Intelligent Assistive Technology: The Present and the Future

Abstract

Recent advances in two areas of computer science-wireless sensor networks and AI inference strategies-have made it possible to envision a wide range of technologies that can improve the lives of people with physical, cognitive, and/or psycho-social impairments. To be effective, these systems must perform extensive user modeling, in order to adapt to the changing needs and capabilities of their users. In this talk, I will survey current projects aimed at the development of intelligent assistive technology and will speculate about future design challenges and opportunities.

About the Author

Martha E. Pollack is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, where she also chairs the Computer Science and Engineering Division. She received her B.A. degree from Dartmouth College and her Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and has been a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh and a research staff member at the AI Center at SRI International. A Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, Pollack has conducted research in the areas of automated planning and execution monitoring, temporal reasoning and constraint satisfaction, and natural-language processing, as well as on assistive technology for cognitively impaired people. In April of 2004 she testified before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging about the potential value of assistive technology in an aging world.

Dr. Dr. Norbert Streitz
Fraunhofer
Darmstadt, Germany

The Disappearing Computer: User-Centered Interaction Design for Smart Artefacts

Abstract

The increasing trend of embedding computation in everyday objects creating "smart artefacts" and the associated concept of the "disappearing computer" raises new challenges for designing interactive systems. Computers used to be primary artefacts, now they become "secondary" artefacts moving in the background in several ways (physical and mental disappearance). Human-Computer Interaction is being transformed to Human-Artefact and Human-Environment Interaction. While "disappearance" is a major aspect, smart artefacts are also characterized by sensors collecting data about the environment, the devices and humans in this context. User models, profiles, and preferences will be more and more based on sensor data obtained by observing and analysing users' behaviour in the real world. They are also the starting point for discussing issues as privacy due to comprehensive activity monitoring and recording of personal data. This creates a new set of issues for designing the interaction of humans with computers embedded in everyday objects resulting in smart artefacts. Smart environments are becoming a major application area for the deployment of adaptive and personalized systems in "real-world" applications when integrating mobile, ubiquitous and context-aware computing. The talk will present examples from different applications domains based on a discussion of ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence.

About the Author

Dr. rer. nat. Dr. phil. Norbert Streitz (Ph. D. in physics and Ph.D. in psychology) is a Senior Scientist and Strategic Advisor with more than 20 years of experience in information and communication technology. In 1997, he initiated and then managed the research division "AMBIENTE - Smart Environments of the Future" at Fraunhofer IPSI in Darmstadt, Germany, where he also teaches at the Department of Computer Science of the Technical University. Before joining IPSI in 1987, he was an assistant professor in psychology at the Technical University (RWTH) Aachen. He was a post-doc fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, a visiting scholar at Xerox PARC and at the Intelligent Systems Lab of ETL-MITI, Tsukuba Science City, Japan.

He was the Chair of the Steering Group of the EU-funded initiative "The Disappearing Computer" and is now the co-chair of the ERCIM Working Group "Smart Environments and Systems for Ambient Intelligence (SESAMI)". His research interests include Ambient/Pervasive/Ubiquitous Computing, Interaction and Experience Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Hypertext/ Hypermedia, CSCW, Cognitive Science. He has published/edited 16 books and (co)authored more than 100 technical papers. He serves regularly on the relevant program committees and on editorial boards (e.g., currently Associate Editor of ACM TOCHI). He is often invited to present keynote speeches and tutorials to scientific as well as commercial events in Europe, USA, South America, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan.

Yasuyuki Sumi
Kyoto University
Kyoto, Japan

Experience Medium: Toward a New Medium for Exchanging Experiences

Abstract

In this talk, I will propose a notion of "experience medium" in which we can exchange our experiences in museum touring, daily meetings, collaborative work, etc. The experience medium is a medium for capturing, interpreting, and creating our experiences, i.e., not only verbalized representations of our experiences but also their contextual information (awareness, common sense, atmosphere). I will show our previous and ongoing projects as follows:

• Building a context-aware mobile assistant for guiding museum visitors and facilitating communications among the users by casual chats between the users' guide characters and comic-like diaries based on their visiting records;
• Collaborative capturing and interpretation of experiences like conversations, staying together, and gazing something by ubiquitous and wearable sensors; and
• Supporting systems of casual communications by facilitating to share photos and comments among community members.

About the Author

Yasuyuki Sumi is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Informatics at Kyoto University since 2003. Before joining Kyoto University, he had been a senior researcher at ATR for eight years. He received his B.Eng. degree from Waseda University in 1990, and M.Eng. and D.Eng. degrees in information engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1992 and 1995, respectively. His research interests include knowledge-based systems, creativity supporting systems, interface/social agents, ubiquitous/wearable computing, Web intelligence, multimedia processing, and their application for facilitating human interaction and collaboration. From 1997 to 2002, he led a project to build a personal agent system for guiding its users according to their contexts and facilitating their communications during tours in museums, conferences, trade shows, etc.

From 2002, he started a new project to build a so-called experience medium to capture, understand, and facilitate user experiences by wearable/ubiquitous systems.