Projects

Verbal Behavior Shaping

Motivation of this project People in autism center always use shaping technology to help autism kids to learn how to pronounce the words. For example, teacher might teach “Movie” by separating the word into “M, MU, MUV, MOVIE”. So there are five stages in this practice, and supervisor needs to determine when the stages changes. It takes lots of time and energy for them to score each practice, so we tried to find out the way to use technology for automatic scoring. Hope this project can help them release from the labor work and the children will benefit from it. Key Problems 1) Voice comparing or recognition. A little difference from current solution. 2) Finding “shaping voice” from a sequence of voice. 3) Separating teacher from child’s voice.

Connect 2 Congress

Refl-ex

Deficits in social skills and executive function(the control of one's thought processes) are generally considered the defining characteristics of Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism. Refl-ex is a social problem-solving game that addresses both of these areas, based upon a constant loop of experience and reflection activities. The user will experience a social scenario in which they must make a series of decisions in order to overcome unexpected obstacles and successfully navigate the social situation. The user then reflects on the experience by recreating it using interactive puzzle pieces.

Investigating the Impact of an In-Home Energy Consumption Display

We investigated the impact of a minimal in-home Energy Consumption Display (ECD), both stationary and portable versions, on household energy awareness and consumption. The results of the study show that users reduced energy consumption by identifying high-power devices in their home and by playfully setting conservation goals. Based on the preliminary study, we are investigating portable form factor, mobile user interface, and the awareness of energy consumption to help householders to understand energy consumption. Yun, T., Investigating the Impact of a Minimalist In-Home Energy Consumption Display. Ext. Abst. of CHI, 2009

Designing for Parents and Children in Divorced Families

Non-residential parents and children in divorced families struggle to stay in touch. We are investigating the needs of these families to inform the design of technological intervention in this domain. Yarosh, S. Supporting long-distance parent-child interaction in divorced families. Ext. Abst. of CHI 2008, 3795-3800. Yarosh, S., Chew, Y.C., and Abowd, G.D. Supporting Parent-Child Communication in Divorced Families. International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 2009.

Mediating Remote Parent-Child Contact with the ShareTable

The ShareTable, deployed in the household of each distributed family member, combines videoconference and a shared tabletop surface to help children and adults who live apart stay in touch through natural activities like playing games, reading together, and doing homework.

Studying the Proximity of Mobile Devices to Users

Many Ubicomp and mobile applications being developed assume users alway have their phones nearby, but we suspect that this may not always be true. Thus, we are empirically studying the proximity of users to mobile devices to determine people's usage of mobile phones. Patel, S.N., J.A. Kientz, G.R. Hayes, S. Bhat, and G.D. Abowd. Farther Than You May Think: An Empirical Investigation of the Proximity of Users to their Mobile Phones. In the proceedings of Ubicomp 2006. Orange County, California, USA. 2006. (pdf)

Family Video Archive

The Family Video Archive helps in organizing and retrieving home videos. You can annotate video files with metadata and use this data to find the ones you are looking for. Includes work on the Context Cam for automatically annotating videos at the point of capture. Patel, S.N. and Abowd, G.D. The ContextCam: Automated Point of Capture Video Annotation. In the Proceedings of Ubicomp 2004, September, Nottingham, England, 2004.

Abaris

Abaris is a fully functioning prototype capture and access application to support therapists who perform Discrete Trial Training therapy, a current best practice intervention for children with autism. We have evaluated Abaris in homes and schools to determine its effectiveness in supporting data-based decision-making through better collaboration, better access to reliable artifacts, and higher confidence in decision-making. Kientz, J.A., G.R. Hayes, G.D. Abowd, and R.E. Grinter. From the War Room to the Living Room: Decision Support for Home-based Therapy Teams. In the proceedings of CSCW 2006. Banff, Alberta, Canada. 2006. (pdf)

CareLog

CareLog is a mobile capture and access application for recording health and education data in informal settings. Hayes, G.R. and Abowd, G.D., Tensions in Designing Capture Technologies for an Evidence-Based Care Community, In the Proceedings of CHI’06, (April 22-27, Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 2006.

