio

PARC recently hosted the first of two co-organized and NSF-funded workshops on Technology-Mediated Social Participation. Workshop reports addressing themes such as integrating theory across levels from the individual to the community; developing new methods of measuring social connections and social capital across networks; and building an infrastructure for reliable and responsible data collection are now available.

comments (1) tags: collaboration, collective intelligence, HCI, social computational systems, technology trends posted in conferences & talks, human computer interaction (HCI), social & enterprise computing

The Future of Technology-Mediated Social Participation posted 7 December 2009 | Pete Pirolli    view bio

Who would have thought that simple architectures for participation could rival the scale of results previously achieved only by massive private or public works projects? While we can get excited about the possibilities, we also have to be realistic. Most social technology efforts fail: for every Wikipedia, there are thousands of dead or dying wikis. The Workshop on Technology-Mediated Social Participation at PARC will bring together approximately 30 researchers from industry, academia, and government to draw up a scientific agenda and educational recommendations for a new era of social participation technologies. As individuals, we’re limited by how much we know or think about any of these things, which is why I’m hoping that participants on the panel and in the audience at this week’s PARC Forum can help. We see further when we stand on the shoulders of others.

comments (3) tags: collaboration, collective intelligence, HCI, innovation, social computational systems, technology trends posted in conferences & talks, human computer interaction (HCI), social & enterprise computing

Experts’ domain knowledge improves automated recommendations posted 9 November 2009 | Ellen Isaacs    view bio

It’s almost eerie how well the music website Pandora recommends music based on just one example of a favorite song. It does so by relying on human experts to characterize songs based on a large and musically sophisticated set of characteristics (melody, harmony, rhythm, orchestration, etc.). This approach — of using human expertise to develop a rich set of attributes that deeply capture the essence of an item — could be adapted to greatly improve the recommendations currently being offered in other domains, such as news, movies, hotels and so on. In our enthusiasm to develop automated recommendation systems, Pandora reminds us of the value of incorporating the intelligence of domain experts into the process.

comments (1) tags: crowdsourcing, recommendation systems posted in ethnography, human computer interaction (HCI), our culture & processes, social & enterprise computing

Personalizing news on the long tail posted 5 October 2009 | Mark Stefik    view bio

Online news is a crowded field, and personalized news is becoming the Holy Grail for news publishers facing decreased revenues and outdated business models. The challenge in personalizing the news: matching what people want with what they get. I believe that successful personalizing the news on the long tail requires three approaches with their own unique sources of “power”: curation, search, and social participation. To news consumers, the appeal of personalized news is that they can keep up on the news that they care about, better manage their reading time, and address their information overload. For online news producers, the appeal is increased consumer satisfaction and potentially greater revenues.

comments (1) tags: curation, information overload, kiffets, long tail, news, social indexing posted in human computer interaction (HCI), social & enterprise computing

Why a good curator is more than a filter posted 15 September 2009 | Mark Stefik    view bio

In addition there is growing interest by information consumers in taking more control of their media time. They want personalized news for their specialized interests. The problem? News on specialized topics is often hard to find and is scattered across many sources. Mainstream publishing organizations do not cover topics deep on the long tail because they lack both the editorial resources and the expertise. Can social media provide the means for curating the long tail? In traditional news publishing, the role of curating is typically combined with publishing. While curators of online information are needed to help us find interesting and quality content, the requirements and roles differ from traditional publishing.

comments (2) tags: curation, information overload, kiffets, long tail, news, social indexing posted in human computer interaction (HCI), social & enterprise computing

Remixing the news posted 8 September 2009 | Mark Stefik    view bio

Once music lovers could “Rip, Mix, and Burn” their own CDs they took control of their listening experiences. The economics and consumer expectations have changed for all digital media. Digital media consumers now demand more flexibility in getting what they want, stretching beyond traditional broadcasting models which pre-package content into channels. But as personalization, discovery, and sharing come to the news, it needs to be different from “playlists”. How about social indexing to remix the news?

comments (2) tags: curation, information overload, kiffets, long tail, news, social indexing posted in human computer interaction (HCI), social & enterprise computing

Reducing the password burden: Implicit Authentication posted 17 August 2009 | Elaine Shi    view bio

How many times a day do you enter passwords in different places AND multiple times in the same place? While passwords are the most widely used method for authenticating users to computer systems and protecting our information, they’re also difficult to remember, inconvenient, poorly used, and not always secure. There are multiple ways to authenticate us (something we know, have, are) — but why not use our habits or routines to implicitly authenticate us?

comments (8) tags: authentication, mobile devices & interfaces, mobile security, passwords, user behavior modeling posted in ethnography, human computer interaction (HCI), security & privacy, ubiquitous computing

Making mobile printing easier with QR codes posted 5 August 2009 | Bo Begole    view bio

One of the best features of the new class of U.S. mobile smartphones is that they’re finally capable of reading QR (Quick Response) codes. These codes, which already appear all over Japan and Korea, are 2D bar codes typically displayed on something — such as a poster, webpage, magazine ad, or store window — and captured by a phone camera. The phone decodes the image and launches the appropriate application to see the text, browse the website, send SMS, or call the number that was contained in the QR code. In all these scenarios, the phone is reading the QR code. But you can also turn this model on its head by having the phone display the code to be read by another device.

comments (3) tags: augmented reality, mobile devices & interfaces, pervasive computing, QR codes, technology trends, ubicomp posted in human computer interaction (HCI), networking, ubiquitous computing

Can a recommender choose what’s best? posted 7 July 2009 | Ellen Isaacs    view bio

While doing a user experience evaluation of a mobile recommendation system, I noticed how the list-based design implied that there was a single best choice, with ‘goodness’ decreasing in even increments. This made me wonder whether it makes sense to try to identify the one Best option when you’re choosing among options that vary across many dimensions. Making choices might be easier if we assume that there is rarely one single Best.

comments (0) tags: context-aware computing, decision making, recommendation systems, user centered design, user experience posted in human computer interaction (HCI), ubiquitous computing

Serving shoppers’ needs in physical stores: Responsive Mirror posted 1 July 2009 | Bo Begole    view bio

We’ve found that there are certain types of information that shoppers need but still cannot get online. Certain kinds of tactile and physical information cannot easily be communicated electronically: texture, fit, drape, flow, movement, light refraction, heft, etc. So, people still visit stores to find out how things feel. But we can still help shoppers by supplementing their decision-making processes with electronic information.

comments (0) tags: responsive mirror posted in human computer interaction (HCI), ubiquitous computing

The future of pervasive marketing: Scenarios posted 30 June 2009 | Bo Begole    view bio

“Responsive Media” applications are one of the most exciting areas of current research in human-computer interaction. Based on technologies that can detect human response using cameras and other sensors to glean demographic data (gender, race, age) and physiological states (eye gaze, orientation, pupil dilation, skin temp, expression), these applications can be used for human-robot interaction, marketing, gaming, digital concierge avatars, and more.

comments (0) tags: HCI, pervasive computing, research methodology, social media posted in conferences & talks, ethnography, human computer interaction (HCI), ubiquitous computing