Monday 11 July 2011

cfp: IEEE Special Issue on Interaction Beyond the Keyboard

IEEE Computer will have a special issue on "Interaction beyond the Keyboard" ... and till Nov 1st 2011 you still have a chance to submit :-)

--- from the call (http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/cocfp4) ---
Final submissions due: 1 November 2011
Publication date: April 2012

IEEE Computer seeks submissions for an April 2012 special issue on interaction beyond the keyboard.

Interaction with computers has become an integral part of daily life for most people. When making a phone call, listening to music, taking a photo, getting money from an ATM, or driving a car, we operate computer systems with complex functionalities. As technologies progress, the proliferation of computing technologies increases, and simple user interfaces and ease of use are becoming key success factors for a wide range of products.

Although the keyboard and mouse are still the dominant user interfaces in home and office environments, with the massive increase in mobile device usage and the many new interaction technologies available, the way we interact with computers is becoming richer and more diverse. Touch-enabled surfaces, natural gestures, implicit interaction, and tangible user interfaces mark some of these trends.

The overall goal of interaction beyond the keyboard is to create natural and intuitive forms of human-computer interaction that make it easier for people to achieve their goals while using computers as tools.

For this special issue, we seek original research that describes groundbreaking new devices, methods, and approaches to human-computer interaction in a world of ubiquitous computer use. In particular, we're looking for exciting work that is concerned with the following topics:
  • interactive surfaces and tabletop computing;
  • mobile computing user interfaces and interaction while on the go;
  • tangible interaction and graspable user interfaces;
  • embedded user interfaces and embodied interaction;
  • natural interaction and gestures; and
  • user interfaces based on physiological sensors and actuators.
Articles should be understandable to a broad audience of computing science and engineering professionals. The writing should be practical and original, avoiding a focus on theory, mathematics, jargon, and abstract concepts. All manuscripts are subject to peer-review on both technical merit and relevance to Computer's readership. Accepted papers will be professionally edited for content and style.

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please see: http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/cocfp4

Tuesday 5 July 2011

Percom 2012 - call for papers

Percom2012 - Call for papers as PDF or as text-file.






  

PerCom 2012
IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications
March 19 - 23, 2012, Lugano, Switzerland

CALL FOR PAPERS

IEEE PerCom, now in its 10th edition, has established itself as the premier annual scholarly venue in the areas of pervasive computing and communications. Pervasive computing and communications has evolved into an active area of research and development, due to the tremendous advances in a broad spectrum of technologies and topics including wireless networking, mobile and distributed computing, sensor systems, RFID technology, and the ubiquitous mobile phone.

PerCom 2012 will be held in Lugano, an international city and the crossroads and melting pot of European culture. PerCom 2012 will provide a leading edge, scholarly forum for researchers, engineers, and students alike to share their state-of-the art research and developmental work in the broad areas of pervasive computing and communications. The conference will feature a diverse mixture of interactive forums: core technical sessions of high quality cutting-edge research articles; targeted workshops on exciting topics; live demonstrations of pervasive computing in action; insightful keynote speeches; panel discussions from domain experts; and posters of budding ideas. Research contributions are solicited in all areas pertinent to pervasive computing and communications, including:

- Innovative pervasive computing applications
- Context modeling and reasoning
- Programming paradigms for pervasive systems
- Software evolution and maintenance in pervasive systems
- Middleware services and agent technologies
- Adaptive, autonomic and context-aware computing
- Mobile/Wireless computing systems and services in pervasive computing
- Energy-efficient and green pervasive computing
- Communication architectures for pervasive computing
- Ad hoc networks for pervasive communications
- Pervasive opportunistic communications and applications
- Enabling technologies for pervasive systems (e.g., wireless BAN, PAN)
- Positioning and tracking technologies
- Sensors and RFIDs in pervasive systems
- Multimodal sensing and context for pervasive applications
- Pervasive sensing, perception and semantic interpretation
- Smart devices and intelligent environments
- Trust, security and privacy issues in pervasive systems
- User interface, interaction, and persuasion
- Pervasive computing aspect of social network software
- Virtual immersive communications
- Wearable computers
- Standards and interfaces for pervasive computing environments
- Social and economic models for pervasive systems

Workshops and affiliated events:

Many workshops will be held in conjunction with the main conference. Workshop papers will be included and indexed in the IEEE digital libraries (Xplore), showing their affiliation with IEEE PerCom. As in the past, PerCom 2012 will also feature a PhD Forum, Demonstrations and a Work-in-Progress Session. Please see the website www.percom.org for details on current and past PerCom conferences.

Important Dates
Paper Registration: Sep 23, 2011
Paper Submission: Sep 26, 2011
Author Notification: Dec 20, 2011
Camera-ready Due: Jan 27, 2012

Submission Guidelines
Submitted papers must be unpublished and not considered elsewhere for publication. They must show significant relevance to pervasive computing and networking. Only electronic submissions in PDF format will be considered. Papers must be 9 pages or less, including references, figures and tables (at least 10pt font, 2-column format). The IEEE LaTeX and Microsoft Word templates, as well as formatting instructions, can be found at the conference web site. Submissions will undergo a rigorous review process handled by the Technical Program Committee. The best paper will receive the prestigious Mark Weiser Best Paper Award. Top selected papers will be considered for a special issue of the Elsevier journal of Pervasive and Mobile Computing (PMC)

For additional information, see www.percom.org for details on current and past PerCom conferences, or contact the PerCom 2012 organizing committee at percom2012@supsi.ch

Organizing Committee

General Co-Chairs
Silvia Giordano, SUPSI, CH
Marc Langheinrich, Univ. of Lugano, CH

Program Chair
Albrecht Schmidt, Univ. of Stuttgart, DE

Vice Program Co-Chairs
Jie Liu, Microsoft Research, USA
Georges Roussos, Univ. of London, UK
Alexander Varshavsky, AT&T Labs, USA

Workshops Co-Chairs
Pedro Marron, Univ. Duisburg-Essen, DE
Marius Portmann, Univ. of Queensland, AU

Steering Committee Chair
Marco Conti, IIT-CNR, IT

Friday 1 July 2011

Our Article one Phones as Components of Future Appliances is published in IEEE Pervasive Magazine

In this paper we reflect the opportunities that arise from using consumer devices, such as phones and mp3 players, as components for future devices. With this article also a new department on Innovations in Ubicomp Products has been started. The article “Phones and MP3 Players as the Core Component in Future Appliances” [1] is also available openly in at ComputingNow.

The rational is
  • developing a custom embedded computer is expensive
  • specific devices are not economic for small quantities
  • phones are becoming cheap (in small quantities a phone may be cheaper than buying a touch screen component for an embedded device)
  • development on phones has become easy and many developers are around
  • IO capabilities can be added to these devices (e.g. Project HiJack)
The main question is: why not use the consumer device as a part (potentially partly hidden) as computing platforms in new devices? There are examples but also some difficulties… read the article to get a more in-depth discussion.


[1] Albrecht Schmidt and Dominik Bial. 2011. Phones and MP3 Players as the Core Component in Future Appliances. IEEE Pervasive Computing 10, 2 (April 2011), 8-11. DOI=10.1109/MPRV.2011.31 http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MPRV.2011.31 (also available in ComputingNow, download PDF)