Simplified Facial Animation Control Utilizing Novel Input Devices: A Comparative Study

My comments on other blogs:


Authors:
Nikolaus Bee - University of Augsburg
Bernhard Falk - University of Augsburg
Elisabeth André - University of Augsburg

Summary:
This paper explores three different input sources for the manipulation of facial animations on three dimensional objects.  This research uses a library called FACS (Facial Action Coding System) to encode parts of a 3D model to allow easy animations to be implemented and changed.

Many computer games that allow the manipulation of facial features use slider bars which makes it easy because the programmer can just slap some slider onto a range of values.  The research group came up with the idea of using a game pad and a data glove as possible input sources to change values associated with the 3D model.

Early on in the study the research group asked two professional graphic artists from a well-known video game company to review their idea of using these two inputs in place of the common sliders.  Both experts agreed that the game pad seemed a more natural way of input while the data glove was not a very good source of input.

Along with this data the research group implemented a user study to test this theory on 17 non-professional participants.  Most users stated that they "felt" more comfortable with the sliders, however the data showed that the users actually performed faster with the game pad.  Much like the experts suggested, the data glove was not a good source of input and not well liked.

Discussion:
I chose to read this paper because it looked interesting because I am interested in the video game development process and facial animation ties in with that field.  After reading the paper, I realized this was based on the input processes for the manipulation of the facial animation.  I found it strange that the researchers chose to test the data glove even after the experts said it was a bad idea, and what do you know? People hated the data glove.  Overall the paper was quite boring and did not state much other than the fact that the game pad was a better source of input than both traditional sliders and a data glove.  I did not feel like this paper was "published journal" worthy material.

Hand Gesture Recognition and Virtual Game Control Based on 3D Accelerometer and EMG Sensors

My comments on other blogs:


Authors:
Xu Zhang - University of Science & Technology of China
Xiang Chen - University of Science & Technology of China
Wen-hui Wang - University of Science & Technology of China
Ji-hai Yang - University of Science & Technology of China
Vuokko Lantz - Nokia Research Center
Kong-qiao Wang - Nokia Research Center

Summary:
Accelerometers have been used as devices to accurately measure large movements but lack the precision needed to detect finger movement.  Electromyogram sensors have also been used to detect small subtle movements but cannot accurately measure large scale movements.

This paper introduces a hand based gesture device that combines both accelerometers (ACC) with electromyogram (EMG) sensors with the help of Hidden Markov Models (HMM) to increase accuracy.

A user study was done to test the effectiveness of ACC devices alone, EMG devices alone, and the combination of ACC+EMG devices.  From this study it showed that:

• ACC devices are only accurate 85.5-90.7% of the time
• EMG devices are only accurate 65.9-80.3% of the time
• ACC+EMG devices are accurate almost 100% of the time

The user study implemented a rubik's cube game that used this ACC+EMG device as input.

The participants were given a randomly mixed rubik's cube and asked to solve it with the device.  The user's were also given some common strategies to solve the rubik's cube quickly.

Discussion:
I thought this paper was definitely interesting although a little too much technical jargon was thrown that was pretty confusing.  Also, a lot of mathematical formulas were added and I was not able to fully understand what symbol's meant what.  From the pictures and data, it seems that this is a very plausible implementation of technology and is worth using in future research.  I think to fully trust the "almost 100% accuracy" reading I would have to test it myself.

Emotional Design

Author:

Don Norman

Summary:
This is yet another book by Don Norman.  This book is a response to his previous book The Design of Everyday Things.  Norman had gotten many complaints that if the world designed objects in the way he had first described then everything would work but would be ugly.  In this book he argues that he did not mean to discount the "emotional" side of design but to only bring attention the important fact that the product needs to actually work in order to be any good.

He goes through many scenarios much like in The Design of Everyday Things where he shows items that work well and that look good too.  One of the most prevalent images from his books are his obsession with teapots.  In the first book he showed the "masochist's teapot", a teapot where if you were to use it, you would surely scald yourself with boiling water.  He showed that this was badly designed for functional reasons.

In this book he tackles a different side of design, the aesthetics.  While he still states that functionality is important, it is equally important to have an emotional connection to the objects you own.  In fact, many of the objects that we hold most dear have no functional value at all (e.g. photographs of loved ones.)

He presents more teapots in this book, but now presents them in a different light.

