Demos at Ubicomp 2013

Members of the PD-Net consortium showed a couple of demos at the 2013 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp 2013).

Control and Scheduling Interface for Public Displays

Social media platforms such as Flicker, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook have opened up new possibilities for providing content on large public displays. Integrating interactive elements in a public display, such as (virtual) Keyboards and Webcams, can additionally stimulate in-situ content production. Both social media content and such in-situ content are cheap to produce, always fresh, and potentially community sourced, thus increasing relevance for passersby. However, not all social media applications and content entries may be appropriate in a particular display setting and showing user contributed content on public displays requires new forms of content control and scheduling. In this demo we show: 1) a control interface for display owners to manage the overall behaviour of their displays, and 2) post-moderation mechanisms for controlling and removing potentially inappropriate user contributed content from public displays displays. The control interface and moderation mechanisms are designed for a university environment and were inspired by two short pilot test deployments and a focus group with the university socials.

Supporting Interaction in Public Space with Electrical Muscle Stimulation

As displays in public space are augmented with sensors, such as the Kinect, they enable passersby to interact with the content on the screen. As of today, feedback on the user action in such environments is usually limited to the visual channel. However, we believe that more immediate and intense forms, in particular haptic feedback, do not only increase the user experience, but may also have a strong impact on user attention and memorization of the content encountered during the interaction. Haptic feedback can today be achieved through vibration on the mobile phone, which is strongly dependent on the location of the device. We envision that fabrics, such as underwear, can in the future be equipped with electrical muscle stimulation, thus providing a more natural and direct way of haptic feedback. In this demo we aim to showcase the potential of applying electrical muscle stimulation as direct haptic feedback during interaction in public spaces in the context of a Kinect-based game for public displays.

• I. Elhart, N. Memarovic, M. Langheinrich, and Elisa Rubegni, “Control and Scheduling Interface for Public Displays,”The 2013 ACM Conference on Ubiquitous Computing Adjunct Publication, 2013. [Bibtex][PDF]
• M. Pfeiffer, S. Schneegaß, and Florian Alt, “Supporting Interaction in Public Space with Electric Muscle Stimulation,” The 2013 ACM Conference on Ubiquitous Computing Adjunct Publication, 2013. [Bibtex][PDF]