Real-time tele-immersion requires low latency and synchronized multi-camera capture. Prior high definition (HD) capture systems were bulky. We investigate the suitability of using flocks of smartphone cameras for tele-immersion. Smartphones integrate capture and streaming into a single portable package. However, they archive the captured video into a movie. Hence, we create a sequence of H.264 movies and stream them. Capture delay is reduced by minimizing the number of frames in each movie segment. However, fewer frames reduces compression efficiency. Also, smartphone video encoders do not sacrifice video quality to lower the compression latency or the stream size. On an iPhone 4S, our application that uses published APIs streams 1920×1080 videos at 16.5 fps with a delay of 712 ms between a real-life event and displaying an uncompressed bitmap of this event on a local laptop. Note that the bulky Cisco Tandberg required 300 ms delay. Stereoscopic video from two unsynchronized smartphones also showed minimal visual artifacts in an indoor setting.

We demonstrate a system for supporting mirror worlds - 3D virtual models of physical spaces that reflect the structure and activities of those spaces to help support context awareness and tasks such as planning and recollection of events. Through views on web pages, portable devices, or on `magic window' displays in the physical space, remote people may `look in' to the space, while people within the space are provided information that would not otherwise be obvious. For example, by looking at a mirror display, people can learn how long others have been present, or where they have been. People in one part of a building can get a sense of activities in the rest of the building. The system can be used to bridge across sites and help provide different parts of an organization with a shared awareness of each other's activities. We demonstrate viewers for several mirror worlds we have created, including for the ACM conference venue in Nara.

The modern workplace is inherently collaborative, and this collaboration relies on effective communication among co-workers. Many communication tools -- email, blogs, wikis, Twitter, etc. -- have become increasingly available and accepted in workplace communications. In this paper, we report on a study of communications technologies used over a one year period in a small US corporation. We found that participants used a large number of communication tools for different purposes, and that the introduction of new tools did not impact significantly the use of previously-adopted technologies. Further, we identified distinct classes of users based on patterns of tool use. This work has implications for the design of technology in the evolving ecology of communication tools.

Virtual, mobile, and mixed reality systems have diverse uses for data visualization and remote collaboration in industrial settings, especially factories. We report our experiences in designing complex mixed-reality collaboration, control, and display systems for a real-world factory, for delivering real-time factory information to multiple types of users. In collaboration with TCHO, a chocolate maker in San Francisco, our research group is building a virtual "mirror" world of a real-world chocolate factory and its processes. Sensor data is imported into the multi-user 3D environment from hundreds of sensors on the factory floor. The resulting "virtual factory" is designed for simulation, visualization, and collaboration, using a set of interlinked, real-time layers of information about the factory and its processes. We are also looking at appropriate industrial uses for mobile devices such as cell phones and tablet computers, and how they intersect with virtual worlds and mixed realities. For example, an experimental iPhone web app provides mobile laboratory monitoring and control. The mobile system is integrated with the database underlying the virtual factory world. These systems were deployed at the real-world factory and lab in 2009, and are now in beta development. Through this mashup of mobile, social, mixed and virtual technologies, we hope to create industrial systems for enhanced collaboration between physically remote people and places - for example, factories in China with managers in Japan or the US.

We show several aspects of a complex mixed reality system that we have built and deployed in a real-world factory setting. In our system, virtual worlds, augmented realities, and social and mobile applications are all fed from the same infrastructure. In collaboration with TCHO[1], a chocolate maker in San Francisco, we built a virtual "mirror" world of a real-world chocolate factory and its processes. Sensor data is imported into the multi-user 3D environment from hundreds of sensors on the factory floor. The resulting virtual factory is used for simulation, visualization, and collaboration, using a set of interlinked, real-time layers of information. Another part of our infrastructure is designed to support appropriate industrial uses for mobile devices such as cell phones and tablet computers. We deployed this system at the real-world factory in 2009, and it is now is daily use there. By simultaneously developing mobile, virtual, and web-based display and collaboration environments, we aimed to create an infrastructure that did not skew toward one type of application but that could serve many at once, interchangeably. Through this mixture of mobile, social, mixed and virtual technologies, we hope to create systems for enhanced collaboration in industrial settings between physically remote people and places, such as factories in China with managers in the US.

This project investigates practical uses of virtual, mobile, and mixed reality systems in industrial settings, in particular control and collaboration applications for factories. In collaboration with TCHO, a chocolate maker start-up in San Francisco, we have built virtual mirror-world representations of a real-world chocolate factory and are importing its data and modeling its processes. The system integrates mobile devices such as cell phones and tablet computers. The resulting "virtual factory" is a cross-reality environment designed for simulation, visualization, and collaboration, using a set of interlinked, real-time 3D and 2D layers of information about the factory and its processes.

In this video demo, we present mTable, a multimedia tabletop system for browsing photo and video collections. We have developed a set of applications for visualizing and exploring photos, a board game for labeling photos, and a 3D cityscape metaphor for browsing videos. The system is suitable for use in a living room or office lounge, and can support multiple displays by visualizing the collections on the tabletop and showing full-size images and videos on another flat panel display in the room.