He shows that he owns a "Coffeepot for Masochists", not for the functional value, but that every time he looks at it, it makes him smile.

He also owns a teapot designed by Michael Grave.  This teapot he states is beautiful, it works decently well and he uses it sometimes just for the sake that it is beautiful, not because the tea is better than another pot.  This is his example of a practical yet aesthetically pleasing object.

His third teapot is a Ronnefeldt "tilting" teapot.  This teapot is very unique as it is designed with each stage of the tea making process in mind.  This teapot is primarily functional, but he does not use it often because it is more work than he is willing to do for good tea.  It makes great tea, in fact, but just because it functional this does not mean it is the best choice for him.

While he enjoys all of his teapots, he actually rarely uses any of these three and they mainly serve as conversation starters.  Functional? No. Aesthetically pleasing? Yes.  Emotional connection? Definitely yes.

His point is that the emotional side of design is just as important as the functional side because we buy things for other reasons than to use on a daily basis.  This is the recurring theme throughout the book and is the main message he is trying to get across to the reader.  Although there are many other examples that he shares, this theme pretty much sums up the entire book.

Discussion:
I really do like Don Norman's writing.  A lot of it I can relate to and it makes the book that much more enjoyable.  I thought that this book was not quite as good as his first book but definitely a good addition to it.  I really have no bad comments and not really any good comments to share either.

IUI'09 Workshop Summary: Sketch Recognition

My comments on other blogs:


Author:
Tracy Anne Hammond

Summary:
This paper describes the IUI 2009 Sketch Recognition Workshop.  It explains that sketch recognition is automated understanding of some drawn diagram, picture, or stroke.  This area is important because it ties in the natural input of pen-like utensils to the world of computers through the use of multi-touch input devices. 

Natural input is key because the more intuitive the input to a device is, the easier it is to understand.  It allows for ideas that are easily drawn to be quickly and accurately represented by computer generated images.  Sketch recognition has been proven to increase learning by directly giving feedback as input is received.

Sketch recognition also has many areas of application such as with CAD (Computer Aided Design) software which is used in a variety of fields.  Most of the users of this software are known to first draw their diagrams and sketches on actual paper before they attempt to convert that image into the computerized version.  Sketch recognition allows for this image to be analyzed and directly converted into the computerized version without the need to manually translate each part.

Discussion:
This paper was short and informative.  I chose to read this paper solely because Dr. Hammond was the author.  Although this paper is not technically a "research paper," it is important to realize what types of workshops are offered at different conferences as well as some of the details pertaining to what the workshop entails.

TrailBlazer: Enabling Blind Users to Blaze Trails Through the Web

My comments on other blogs:



Authors:
Jeffrey P. Bigham - University of Washington
Tessa Lau - IBM Almaden Research Center
Jeffrey Nichols - IBM Almaden Research Center

Summary:
This paper introduces a problem concerning how blind computer users use the web.  Although there already exists screen readers to help a blind person navigate a web page, this process is time consuming and takes substantially longer than it would for a person with the ability to see.

Sometimes web developers provide annotations and other meta data to a page that can be interpreted by screen readers to help navigate these pages.  However, the actually implementation of this is costly to the software developer and is often left out of most web pages.  Also, the structuring of websites is not strict so a simple algorithm to extract key data cannot be implemented to work for every web page.

TrailBlazer provides scripts that can be written for pages that help to annotate types of pages.  The example given in the paper is an airline web page.  The goal is to generalize these scripts as much as possible so that they can be applied in various situations.  For instance, if you have a script for airline website A but not for airline website B, TrailBlazer can apply the script to airline website B as well.  If the script cannot be easily applied, it attempts to create a script to help guide the blind user through the web page.

TrailBlazer can also be used to intelligently search for more information.  It has been proven to get the top result of a web search in a list of the "top 5 possible websites matching your query" 75.9% of the time.  The accuracy is crucial because even with help of the navigational script of TrailBlazer, it still takes a blind user more time to navigate a page than it would if they could simply glance at the content.

Discussion:
This paper didn't convince me that this is the "best new thing" for blind users and that is disappointing.  While I do not know that much about screen readers or how blind people navigate the web, this still does not seem like a solid system for navigating pages.  It still requires the user to memorize a large amount of keyboard commands that may or may not be along with the standard commands.  While I believe that it is good that research is being done to help those that have this extra difficulty, TrailBlazer did not seem to be a 100% viable solution to the problem and only added an additional strain to the blind user.

