Workshops

Colloquium

Tutorials

Call for Papers for ISWC On-Body Sensing Workshop

This half-day workshop is focused on new ideas in on-body sensing. Participants will be selected based on a two-page position paper. Topics for the workshop include (but are not limited to): The emphasis of this workshop is on new, possibly crazy ideas rather than old and established practice. To participate, submit a two-page position paper in PDF format to .

Submissions due: August 15, 2005
Acceptance notification: September 15, 2005

Chairs:
Daniel Ashbrook - Georgia Tech
Tracy Westeyn - Georgia Tech

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Workshop on Ubiquitous Experience Media

http://www.mis.atr.jp/iswc-uem2005/

Theme

A person's experience often compels the person's activity to be improved in some way, and such experience may also be utilized by other people. It is therefore important to share our everyday experiences among people instead of keeping them to ourselves. This process of sharing experience can be facilitated by a new media technology, which is derived from focusing ubiquitous computing technology on experience sharing among people. This technology can be called "ubiquitous experience media." It clearly has a strong relation to the topics of the main conference.

The experiences here include our everyday activities such as speaking, meeting, working, playing sport, and traveling in personal or group contexts, which can be seen as interactions with other people and/or any other objects, including artificial artifacts. Data recorded by various devices such as digital video, location-tracking devices, tactile sensors, and so on can be used as information sources on our experiences for various tasks in daily life. These tasks might include, for instance, aiding human memory, recognizing contexts, modeling a person's activities, and creating a lifelong story.

This workshop covers the following topics but is not limited to them:

Intended Audience

The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers from various backgrounds and projects who have interest in this area. Researchers who are tackling research ranging from very fundamental issues to real application systems will be welcome.

Paper Submission

Paper submissions will be reviewed. Please send submissions electronically to iswc-uem2005@atr.jp.

Submission deadline: August 20th
Acceptance notification. September 16th
Format and length: Only electronic submissions (PDF) will be considered. Submissions should not exceed 10 pages, formatted according to the IEEE Computer Science Press format.

Organizers

Norihiro Hagita (ATR)
Kiyoshi Kogure (ATR)
Hyun S. Yang (KAIST)

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Call for Papers for ISWC Student/Doctoral Colloquium

The purpose of the colloquium is to offer researchers (in particular students) who are new to the wearable field an opportunity to present their ideas and research plans and get feedback from the community. To this end you are invited to submit an abstract of max 3 pages including all figures and bibliography by July 15th to . All abstracts will be reviewed on the basis of the originality, soundness, and scientific merit of the research goals, the quality of the presentation, and related work. In addition the reviewers will judge whether a plausible plan and appropriate methods are proposed for conducting the planned research.

Since we aim to foster the presentation of new ideas including newly starting PhD projects results of experimental or theoretical evaluation is not a prerequisite. Accepted contributions will be invited to take part in a posters session during the conference. The posters will be evaluated by experts and the best contribution will be awarded a best paper award. The abstracts will be published in dedicated proceedings that will be distributed during the conference and will be electronically made available to the public.

Submissions due: August 15, 2005
Acceptance notification: September 15, 2005
Camera-ready copy due: October 1, 2005

Mail submissions in PDF or PS format to Paul Lukowicz (). Submissions should be in IEEE Computer Science Press format and should be a maximum of 3 pages in length.

Chairs:
Paul Lukowicz UMIT Innsbruck, Austria / ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Holger Junker ETH Zurich, Switzerland

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Stargate Wearable Platform

Trevor Pering
Intel Research

Kent Lyons
College of Computing and GVU Center Georgia Institute of Technology

Abstract

This tutorial will cover using the commercially available Stargate platform as a wearable computer, complete with a heads -up display and Twiddler keyboard. The main objective of this tutorial is to enable participants to construct their own wearable computer using readily available components. Intended audience members are researchers and practitioners who are interested in building and using their own wearable device. A "door prize" of a basic wearable kit will be given to at least one participant (greater than a $500 value, does not include heads-up display).