We describe a new approach to information retrieval: algorithmic mediation for intentional, synchronous collaborative exploratory search. Using our system, two or more users with a common information need search together, simultaneously. The collaborative system provides tools, user interfaces and, most importantly, algorithmically-mediated retrieval to focus, enhance and augment the team's search and communication activities. Collaborative search outperformed post hoc merging of similarly instrumented single user runs. Algorithmic mediation improved both collaborative search (allowing a team of searchers to find relevant information more efficiently and effectively), and exploratory search (allowing the searchers to find relevant information that cannot be found while working individually).

What does a student need to know to be a designer? Beyond a list of separate skills, what mindset does a student need to develop for designerly action now and into the future? In the excitement of the cognitive revolution, Simon proposed a way of thinking about design that promised to make it more manageable and cognitive: to think of design as a planning problem [11, 29]. Yet, as Suchman argued long ago [32], planning accounts may be applied to problems that are not at base accomplished by planning, to the detriment of design vision. This paper reports on a pedagogy that takes Suchman's criticism to heart and avoids dressing up design methods as more systematic and predictive than they in fact are. The idea is to teach design through exposure to not just one, but rather, many methods---that is, sets of rules or behaviors that produce artifacts for further reflection and development. By introducing a large number of design methods, decoupled from theories, models or frameworks, we teach (a) important cross-methodological regularities in competence as a designer, (b) that the practice of design can itself be designed and (c) that method choice affects design outcomes. This provides a rich and productive notion of design particularly necessary for the world of pervasive and ubiquitous computing.

During grouping tasks for data exploration and sense-making, the criteria are normally not well-defined. When users are bringing together data objects thought to be similar in some way, implicit brushing continually detects for groups on the freeform workspace, analyzes the groups' text content or metadata, and draws attention to related data by displaying visual hints and animation. This provides helpful tips for further grouping, group meaning refinement and structure discovery. The sense-making process is further enhanced by retrieving relevant information from a database or network during the brushing. Closely related to implicit brushing, target snapping provides a useful means to move a data object to one of its related groups on a large display. Natural dynamics and smooth animations also help to prevent distractions and allow users to concentrate on the grouping and thinking tasks. Two different prototype applications, note grouping for brainstorming and photo browsing, demonstrate the general applicability of the technique.

Post-Bit is a small e-paper device modeled after paper Post-Its®1. We explored and designed interfaces to handle multi-media contents with paper-like manipulations using this e-paper device. The functions of each Post-Bit combined the affordance of physical tiny sticky memos and digital handling of information. At this stage of the design, we have prototyped two features of the interface: connecting computer-based workspaces and physical workspaces (using a function called Drop-Beyond-Drag), and tangible and tactile operation of multi-media contents. In this paper, we present the integrated design and functionality of the Post-Bit system's main components as shown in the video scenario.

This paper borrows ideas from social science to inform the design of novel "sensing" user-interfaces for computing technology. Specifically, we present five design challenges inspired by analysis of human-human communication that are mundanely addressed by traditional graphical user interface designs (GUIs). Although classic GUI conventions allow us to finesse these questions, recent research into innovative interaction techniques such as 'Ubiquitous Computing' and 'Tangible Interfaces' has begun to expose the interaction challenges and problems they pose. By making them explicit we open a discourse on how an approach similar to that used by social scientists in studying human-human interaction might inform the design of novel interaction mechanisms that can be used to handle human-computer communication accomplishments

While predictions abound that electronic books will supplant traditional paper-based books, many people bemoan the coming loss of the book as cultural artifact. In this project we deliberately keep the affordances of paper books while adding electronic augmentation. The Listen Reader combines the look and feel of a real book - a beautiful binding, paper pages and printed images and text - with the rich, evocative quality of a movie soundtrack. The book's multi-layered interactive soundtrack consists of music and sound effects. Electric field sensors located in the book binding sense the proximity of the reader's hands and control audio parameters, while RFID tags embedded in each page allow fast, robust page identification.

No abstract available.

In this paper, we describe the process behind the design of Audio Aura. The goal of Audio Aura is to provide serendipitous information, via background auditory cues, that is tied to people's physical actions in the workplace. We used scenarios to explore issues in serendipitous information such as privacy and work practice. Our sound design was guided by a number of strategies for creating peripheral sounds grouped in cohesive ecologies. Faced with an physical and software infrastructure under development in a laboratory distant from our sound studio, we prototyped different sonic landscapes in VRML worlds. In our infrastructure design, we made a number of trade-offs in our use of legacy systems and our client-server design. Keywords: Audio, Augmented Reality, Auditory Icons, Active Badge, VRML. Earcons, Awareness, Periphery INTRODUCTION In this work we explore using audio to connect a person's activities in the physical world with information culled from the virtual ...

No abstract available.

This panel addresses issues in designing audio-based user interactions for small, personal computing devices, or PDAs. One issue is the nature of interacting with an auditory PDA and the interplay of affordances and form factors. Another issue is how both new and traditional metaphors and interaction concepts might be applied to auditory PDAs. The utility and design of nonspeech cues are discussed, as are the aesthetic issues of persona and narrative in designing sounds. Also discussed are commercially available sound and speech components and related hardware tradeoffs. Finally, the social implications of auditory interactions are explored, including privacy, fashion and novel social interactions.