The Design and Evaluation of Multi-Finger Mouse Emulation Techniques

 My comments on other blogs:



Authors:
Justin Matejka - Autodesk Research
Tovi Grossman -Autodesk Research
Jessica Lo - Autodesk Research
George Fitzmaurice - Autodesk Research

Summary:
With the increased use of multi-touch tables and screens, it is common for users to want the precision of the mouse from standard computer systems.  The goal of this paper is to find the best technique to for emulating the mouse on large multi-touch devices.  Autodesk Research explores many different avenues for mouse emulation and measures the effectiveness of each.

The study first focuses on the types of mapping for the mouse cursor (direct, offset, scaled absolute, and relative) and on the tracking style used (one finger tracking or two finger tracking.)  It was shown that the offset technique performed the best overall for both large and small targets.

The study then focuses on way to define button distinction.  Some of the styles that they chose to test and implement to specify left, right, and middle mouse buttons are:

• Chording Technique - a single tracking finger with each additional finger representing left, middle, and right buttons as the number of fingers increase.
• Side Technique - tracking is done by the index and ring finger.  The thumb activates the left button, the pinky activates the right button, and the middle finger activates the middle button.
• Distance Technique - a single tracking finger where the relative distances from the tracking finger represent left, middle, and right button trigger points.
• Gesture Technique - a single tracking finger where a thumb tap is the left button, and thumb swipe to the right activates the right button and thumb swipe downward activates the middle button.
• Side+Chording Technique - a single tracking finger where side and chording are combined where the thumb activates the left button, the middle finger activates the right button and the combination of thumb and middle finger activate the middle button.
• Side+Distance Technique - single tracking finger where the left button is activated by the thumb, the middle button is the middle finger and the right button is the index finger.
• Chording+Distance Technique - a single tracking finger that is similar to Side+Chording tracking but where distance determines the button press instead of which side the press occurs on.

From all of these techniques the study found that the Side+Distance Technique is far superior and easier to use out of all of the emulation techniques.  The SDMouse (Side+Distance Mouse) performed equal with physical mouse use.

The study then briefly explores button activation technique (momentary pressing vs. toggle button activation.)  It was found that momentary press is much faster and is the most like the way a physical mouse is used.


Discussion:
I chose to read this paper (a very long and detailed technical paper) because I am very interested in multi-touch table technology and this confronts the input issues head on.  I have read other papers trying to solve this same issue and I believe this one satisfies the need the best.  While I do think the information is very useful, from all of the pictures, videos, and pretending to try it out myself, I find it very uncomfortable to not have something in my hand.  My hand gets cramped easily and it feels more awkward than if I was simply holding something.  They did not address this issue in the paper, but I believe that would be useful future work for these researchers.

"Pimp My Roomba": Designing for Personalization

My comments on other blogs:



Authors:
JaYoung Sung - Georgia Institute of Technology
Rebecca E. Grinter - Georgia Institute of Technology
Henrik I. Christensen -  Georgia Institute of Technology

Summary:

In this paper the idea of personalization to promote the use of a product is explored by giving a number of participants Roomba vacuum cleaning robots along with customization kits.  The participants are encouraged to add custom skins, stickers, paint, and write on their robots in any way they see fit.  The study lasted six months and at the end of the six months the users were asked about their experiences with their Roomba.

Of the people that regularly used their Roomba a varying degree of customization was done.  About half of the users decided not to customize their Roomba because they did not want to feel attached to it and wanted it to just do its job and then be tucked away in the corner.  Overall they felt that customizing it was unnecessary for it to accomplish its task.

The other half of the users that regularly used their Roomba did personalize it to varying degrees.  Some of these users chose to go online and order pre-made "skins" to add to their robot because they felt that it was easier than placing stickers or drawing on it.  Another reason a skin was chosen was the fact that the participants wanted the Roomba to match their furniture.  They wanted the Roomba to blend in with the environment and be an "unnoticed helper."

The set of users who chose to personalize their robot with paints and stickers shared a common feeling that the Roomba was a part of their family.  They chose to take extra care of it and believed that the Roomba actually performed better once they gave it their own personal feel.  The customization of the robot reflected its perceived personality and the participants were more likely to show off their new "friend."

