Interactive Displays and "Billboards" in Public Spaces; Pervasive Displays 2013

The 2013 International Symposium on Pervasive Displays (PerDis 2013), recently convened  in Mountain View, California.  Since I couldn't attend this conference, I was happy to learn from Albrecht Schmidt that the conference proceedings were recently uploaded to the ACM Digital library.  There are many exciting things going on in this interdisciplinary field!

Researchers involved with the Instant Places project, described in the video below, presented their work at PerDis 2013. The Instant Places project was part of PD-Net, a series of research efforts exploring the future of pervasive display networks in Europe. (See the "Related" section for additional references and links.)


Instant Places: Tools and Practices for Situated Publication in Display Networks

Below is information from the Instant Places video and website:
"The video describes a novel screen media system that explores new practices for individual publication and identity projection in public digital displays." 

"Instant Places has been developed by the Ubicomp group of the Information Systems Department, at the University of Minho, and has been funded within the scope of pd-net: Towards Future Pervasive Display Networks, by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 244011."

Saul Greenberg was the keynote speaker at PerDis 2013.  His keynote, "Proxemic Interactions: Displays and Devices that Respond to Social Distance", highlights how far off-the-desktop our digital/physical lives have become, and how this has influenced recent research in human-computer interaction. Saul is a professor at the University of Calgary and leads research in Human Computer Interaction, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, and Ubiquitous Computing.

Although the video of Saul Greenberg's presentation below is not from PerDis 2013, it touches on the same topics and is worth taking an hour to watch.  In this video, Greenberg presents an overview of the history of human-computer interaction. He also offers up a discussion how an understanding social theory, perception of spatial relationships, and embodied interaction can be applied to the design of natural user interfaces and interactive systems.  Useful examples of interaction design explorations, within an ecological context, are provided later in the video.

Proxemic Interactions: the New Ubicomp?

RELATED

My Backstory

Regular readers of this blog know that to subject interactive displays in public spaces holds my interest. When I was taking computer courses during the mid 2000s, I focused some of my energy on projects designed for large interactive displays, inspired by reading articles like "Physically Large Displays Improve Performance on Spatial Tasks" (Desney S. Tan, Darren Gergle, Peter Scupelli, and Randy Pausch) and "Dynamo: public interactive surface supporting the cooperative sharing and exchange of media" (Shahram Izadi, Harry Brignull, Tom Rodden, Yvonne Rogers, Mia Underwood).  

Jeff Han's 2006 TED talk was another inspiration. I remember my excitement as watched his demonstration of an interactive multi-touch touch screen the size of a drafting board, before the iPhone/iPad was born.  Another inspiration was Hans Rosling's TED Talk  about health statistics, with his animated interactive data visualizations presented on a huge screen.

The following year, I stumbled upon the  NUI-Group while searching for information about multi-touch displays, and was inspired by many of the early members of the group.  I also became acquainted with a world-wide network of people who share similar interests, such as Albrecht Schmidt and his team of researchers at the Unversity of Stuttgart. This busy group recently presented at PerDis 2013 and at CHI 2013 and are involved in a wider range of ongoing projects.

INTERACTIVE DISPLAYS

Alt, F. Sahami, A., Kubitza, T., Schmidt, A.  Interaction Techniques for Creating and Exchanging Content with Public Displays. In: Proceedings of the 2013 ACM Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 

Hinrichs, U., Carependale, S., Valkanova, N., Kulkkaniemi, K., Jacucci, G., Moer, A.V., Interactive Public Displays   Computer Graphics, Vol. 33(2) IEEE Computer Society (25-27)

The International Symposium on Pervasive Displays (PerDis 2013)

PerDis 2013 Program
Sample Papers:
Otero, N., Muller, M., Alissandrakis, A., and Milrad, M. Exploring video-based interactions around digital public displays to foster curiosity about science in the schools. PerDis 2013 (pdf)
Alt, F., Schneegass, S., Girgis, M., Schmidt, A. Cognitive Effects of Interactive Public Display Applications. Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Symposium on Pervasive Displays. 2013
Langeinrich, M., Schmidt, A., Davies, N., and Jose, R.  A practical framework for ethics: the 

Note:  Members of ACM have access to all of the proceedings of PerDis2013 in the ACM Digital Library. Non-members have access to the abstracts.

PD-NET

PD-net approach to supporting ethics compliance in public display studies. Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Symposium on Pervasive Displays. 139-143
PD-Net 
PD-NET Publications - a great reference list, with links to many papers
Reading List on Pervasive Public Displays
About Instant Places
About the Living Lab for Screens Set

DOOH-DIGITAL OUT-OF-HOME

Digital Out of Home (DOOH): Screens Large and Small at the Mall (and some touch-screen Coke machines!) Interactive Multimedia Technology, 1/1/10

Daily Digital Out of Home post "Billboards That Look Back" : Could miniature cameras embedded in ads lead to Big Brother at the mall? The World Is My Interactive Interface, 5/28/08
J. Müller et al., "Looking Glass: A Field Study on Noticing Interactivity on a Shop Window," Proc. 2012 SIGCHI Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 12), ACM, 2012, pp. 297–306
Michelis, D., Meckel, M. Why Do We Want to Interact With Electronic Billboards in Public Space?  First Workshop on Pervasive Advertising, Pervasive 2009, 5/11/09
The Rage of Interactive Billboards
The Print Innovator, 11/28/12
10 Brilliant Interactive Billboards (Videos)
Amy-Mae Elliot, Mashable, 8/21/11

SOME INTERESTING EARLIER WORK

Jeff Han's 2006 TED Talk (This is worth revisiting, as it came out before the iPhone, iPad, etc.)

