Speaker: Joe Marks , Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL)
Ubiquitous-Computing Research at MERL: A Selective Overview
Abstract: When computing was confined to the desktop, HCI research was conveniently limited in scope and could, for the most part, be performed by teams of people with a well-defined set of complementary skills, e.g., interaction design, computer graphics, and usability testing. Ubiquitous computing has changed all that: HCI research is now wildly more interdisciplinary and requires teams of very diverse composition. In addition to people well versed in traditional HCI methods, current "ubicomp" research can require people who have broad knowledge in several areas (e.g., computer science, electrical engineering, applied mathematics, physics, chemistry, psychology, and design) and deep knowledge in selected fields (e.g., artificial intelligence, decision and control, computer perception, networked communication, wireless communication, signal processing, power engineering, software engineering, etc.) I will illustrate this point with a description of three suites of ubicomp projects at MERL that have required such varied expertise:
Short Bio: Joe Marks grew up in Dublin, Ireland, before coming to the U.S. for college. He earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Harvard University in 1991. His areas of interest include computer graphics, human-computer interaction, and artificial intelligence. He has worked previously at Bolt Beranek and Newman and at Digital's Cambridge Research Laboratory. He is currently the Director of MERL's Research Lab. He is also the recent past chair of ACM SIGART and will be the papers chair for SIGGRAPH 2004.
Host: Robert St. Amant, Computer Science, NCSU