Personal Audio Loop

With frequent changes in the topics of discussion or other interruptions, sometimes it is difficult to resume a previous thread in a conversation, even if it occurred only minutes ago. The Personal Audio Loop (PAL) application is a near-term audio recording system to support the recovery of interrupted conversations. Hayes, G.R., Patel, S.N., Truong, K.N., Iachello, G., Kientz, J.A., Farmer, R., Abowd, G.D. The Personal Audio Loop: Designing a Ubiquitous Audio-Based Memory Aid. Proceedings of Mobile HCI 2004: The 6th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (September 13-16, Glasgow, Scotland), 2004

Virtual Rear Projection

Creating interactive surfaces with rear projected properties using multiple front projectors, allowing flexible deployment of interactive wall sized displays. This research has led to the release of the GVU PROCAMS toolkit, designed to ease the construction of projector camera systems. Summet, J., Abowd, G.D., Corso, G.M., and Rehg, J.M. Virtual Rear Projection: Do Shadows Matter? CHI 2005 Extended Abstracts, Pages 1997-2000, Portland, Oregon, USA. April 2-7, 2005. (pdf)

Capture Resistant Environment

The Capture Resistant Environment uses cameras and projectors to prevent unauthorized photography and video recording. The camera can detect the lens of a digital camera and the projected light can neutralize the camera, making any images or video recordings blurred and thus useless. Truong, K.N., Patel, S.N., Summet, J.W., and Abowd, G.D. Preventing Camera Recording by Designing a Capture-Resistant Environment. In the Proceedings of Ubicomp 2005, September, Tokyo, Japan, 2005. (PDF)

Powerline Positioning

PowerLine Positioning (PLP) is an inexpensive technique that uses fingerprinting of multiple tones transmitted along the powerline to achieve subroom- level localization. We have compared PLP to other fingerprinting techniques and found that it compares favorably. Patel, S.N., K.N. Truong, and G.D. Abowd. PowerLine Positioning: A Practical Sub-Room-Level Indoor Location System for Domestic Use.In the proceedings of Ubicomp 2006. Orange County, California, USA. 2006. (pdf)

iCam

Effective integration of sensing and laser-assisted interaction have resulted in a handheld device, the iCam, which simultaneously calculates its own location as well as the location of another object in the environment. iCam demonstrates how location-aware, at-a-distance interaction simplifies certain location-aware activities. Patel, S.N., Rekimoto, J., and Abowd, G.D. iCam: Precise at-a-distance Interaction in the Physical Environment.In the Proceedings of Pervasive 2006: The 4th International Conference on Pervasive Computing. Dublin, Ireland. 2006.

TrackSense

While commercial solutions for precise indoor positioning exist, they are costly and require installation of additional infrastructure, which limits opportunities for widespread adoption. We have developed a self-contained solution to precise indoor positioning that requires no additional environmental infrastructure. Evaluation of our prototype indicates that such a system can deliver up to 4 cm accuracy with 3 cm precision in rooms up to five meters squared, as well as 2 degree accuracy and 1 degree precision on orientation. Köhler, M., Patel, S.N., Summet, J.W., Stuntebeck, E.P., Abowd, G.D. TrackSense: Infrastructure Free Precise Indoor Positioning using Projected Patterns To appear, Fifth International Conference on Pervasive Computing, May 13-16 2007, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Early Detection of Developmental Delay

We are interested in designing technology to help detect, record, and track important developmental milestones that occur in children during their first 5 years of life. By tracking these milestones, we can help parents and healthcare providers detect developmental delays such as autism, deafness earlier, which can improve the effects of interventions. Kientz, J.A., R.I. Arriaga, M. Chetty, G.R. Hayes, J. Richardson, S.N. Patel, and G.D. Abowd. Grow and Know: Understanding Record-Keeping Needs for the Development of Young Children. To appear in the Proceedings of CHI 2007. 2007. (PDF)

Bufferware

BufferWare is a space-based table-top application that allows you to save the last few minutes of audio and video when you least expected to need or want to save things. BufferWare takes advantage of Experience Buffers, a collection of continually active capture services that together comprise a capture architecture embedded in an environment. Experience Buffers do not inherently archive information, providing a balance of social, technical, and practical concerns of capture applications.

FETCH

FETCH is a mobile system for aiding the visually impaired in locating their misplaced objects in many locations. Through a focus group and individual interviews with the visually impaired, we discovered a need for a quick, temporary tagging system for frequently lost objects that can be used in many locations. We deployed this system with 4 users in visual impariments on a mobile phone using Bluetooth tags. Kientz, J.A., S.N. Patel, A.T. Tyebkhan, B. Gane, J. Wiley, and G.D. Abowd. Where’s My Stuff? Design and Evaluation of a Mobile System for Locating Lost Items for the Visually Impaired. In the Proceedings of ASSETS 2006. Portland, Oregon, USA. 2006. (pdf)