Tan, D.S., Gergle, D, Scupelli, P., Pauch, R. Physically large displays improve performance on spatial tasks. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, V13(1) 2006 (71-99)

Revisiting promising projects: Dynamo an application for sharing information on large interactive displays in public spaces (blog post)
Lynn Marentette, Interactive Multimedia Technology, 09/16/07

Brignull, H., Izadi, S., Fitzpatrick, G., Rogers, Y., Rodden,  T. The introduction of a shared interactive surface into a communal space. Proceedings of the 2004 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work (CSCW'04), Chicago, ACM Press, 2004 (pdf)

Izadi, S., Brignull, H., Rodden, T., Rogers, Y. and Underwood,M. Dynamo: public interactive surface supporting the cooperative sharing and exchange of media. In Proc. User

Interfaces and Software Technologies (UIST’03), Vancouver, ACM Press, 2003, 159-168. (pdf)

Proxemics (Wikipedia)

Why Do We Want to Interact With Electronic Billboards in Public Space? 

WHY DO WE WANT TO INTERACT WITH ELECTRONIC BILLBOARDS IN PUBLIC SPACE? from danielmichelis

Septris: A game to teach about Sepsis, plus resources and links

 According to a fact sheet from the Global Sepsis Alliance, sepsis "remains the primary cause of death from infection despite advances in modern medicine, including vaccines, antibiotics, and intensive care.  Sepsis, which is often misunderstood by the public as "blood-poisoning", is one of the leading cause of death around the world.  Sepsis arises when the body's response to an infection injures its own tissues and organs.  It may lead to shock, multiple organ failure, and death, especially if not recognized early and treated promptly.  Between on third and one half of patients with sepsis die...


...Rapid initiation of simple, timely interventions, including antimicrobials and intravenous fluids can halve the risk of dying. Patients with suspected sepsis should be referred immediately to an appropriate facility...Unfortunately, sepsis is still mostly overlooked and recognized too late"


SEPTRIS, a game about sepsis, was developed by a team of people from Stanford University.   The following article, written by Sara Wykes (Stanford School of Medicine), provides an in-depth account of the story behind the development of a game designed to teach medical professionals about sepsis:  Game on: Stanford develops new tool for teaching doctors to treat sepsis.



Credit:  "Dr. Septris"; Septris Screen Shot: Stanford University


Anyone can play Septris for free.  The link is optimize to run nicely on an iPad, iPhone, or Android, but can be accessed on a desktop through Firefox, Chrome, or Safari browsers.  If you are a medical professional and need CME credits, the fee for the certificate of completionis $20.00. The fee was waived for the first 100 users.


RELATED
Septris CME Website (Stanford)
Septris Game
Septris Technical Design & Development Team
Brian Tobin
Jamie Tsui
James Laird
Glenn Zephier


World Sepsis Declaration (pdf)
Sepsis Alliance
Global Sepsis Alliance
Pediatric Sepsis Initiative
STOP Sepsis Collaborative

Note:  Sepsis Awareness is now one of my "causes".  The first World Sepsis Day is September 13, 2012 and I plan to share information about this global health concern from time-to-time, and related to technology in some way.


Below is a picture of my 24-year-old daughter, her husband, and son on Friday, March 31, 2012.   At the time this picture was taken, she felt fine and had just walked about a mile and a half or so on a family stroll. She was in perfect health.  She woke up in the wee hours of April 1st with the signs of an infection, took something for her aches and pains, and went back to bed.



The next day, things were much worse. She didn't know it at the time, but her blood pressure was falling and the signs of sepsis were appearing.  Time was wasted going to an urgent care clinic. Fortunately she was referred to the E.R, where her her symptoms were identified.  She received excellent treatment at Matthews Presbyterian Hospital.  It took several days until she was stable, and she was hospitalized for one week.  Unlike many people who experience sepsis, she did not suffer tissue damage or shutdown of her organs. Her treatment was initiated early enough to prevent this from happening. 


Below is a picture of my daughter as she was beginning to recover.




UPDATE 7/15/12  
My daughter is doing much better, but she experienced a great deal of fatigue for several weeks following her hospitalization


I recently came across an article written in the New York Times, by Jim Dwyer, about Rory Staunton, a 12-year-old boy who died from a strep infection that resulted in a sepsis crisis that went untreated.  Unlike my daughter, Rory was discharged from the ER instead of being admitted for the intensive treatment that my daughter received. When his parents took him back to the hospital, it was too late. He died on April 1, 2012.  My daughter battling sepsis in the hospital in North Carolina on the very same day.


Although I am not a physician, I am sure that Rory's death could have been prevented, based on information in the article as well as information shared by Rory's parents on their website. 


To learn more about Rory's story, read the New York Time's article and a few of the comments. At the time of this update, over 1500 comments were listed on the NYT's website.


An Infection, Unnoticed, Turns Unstoppable
Jim Dwyer, New York Times, 7/11/12

Reaction to Column About a Boy Who Died
Jim Dwyer, New York Times, 7/14/12

Rory Staunton (Website created by Rory's parents)
Rory's sepsis crisis was the result of toxic shock from a Strep A infection.  Sepsis can also be the result of other types of infections. The main thing to know that  is that once sepsis sets in, the patient requires immediate and intensive treatment, guided by an infectious disease specialist.