The people that chose not to use the Roomba either forgot that they had it or did not like it when it was in use.

Discussion:
I really enjoyed this paper for the fact that it was not so much focusing on the area of  "robotic vacuum cleaners" but instead on the idea of personalization for promoting use of a product.  I have personalized some of my own items for the same reasons as shown above and can relate to every side of the study.  For instance, I personalize my computer and my car and I feel a closer connection to them and interact with them more as beings rather than just "things".

I believe that if a product promotes itself to be personalizable, it easily affords itself to be used and loved by its owner.

The Inmates are Running the Asylum

My comments on other blogs:



Author: Alan Cooper

Summary:

This book attempts to compare humans and computers and tries to explain the interactions between them.  It comments on many difficulties most users find.  It also tries to explain the problem by pointing the finger at the software engineers who are making the products.  Cooper claims that bad systems are the software programmer's fault because the programmer does not think in the same way normal humans think.

Apart from not being human, programmers are terrible at design, always, period.  He proposes the introduction of a field known as the interaction designer and explains that this is necessary to the production of good usable software.  Cooper also says that the bad design is not completely the programmer's fault because they are comfortable with technology not with being a part of the human society.  Overall, the entire idea I got from the book was that software sucks because programmers do as well.

Personal Reflection:

I did not like this book at all.  I kept trying to be unbiased while reading and found that Cooper had many good points to be made... he just never fully made them.  His main reason for every problem I remember from the book was, "does software not make sense to you? blame a programmer" or "software is badly designed because programmers cannot read our minds."

Despite my distaste for the book, I did find one topic useful.  This topic was the metaphor of "dancing bearware" or software that works, but does not work well.  Everyone who sees the software working is too entranced by it actually working to see how badly designed it is.

Other than this sole useful information that was surprisingly not directly explained by "programmers are dumb" (it was eventually tied into "programmers are dumb"), the book had little to no use to me, nor did I care to read it.

Overall, the book just made me angry.

The Application of Forgiveness in Social System Design

My comments on other blogs:


Authors:
Asimina Vasalou - University of Bath
Jens Riegelsberger - Google, Ltd.
Adam Joinson - University of Bath

Summary:

This paper talked about the ability to add forgiveness to online systems such as eBay and Amazon to make user ratings not necessarily the most important thing.  It is common for users to be angry for an unknown reason and to take it out on others.  In this way, these online systems fall short.  Sometimes an angry user will give a seller a bad rating to discourage others from buying from them only later to regret the decision.  The process of rectifying the situation is currently nonexistent.  In order to account for this, the systems should employ a system that allows the "victim" to change their mind in situations like these or for unjust bad ratings to be nullified.

Personal Reflection:
While this paper was interesting and had a good point, I believe this technology already exists in many of the systems referenced such as eBay and Amazon.  I think it is a good idea and more companies should use the system of forgiveness, I just think the paper did a poor job of finding sources to back up their research

Theory-driven design strategies for technologies that support behavior change in everyday life

My comments on other blogs:



Authors:
Sunny Consolvo - Intel Research Seattle
David W. McDonald - University of Washington
James A. Landay - University of Washington

Summary:

This paper presents the idea that providing private, positive feedback when a goal is reached can help to motivate people to continue doing some task.  Particularly, this paper presents a system that utilizes a dynamic cell phone background that changes based on if a certain goal has been reached or not.  In this case a field of flowers is shown and flowers bloom as you progress towards your goal.  Once you have reached a weekly goal, a butterfly is added to your flowers.

This paper focuses on the idea that providing positive feedback only is essential to the process.  Studies have shown that having negative feedback can discourage a participant from reaching a goal.  Alternatively, a person would feel more motivated if they were privately working towards something that would be a realization of a personal goal.

Personal Reflection:
I really enjoyed this paper and it helped me to realize that system "punishment" is not the best tool for learning.  Instead, solely providing positive feedback can enhance learning and motivate a person to continue striving to reach a goal.

Empirical Evaluation for Finger Input Properties In Multi-touch Interaction

My comments on other blogs:


Authors:

Feng Wang - Kochi University of Technology
Xiangshi Ren - Kochi University of Technology

Summary:

This paper is about different strategies to read in multi-touch input from a finger.  The paper begins by explaining their device that is used for input.  This device is commonly known as a FTIR table, or a Frustrated Total Internal Reflection table.  Traditional input has been read in as a centroid coordinate, meaning, the entire blob of the finger is read, and center point is determined, and that center point is where the "click" occurred.