Topic

The Stargate platform (http://platformx.sourceforge.net) is an open research platform built around the Intel(r) XScale(tm) family of processors. It supports a completely open software build environment, based on the Linux kernel and the Familiar Linux distribution. It has been widely used in the Sensor Network and Robotics community, and can be easily configured as a wearable computer. The basic platform supports low-power, high-performance computing in a compact form factor. By attaching a few key peripherals, this general-purpose research platform can be easily turned into a wearable computer. Specifically, combining a Compact Flash VGA adaptor, heads-up display, and a one-handed text entry device the Stargate turns into a powerful wearable platform. Adding Bluetooth support enables a connection with nearby infrastructure and provides additional I/O capabilities. The major hardware compornents used to build a Stargate Wearable include: Additionally, we are considering to make an offer of a "take home "kit. available with an increased registration cost. However, we need to better understand the logistics of this before we can commit. (I.e., how to manage the money flow, exact cost, potential interest, etc...) Participants should have the following experience and prerequisites:

Bio

Trevor Pering is a senior researcher with the Ubiquity Group in Intel Research. His research has focused on many aspects of mobile and ubiquitous computing, including hardware desigh, wireless systems, and usage models. His background is in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, having received his B.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley-but he has a strong inclination towards developing a compelling user experience supprted by emerging thechnology, His initial research at Berkeley focused on the InfoPad wireless tablet and Dynamic Voltage Scaling for microprocessor. For the last four years, he has been developing the Personal Server concept, which stresses the local communication aspect of mobile computing.

Kent Lyons is a PhD candidate in Georgia Tech's College of Computing. His research interests include Human-Computer Interaction, Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing, and Wearable Computing. A technologist at heart, Kent's research focuses on applying novel technologies in a user centered way; thereby bridging the gap between these two research styles. His dissertation work is investigating ways to enhance conversations by improving mobile input. More generally, he is interested in the integration of mobile devices into everyday life through the use of HCI. Kent has authored several HCI papers on mobile and wearable computing and presented user interface work at CHI, UIST, ISWC and Mobile HCI. Kent is also an everyday wearable computer user and has worn a wearable daily since 1999.

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Tutorial on Integration Technologies for Wearable Computing

Dipl.-Ing.Torsten Linz
Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration(IZM)

Abstract

This tutorial gives an inside on current developments in the field of integration technologies for wearable electronics and electronics in textiles. The subject will be approached from the textile engineering side as well as from the electrical engineering side. Starting from different textile base materials like threads, conductive threads and thin wires the course will continue with textile processing technologies like weaving, embroidery and knitting followed by assmbly technologies like flip chip, wire bonding, thin silicon and flexible substrates. After this important basic knowledge different ideas and developments concerning integration technologies for electronics in textiles will be looked into. Further on traditional encapsulation technologies from the electronics industry and coating processes from the textile industry will be introduced and necessary changes for the new environment will be discussed. Thereafter the integration of input and output devices as well as energy sources of all kinds will be shortly touched. In the end a portfolio of different applications and products that have been realized with these technologies will be presented. The focus of all this are not developments coming only from Fraunhofer IZM but developments and products from all research and industry groups that deal with such technologies.

Content and Goal

What hinders most wearable electronics researchers to market their ideas today is a fundamental lack of knowledge about integration technologies for electronics in textiles. The ideas typically remain in prototype state with large and unireliable electronic modules not sellable as mass products.

What the market needs are foolproof, simple to use "wear & play" devices that are seamlessly integrated into clothes. The wearer shall sense it as a peace of clothing rather than a device. This tutorial gives a good inside of technologies that are developed in different labs and companies all over the world. Issues are:

Bio

Torsten Linz has been a research assistant and a Ph.D. student at Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration since January 2003. He is developing microelectronic packaging technologies for electronics in textiles. He has realized half a dozen truly wearable demonstrators, together with desingers.

He has presented his work at different international conferences like CINTE (Shanghai, 2004), New Technology and Smart Textiles for Industry and Fashion Conference (London, 2004), Smart Fabrics (Barcelona, 2005), and he will present also at Avantex/Techtextil (Frankfurt, June 2005), and Ambience (Tampere, Septenber 2005). He has also applied to present a paper to this ISWC'05 conference with the title "Embroidering Electrical Interconnects with Conductive Yarn for the Integration of Flexible Electronic Modules into Fabric".

In 2002 he graduated from RWTH Aachen University as an electrical engineer (Dipl.-Ing.) in the field of telecommunication. During his thesis he defined and implemented an information retrieval system that is based on mobile sftware agents. In 1999/2000 he studied at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. Later in 2000 he worked for Ericsson Rome, where he analyzed migration strategies for network architectures for midsized and large telecommunication providers. The Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration is internationally among the leading institutions in the field of microelectronic packaging. Core competencies are system integration, assmbly and interconnection technologies, wafer level integration, material development, characterization and simulation, reliability studies and improvements, system design and environmental engineering.

