IPCity Newsletter #3, November 2006 IPCity Newsletter news can also be read from the IPCity dissemination website at http://www.ipcity.eu/ Select News from the left panel to view the most current news. IPCity (FP-2004-IST-4-27571) is a EU funded Sixth Framework programme Integrated project on Interaction and Presence in Urban Environments. http://www.ipcity.eu/ -------------------------------------------- You can subscribe to IPCity news RSS feed from http://ipcity.oulu.fi/diss/?feed=rss2. -------------------------------------------- CONTENTS -UE+/User Experience Plus -Performing places website -ENACTIVE/2006 -Ubicomp 2007 CFP -IPCity goes ISMAR -------------------------------------------- UE+/User Experience Plus Call for Papers: UE+/User Experience Plus, Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces 2007. August 22 - 25, University of Art and Design Helsinki, Finland “User Experience” has become a key word in design over the last decade. It articulated disappointment with usability research in the 1990s, bringing to the fore designers traditional skill, an ability to create products and interfaces that are a joy to use and, at best, exciting. In many ways, the concept has been successful. It has become a cornerstone in many leading design programs all over the world. It has generated theoretical discussion. It has rejuvenated philosophical debate in design research. It has found a home not just in research, but also in design education. However, as all concepts, this notion has been gathering dust over the years. Designers and researchers in many parts of the world have been going beyond user experience. While taking the lesson from what has been learned, they prefer to use more specific concepts, including concepts such like affective interaction, rich interaction, and co-experience. Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces 2007 will welcome contributions that explore these developments. It encourages: -Conceptual contributions backed up with designs and empirical research. -New innovative research that builds on user experience, but add t it. -Methodological papers and designs that extend user experience research. -Theoretical reflections. http://designresearch.uiah.fi/dppi07/index.php -------------------------------------------- Performing places website Performing places, event mentioned in an earlier IPCity newsletter (http://www.ipcity.eu/?p=24), has updated their website (not mentioned in the earlier news item). Check it out: http://www.m-cult.org/performingplaces/ Performing Places brings together artists, researchers and developers whose work touches on the experiential, affective and political aspects of urban and technological life, and who share an interest in inventive artistic and technical practices of the urban environment. Even though the event is already passed, check out the site later this year since presentations from the Performing Places seminar will be published online in November 2006, as well as the proceedings that will be published online by the end of 2006. http://www.m-cult.org/performingplaces/publishing.htm Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT) is a co-organising partner for the event, as well as an IPCity project partner. -------------------------------------------- ENACTIVE/2006 The 3rd International Conference on Enactive Interfaces, promoted by the European Network of Excellence ENACTIVE INTERFACES, will be held in Montpellier (France) on November 20-21, 2006. The aim of the conference is to encourage the emergence of a multidisciplinary research community in a new field of research and on a new generation of human-computer interfaces called Enactive Interfaces. Enactive Interfaces are inspired by a fundamental concept of “interaction” that has not been exploited by other approaches to the design of human-computer interface technologies. Mainly, interfaces have been designed to present information via symbols, or icons. In the symbolic approach, information is stored as words, mathematical symbols or other symbolic systems, while in the iconic approach information is stored in the form of visual images, such as diagrams and illustrations. ENACTIVE knowledge is information gained through perception-action interactions with the environment. Examples include information gained by grasping an object, by hefting a stone, or by walking around an obstacle that occludes our view. It is gained through intuitive movements, of which we often are not aware. Enactive knowledge is inherently multimodal, because motor actions alter the stimulation of multiple perceptual systems. Enactive knowledge is essential in tasks such as driving a car, dancing, playing a musical instrument, modelling objects from clay, performing sports, and so on. Enactive knowledge is neither symbolic nor iconic. It is direct, in the sense that it is natural and intuitive, based on experience and the perceptual consequences of motor acts. ENACTIVE / 06 will highlight convergences between the concept of Enaction and the sciences of complexity. Biological, cognitive, perceptual or technological systems are complex dynamical systems exhibiting (in)stability properties that are consequential for the agent-environment interaction. The conference will provide new insights, through the prism of ENACTIVE COMPLEXITY, about human interaction with multimodal interfaces. http://www.enactive2006.org/ HIIT (an IPCity partner) presents a poster in the conference under the title “CoMedia: Integrating context cues into mobile