This research attempts to take into account many factors such as a orientation, contact area, length, width, and the coordinate to provide a more accurate touch interface.  The paper also hopes to not only provide a more accurate touch interface, but to also define a desired "minimum pixel length" for buttons.  This information is crucial to designers.  In order to create an easy to use interface, all of these considerations must be taken into account.

Personal Reflection:

I wanted to read this paper because I find FTIR touch interfaces interesting because it provides multi-touch technology while the device itself can easily be created.  I hope to be making my own FTIR device and this research greatly influences my idea of what such a multi-touch device could do.

Body and Mind: A Study of Avatar Personalization in Three Virtual Worlds

My comments on other blogs:



Authors:

Nicolas Ducheneaut - Palo Alto Research Center
Ming-Hui Wen - National Chiao-Tung University
Nicholas Yee - Palo Alto Research Center
Greg Wadley - The University of Melbourne

Summary:

It is commonplace in today's society for many people to "lead second lives" in the online domain in the form of an avatar.  In this paper, researchers explore the connection between users and their avatars focusing on the customization provided to the users in three different games.  The games studied are Maple Story, Second Life, and World of Warcraft, each with a unique character customization system.

Through various questionnaires and online interviews, the researchers were able to extract key data to show trends in avatar users.  It was found that the avatar's feature that is most important is the hair.  Across all games, hair was a clear and consistent leader in features that users both spent the most time on and cared about the most.  The study found that hair is usually the first and most distinguishing feature of any avatar and, thus, is used to convey some individuality of the user behind the avatar to the rest of the virtual world.

It was also found that the age differences in the users did not directly effect the user's personal connection with their avatar, but it did effect how much the user tried to make the avatar look like themselves.  The older the user, the projected age difference between themselves and their avatar was much wider.

Personal Reflection:

I enjoyed this paper because I have played all of these games at one point in time for various different lengths of periods.  I frequently found myself realizing the same things presented in this paper while playing these games.  I did find it interesting that hair was a driving feature in all games and that it afforded the most customization.

Learning from IKEA hacking: i'm not one to decoupage a tabletop and call it a day.

My comments on other blogs:



Authors:
Daniela Rosner - University of California, Berkeley
Jonathan Bean - University of California, Berkeley

This paper comments on the interactions of online members of DIY groups namely "IKEA Hackers."  IKEA hackers are people who buy IKEA products with the intention of changing them artistically to become unique pieces of furniture.  Whether it is simply changing a lamp to fit in a smaller space to taking apart pre-built furniture to construct a completely different design, the goal of IKEA hackers is to simply be creative and share your idea with others.  Online blogs are kept by members to share their current projects and ideas.  Community members are then able to comment, criticize and become inspired by others' projects at their leisure.

This paper simply introduced these communities as potential places to research, so I am not sure what to comment on.  I myself could be classified as an IKEA hacker so I did find it interesting that the hobby of buying products from companies with the intent of using it as a raw material for some other purpose has caught possible research attention.  I have never explicitly chosen IKEA products, but it was very interesting nonetheless.

Simulated Augmented Reality Windshield Display as a Cognitive Mapping Aid for Elder Driver Navigation

My comments on other blogs:

In this paper Seung Jun Kim and Anind K. Dey from the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University explore the benefits of using augmented reality in vehicles and the effect it has on the driver, namely elderly drivers.  It is common that elderly people often have much more trouble driving as they get older.  It is also common that as they lose their ability to navigate the road, even in familiar territory, they feel less likely to leave for fear of being lost.  This fear leads to a major reduction in individual mobility.  The goal of this paper is to directly address this problem with an easier to use GPS.

The common factor that varies from conventional GPS systems is that they are often placed outside the direct line of view of the driver.  Meaning that the driver must divide their attention, half the time on the road, half the time on the GPS.  The system proposed in this paper projects a 2.5 dimensional GPS display onto the windshield.  This effect would help the driver to visualize the roads and more easily recognize streets along with the original functionality of the GPS systems we use today.

