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· MECUREO
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Last updated 2006-05-09
See also Trent's Random Coding Projects
2005-03-07 -- present
For my PhD dissertation, I am investigating the software aspects of tabletop interface design. More specifically, I want to build a highly usable and learnable interface to facilitate the sharing and annotation of digital photographs at a pervasive, multi-user collaborative tabletop. The core idea is to automatically capture the storytelling photo-talk and create story trails through a collection of unorganised digital photographs in order to automatically create a sharable digital photo album as an implicit side-effect of a photo sharing session with a friend, as well as facilitate opportunistic browsing of annotated photographs (e.g. at an augmented coffee table).
For more info, try diving into my dynamic, CMS research pages. If you would like further information, please email me. I can probably hook you up with more information (papers, presentations, video, etc.) that I don't wish to link to here.
This was the original thrust of my PhD, but I discovered that the interesting parts of the research was mostly already done. The main focus was a toolkit for learning and adapting personalised gestures for ubiquitous computing interfaces. For example, light sensors on our magic mirror, pen-based gestures for the Mimio, multi-touch and whole hand gesutures for the diamond touch, etc.
Some of what I am working on so far was exhibited at CeBIT Australia in May 2005. There was a media release about my work.
2004-03-07 -- 2005-03-06
See also: The Project Nightingale Site
This project is no longer active. In its time, however, it gained quite a bit of media attention:
Project Nightingale is an exploratory research project aimed at helping Australia's aging population reminisce for social and intellectual fitness. In line with the Federal Government's National Health Priority Area (NHPA) initiative and National Research Priorities , the exercise is a joint project between the National ICT Australia, the Smart Internet Technology Cooperative Research Centre and the University of Sydney and will explore the needs of Australia's aging population and the role of smart wireless networks and pervasive computing in memory sharing and reminiscing.
As Australia's Baby Boomers flood into the country's aging population, reminiscing provides an important stimulant for mental and physical health. Nightingale aims to discover how technology can assist. New innovations such as pen-and-paper interfaces, an interactive and collaborative DiamondTouch table and smart wireless personal servers are all being harnessed to see not only how they can encourage and capture memories, but how they can integrate with the users' natural environment and lifestyle. By removing the need for the PC, keyboard and mouse, the benefits of new technology can be delivered in a more familiar and natural way.
With security and privacy being a high priority for dealing with personal information, NICTA's Networks and Pervasive Computing program is exploring the standards in the networked environment to ensure a trusted wireless access to the information anywhere. Combined with the smart personal server and natural adaptive user interfaces (NAUI) this will allow access to information inside and outside of a pervasive computing environment. Early prototypes allow you to sort through your morning email in a car using Bluetooth audio technology, or in a train using your own pen-drawn interface and regular paper. Another demonstrator application allows up to four users to simultaneously interact with digital images (e.g. taken from digital camera memory) in an intuitive manner using DiamondTouch technology. All of this is achieved without the user seeing a single computer screen or keyboard!
Targeting an age bracket of 65 years and over, individual members from the Port Hacking Probus Club (PHPC) were approached to be the first group to participate in the initial research stages. Speaking on behalf of the participants, PHPC president, Jan Barber said: “For members of our Club to be involved in research that could improve people's lives is very exciting and a unique honour. One person can accumulate so much knowledge and experience and gain so many personal insights during their lifetime, that digging out and using all the information involved is really a problem. If many people are to share their personal memory-banks the problem is so much greater. This is where a project like Nightingale could be a tremendous advantage. Within the membership of our Club we have people with a wide range of backgrounds, achievements, and experiences who we believe were well suited to provide this sort of input to Nightingale.”
2002-03-01 -- 2003-03-01
MECUREO originally stood for "Model Expansion and Construction Using Reverse Engineered Ontologies", which is still essentially what it does. Its hallmarking feature is that it can automatically construct lightweight ontologies from a dictionary source, such as FOLDOC.
I'll do a better description later. Most of the functionality is covered in three
chunky reports:
Semester 1, 2002
Semester 2, 2002
Summer, 2003
Also, there are some links:
Browse project files
MECUREO User model grower (cgi script)
HCI Dictionary in MECUREO
Inverse power law for ontologies
And some publications.
Currently these are contained in my development tools