group media for spectators”. -------------------------------------------- Ubicomp 2007 CFP UbiComp 2007 invites original, high-quality research papers in the areas of ubiquitous, mobile, embedded, and handheld computing. The conference provides a forum for original research that enables new capabilities, appropriate security and privacy, improved user experiences, and simplified and powerful development and deployment practices. In addition, we are interested in studies of existing and emerging technologies, everyday use of technologies, and insightful commentary on the state of the field. Researchers are encouraged to submit papers on the following topics: Inferring the state of the user, such as location, activity, intentions, resources, and capabilities in the past, present, and future Developing ubicomp systems, including representations, architecture, middleware, resource management, and service discovery Embedding computation for new user interfaces, assistive technologies, communication, novel sensors, intelligent environments, wearable computing, and continuous monitoring and actuation Building ubicomp systems for health, gaming, socializing, and other applications Ensuring user trust through privacy and security Understanding ubicomp and its consequences through conceptual models, hard-won experience, user studies, business scenarios, and real deployments UbiComp has a history of being a very selective conference, and there is no desire to reduce expectations on quality. In an effort to enhance the breadth of the conference, we aim to increase the number of accepted full papers to approximately 40 for this year, which is up from 30 last year and 22 the year before. Presentations will be scheduled in a dualtrack format. The conference will institute a process for nominating and selecting awards for best paper and presentations at the conference. Submissions will be peer-reviewed by members of the program committee and by selected expert reviewers. Papers will be evaluated on the basis of originality, significance of contribution, technical correctness, overall appeal to the general UbiComp reader, and presentation. Papers submitted must not have been previously published nor currently under review for any publication with an ISBN, ISSN, or DOI number. If submitted work may appear to overlap with the authors’ previous work, the authors should email the PC chairs [2] directly to explain how the new work is different. All reviewers will be instructed to keep submissions confidential, although submissions must be publishable by the cameraready deadline. Accepted papers will be published in Springer’s Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), and all submissions should be formatted according to their guidelines [3]. Misformatted submissions, or those longer than 18 pages, are subject to rejection without review. Shorter submissions will not be penalized, and each submission’s length should be appropriate for its content. One author from each accepted paper will be required to attend the conference to present their work. Paper submissions must be anonymized to facilitate blind review. Authors are encouraged to take care throughout the entire document to minimize references that may reveal the identity of the authors or their institutions. Relevant references to an author’s previous research should not be suppressed but instead referenced in a neutral way. Papers should be submitted as PDF files through PCS at [4]. Important Dates 9 March — Paper submissions due (23:59 PST) 25 May — Accept/reject notifications 29 June — Camera ready papers due 16-19 September — UbiComp 2007 in Innsbruck Program Chairs John Krumm, Microsoft Research, USA Gregory Abowd, Georgia Tech, USA Aruna Seneviratne, NICTA, Australia Conference Chair Thomas Strang, University of Innsbruck and German Aerospace Center A PDF version of this CfP is also available. [1] http://www.ubicomp2007.org/ [2] pcchairs(at)ubicomp2007.org [3] http://www.springer.com/east/home/computer/lncs?SGWID=5-164-7-72376-0 [4] https://precisionconference.com/~ubicomp -------------------------------------------- IPCity goes ISMAR The annual IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) took place this year in Santa Barbara, CA, USA between Oct 22 and Oct 25. Over 160 participants in the field of Mixed and Augmented Reality participated at this conference. The program included different workshops, tutorials, two keynote presentations and presentations of current research in this field. In addition, over 20 live demos where presented at this venue. In this context, Graz University of Technology represented the IPCity project with one demonstrator. A first prototype of the AR scout for interactive 3D reconstruction could successfully be presented. Discussions with experts in the field of Augmented and Mixed Reality gave promising feedback and contributed to new ideas for this first prototype. For more information please visit the following web sites: ISMAR 2006: http://www.ismar06.org ISMAR Demos: http://www.dirkreiners.com/ISMAR06Demos/ For getting more information about the reconstruction prototype please visit the following page: http://studierstube.icg.tu-graz.ac.at/ipcity/scouting.php -------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------- IPCity (FP-2004-IST-4-27571) is a EU funded Sixth Framework programme Integrated project on Interaction and Presence in Urban Environments. http://www.ipcity.eu/ -------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------