With the use of this software, studies found that when comparing conventional GPS systems to the windshield projected display GPS system, the windshield device slightly increased the driver's ability to correctly navigate in young drivers.  In older drivers, the windshield device substantially improved the driver's ability to navigate unfamiliar roads correctly.  All drivers were more aware of their surroundings and kept their eyes on the road more often with the augmented reality windshield device than with conventional GPS systems.

Discussion:

I believe this idea is well worth the research that was put into it.  Of course this sounds like a good/cool idea, but what if the projected display is not transparent enough and actually heeds the drivier's vision?  The author didn't directly address this statement, but I believe further research will help develop an idea of what a good transparency level would be.  While this paper would not have been my first choice of reading, the thoughts and ideas proposed are valid and worth reading.

The Design of Everyday Things

Author:  Donald A. Norman
Previously published as:  The Psychology of Everyday Things

This book focuses on how everyday things such as doors, sinks, telephones, etc. have many design issues that affect the actual use of the object.  It turns out that not all designs are thought through completely.  Sometimes exceptions are made for purely aesthetic reasons which in all reality cancel out the usefulness of the item in the first place.  For instance, the author repeatedly mentioned the fact that doors are sometimes ambiguous on how to open them.  Either pushing, pulling, push then pull, slide left, slide right, slide up, etc.  Sometimes this works, but often the natural mapping of the action is completely lost.

Natural mapping is a key part in the book.  An object must upon first glance be understandable of its use and function.  Objects that accomplish this task and that look aesthetically pleasing are rare and should be noted for the designers hard work.  This is often not the case.  Often, the exact opposite is true.  Designers are awarded for the most aesthetically pleasing objects and functionality is completely disregarded.  This only furthers the problem.  Another key point in the book.

This book is a very interesting read and I am very glad I got the chance to read it.  It gave me many thought provoking ideas and made me question why things were designed the way they were and why it hasn't changed for the better yet.  If this book is a marker for what this class will entail, I would be very excited about this semester.  I am not sure if this will hold true for the rest of the course, but I will definitely be more willing to start the books early for the mere fact that it is enjoyable reading.

Ethnography Idea

The Ethnography I am going to do is my idea of seeing who will recycle papers on campus versus simply throwing it in the trash.  The process is simple:

1.  Create many sheets of paper (a set amount, just a large number) with sayings such as "Do you hate people handing out papers on campus?  Would you prefer more recycling bins on campus? Go to this website for further information ... (website goes here) ... or simply recycle or throw away this piece of paper."

or perhaps just something like:  "Please recycle me or throw me away!"


2.  Borrow a large trash can and a large paper recycling bin.

3.  Place recycling bin and trash can next to each other in an intersection with heavy foot traffic.

4.  Stand with papers created in (1) near trash can and recycling bin.

5.  Hand papers out to random people as they walk toward me and the trash can/recycling bin.

6.  After all papers are handed out simply pick up the trash can and recycling bin and count up the papers inside each.

7.  Having a website link to a simple survey where the user can enter nominal information such as, "Do you prefer to recycle or toss things in the garbage?" with answers like, "whatever is closest" or "recycling if I can find one"

This would not only account for papers that were not gathered at the end of the user study, but would also allow for extra information to be gathered in the process.

Results are pretty easy to achieve!

Currently I am the only one I know of working on this ethnography, but I know Jill asked me in class so she might be in my group as well.  Feel free to join!  (It's easier than the other ones, you know you want to do it)

Augmenting Interactive Tables with Mice & Keyboards

My Comments on other blogs:
Brett Hlavinka
Chris Aikens


This paper was written by Björn Hartmann from the Stanford University HCI Group and Meredith Ringel Morris, Hrvoje Benko, and Andrew D. Wilson from Microsoft Research.  This paper explores the idea of having not only touch as input on multi-touch tables but keeping the standard mouse and keyboard  as well.  It is common for multi-touch technology to attempt to "do away with" the standardized mouse and keyboard, but it is shown that despite the oddity of the two, they are crucial for direct input to a computer.  The keyboard is almost irreplaceable as a form of text input because on-screen keyboards have such a slow response time associated with them.  Mice are equally important because it brings not only precision, but a form of "hand extension" to reach far away widgets.  In this paper a scenario of a group of students working on a research paper is presented to help introduce how this technology could be effectively used.