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A Tutorial on Wearable Computing for Persons with Disabilities

Maribeth Gandy
Interactive Media Technology Center
Georgia Institute of Technology

Abstract

The goal of this tutorial is to provide attendees with a survey of issues related to wearable computing for persons with disabilities. Topics to be covered will include adiscussion of why accessibility and universal design are important, along with information on current accessibility techniques and relevant legislation. The research activities Wireless Rehabilitaion Engineering Research Center (RERC), which focuses on wirelss and mobile devices for people with disabilities, will be summarized. There will also be a detailed look at previous wearable research in the disability domain. The process of designing a wearable system for persons with disabilities will be discussed along with two relevant case studies that illustrates some of the unique challeges in this type of research. Lastly, the tutorial will focus on the future directions that wearable computing for disabilities can take with the goal of motivating attendees to consider these issues while carrying out their research. The intended audience of this tutorial includes reserchers and developers in wearable or mobile computing who are interested in learning more aobut how their work can aid those with disabilities. However, a high level of technical knowledge will not be necessary to benefit from this tutorial.

Bio

Maribeth Gandy is a Research Scientist with the Interactive Media Technology Center (IMTC) at Georgia Tech. She is involved with many biomedical and wearable related research projects. In the past she was a co-author on papers regarding such topics as audio-only wearable computing and a wearable device for universal control. She was also involved in an NIH funded grant to explore the use of computer vision, digital signal processing, expert systems, and computer graphics to automate a brain surgery procedure that alleviates the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Previously she oversaw a project which is focused on developing a computerized system for assessing a patient's dexterity as well as cognitive abilities with the goal of early deteciton of disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and depression. Maribeth is a project director and co-investigator in the Wireless RERC (www.wirelessrerc.org), a 5-year $5 mil grant form the National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) in the area of wirelss and mobile devices for people with disabilities. Maribeth is a co-investigator on RERC research such as user needs assessment and on development projects for universal control and congnitive prosthetics. Another of her duties with the RERC is as the project director for the Univeisity Instruction portion of the Center, which is an initiative to bring accessibility and universal design concepts to researchers, students, and industry. She has developed a clearinghouse of material related to these topices and is a regular guest lecturer on this topic in courses at Georgia Tech and other universities. She has also presented tutorials on this topic at conferences such as ISWC and HCII.

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Computer Vision for Wearable Visual Interface

Walterio Mayol
Department of Computer Science
Faculty of Engineering
University of Bristol

Takeshi Kurata
Information Technology Research Institute
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)

Abstract

Visual sensors are nowadays so commonplace, cheap and compact that one motivation for wearable computer vision might simply be - why not? But the real importance of wearable vision is in the wide spectrum of information that a wearable camera can recover because of its unique position. This ranges from three-dimensional world structure and object properties such as colour and identity to the detection of people and activities.

In this tutorial we will present an overview of the work done to date in wearable vision, some of the key fundamentals, techniques and applications such as personal assistants, human-computer interfacing and remote collaboration, We will also share expertize in the development of real-time hardware and software for wearable vision systems.

Aim

Our objective is to show the advantages and limitations of computer vision for wearables by presenting the subjects in an approachable and repeatable manner, with both broad overviews and technical "tips" for the beginner. We will place special emphasis in describing current and perceivable applications. The tutorial should be of relevance to most people with an undergraduate level in computer science or engineering planning to incorporate visual sensors into wearable systems.

Bio

Walterio Mayol, University of Bristol
Walterio Mayol is a full-time Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the Computer Science Department at the University of Bristol, UK. Graduated from the National University of Mexico and obtained a PhD from the robotics research group of the University of Oxford on the topic of Wearable Active Vision. His interests include robotics, camera technologies, industrial design and real-time computer vision for wearable computing. Has co-authored more than 60 papers on the topics of pattern recognition, control robotics and wearable vision and has been invited to talk about his research to a wide range of technical and non-technical audiences that include museums, TV and Universities.

Takeshi Kurata, AIST
Takeshi Kurata is a Research Scientist at the Information Technology Research Institute at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan. Obtained a Master's degree of Engineering from University of Tsukuba on "Recovering 3-D Structure and Motion from Image Sequences". Has attended a doctoral course in the Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineerig, University of Tsukuba. His interests include computer vision, wearable/pervasive computing, human interface, augmented reality, and context awareness. Has directed the Augmented Reality Interaction team at the AIST in which wearable visual interface (Weavy) technologies have been developed. Has co-authored several papers for ISWC such as wearable active camera/laser and the application to remote collaboration, and personal positioning based on data fusion of walking locomotion analysis with self-contained sensors and measurement of absolute position and orientation with a wearable camera.

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