I enjoyed this paper more than I thought I would at first glance.  I originally thought that there was no need for mice and keyboards with multi-touch systems because the ability to provide multiple inputs should take care of the need for this norm.  When I thought of this, I neglected to realize the fact that current multi-touch technology has a "lag" when things are inputted.  This immediately corrected my thinking about having keyboards as a needed peripheral but I will still wary of the mouse.  Currently, most multi-touch devices are fairly small so the thought of a mouse as a natural "arm extension" seems plausible.  Also after looking at FTIR readings from hand input, I realize that the input is actually a "blob" not the "perfect point" that a mouse delivers.  This definitely raises some support from me for the mouse.  While I am altogether not sold on the mouse being absolutely necessary (a stylus is a much more natural method of precision and could replace the mouse easily), I find that the keyboard being a temporarily necessary device intriguing.  Once technology advances to where multi-touch keyboards are just as fast as the peripheral, I think it will begin to fade out of our daily lives.

User Guided Audio Selection from Complex Sound Mixtures

My comments on other blogs:
Chris Aikens

It is common among music to record multiple tracks and combine them into one waveform track.  Another common function that is yet to be refined is to extract one of these tracks from the complete waveform track and be able to edit it separately.  In this paper written by Paris Smaragdis from Adobe Systems, an algorithm is discussed that is able to extract a single overlaid track from a waveform track.  Through the use of an "assisted sound" such as a voice, whistle, or instrument as a model for what is to be extracted, the algorithm is able to distinguish what part of the sound to extract.  The user studies conducted to test their algorithm have been shown to be somewhat promising.  By using the exact sound originally mixed in (the perfect scenario), the algorithm successfully extracts the track.  Tests were performed with different sounds, genders, and instruments to try and perform this task and it was found that pitch along with pattern is essential to extracting the data.

As a musician myself, I find this algorithm intriguing.  It would be handy to be able to extract specific parts of a song and to change/edit them at my whim.  To improve upon this algorithm I would suggest adding a set of prerecorded sounds/pitches/lengths to a library.  The user tries to mimic the sound they hear in the music and it first gets converted into the sound pattern formed from the library.  Then the program would attempt to map this sound pattern with different instruments to the original track.  Perhaps adding in the allowance for a small deviation from the converted sound pattern would be helpful as well.

TapSongs: Tapping Rhythm-Based Passwords on a Single Binary Sensor

This paper presents a new authentication system that reads in a rhythmic beat as input, analyzes it, and if successful will authenticate the user.  It uses a binary sensor (one input at a time) to collect the password.  In the study of the software TapSongs, successful logins returned an 83.2% rate while false positives returned a 10.7% rate.  The claim of the paper is that this type of login is just as good as text based authentication.

When I first read this paper I was positive that this software would not be able to stand up to any sort of false positive test.  I assumed that tapping would be clearly audible to surrounding people and I knew that beats are easily remembered.  By looking at their statistics I can conclude that this is not necessarily the case.  Many people are not musically adept and would have trouble even recognizing a beat.  However, if they remember the beat, it seems easier to "hack" into a piece of hardware if they had time to do multiple attempts.  I would suggest a mixture of the text based authentication with the beat system because most people have a certain "beat" while they type in their passwords and this would surely increase both methods of authentication.

A Practical Pressure Sensitive Computer Keyboard

My comments on other blogs:
Justin Kern
Brett Hlavinka

This paper shares a new possible technology for keyboards with pressure sensitive keys.  This technology has never been introduced before because it could not be mass produced in a cost effective manner.  The process with which this paper presents this idea only slightly changes the already existing line of keyboards and is easily implementable.  In order to achieve the pressure sensitivity, multiple contact points were placed under each key.  The more conductivity generated, the higher the pressure.  Some of the stated uses for this are for gaming, musical keyboard simulation, more accurate typing, and emotional instant messaging.

Personally, I can see the use for musical keyboard simulation as it would allow for fairly accurate note lengths.  I also see the added benefit for more accurate typing, however small the increase.  (Having the keys pressed placed into a queue based on when the pressure peaked seems a small improvement for fast typers)  I do not see a use of emotional instant messaging.  I could see someone wanting to try it out, but I find the results more difficult to read.  Example:

I can see how if the keyboard was offered at no additional cost it would of use, however, I would never pay extra for a pressure sensitive keyboard.

Introduction