We are pleased to announce that a workshop on Interfaces for Wearable Computers will be held at the IEEE Virtual Reality Annual International Symposium (VRAIS 98). The conference takes place on March 14th-18th in Atlanta, Georgia. The workshop is by invitation only and takes place on Sunday March 14th.
Futher information about the VRAIS conference can be found at:
http://tularosa.eece.unm.edu/eece/conf/vrais/
Prospective attendees are asked to read this workshop announcement and send a two-page position paper to the address below. Workshop participants will be selected based on these papers.
Deadline for applications for participation in the workshop must be received no later than Friday, January 30th, 1998 .
--------------------------------- Mark Billinghurst and Thad Starner
Wearable computing is a new and rapidly developing field that poses unique interface requirements. Most current wearable interfaces are variants of 2D desktop interfaces. These are often inappropriate for the input and output devices commonly used on wearable computers. The virtual reality community has a long history of innovative interfaces and many of the approaches used in immersive or augmented reality interfaces are directly relevant to wearable computers. A particularly promising application area for wearable interfaces is commputer supported collaboration. Many of the techniques for developing distributed virtual environments are also directly relevant for wearable computer supported collaboration.
The goals of this workshop are to:
By presenting this workshop in the VRAIS setting it is hoped that the wearable community will benefit from the experience of the VR community and the VR community will be exposed to new research areas.
Designed as a full day highly interactive workshop, participants will be invited to give a brief summary of their position paper at the beginning of the workshop to stimulate discussion throughout the day. They will also be encouraged to bring their own wearable computers to demonstrate innovate interface ideas. The bulk of discussion will be conducted in small group session with summaries to the workshop as a whole at the end. Specific themes for the small group discussions will be developed beforehand through a workshop mailing list.
Time Activity 9:00 - 9:30 Introductions, presentation of problem statement 9:30 - 11:30 Presentation of position statements. 11:30 - 11:50 Break 11:50 - 12:30 Discussion of interface problems in current wearable computers 12:30 - 1:30 Lunch & Participant demonstrations of wearable interfaces 1:30 - 2:30 Discussion of alternate interfaces for wearable computers 2:30 - 2:50 Break 2:50 - 4:30 Discussion of collaborative wearable interfaces. 4:30 - 5:30 Identification of issues for further research 5:30 - 6:00 Group summaries, presentation of future action items
Attendees will be encouraged to develop demonstrations of their ideas on their wearable computers to show at the workshop.
If you are interested in participating in this workshop, please email a two-page position statement in text format to vr-wear@media.mit.edu or mail paper versions of the position statement to:
Mark Billinghurst
Human Interface Technology Laboratory
University of Washington
Box 352-142
Seattle, WA 98195
USA
Position statements should focus on interfaces for wearable computers and/or the use of wearable computers to support collaboration. Workshop participants will be selected based on these statements and they will be used to draw up a more detailed program for the workshop.
Two-page position papers due: Friday, January 30th 1998
Notification of acceptance: Friday, February 6th 1998
Workshop starts: Sunday, March 14th 1998
For more information contact
Mark Billinghurst: email: grof@hitl.washington.edu phone: +1-206-616-1430 fax: +1-206-543-5380
Mark Billinghurst is a researcher at the Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HIT Lab), the University of Washington where he co-manages their wearable computing effort. He organized the VRAIS 1996 and VRST 1996 tutorials on Multimodal Interfaces. He has published over 30 papers in the areas of Virtual Reality (VR) and Advanced Interface design. His current work involves using VR techniques to develop interfaces for wearable computers, particularly interfaces that support collaboration on a wearable platform. More information can be found at http://www.hitl.washington.edu/people/grof/
Thad Starner is a researcher at the MIT Media Laboratory where he co-founded the wearable computing project. He served on the program committee for 1996 Boeing Wearable Computing workshop and proposed the recent successful IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computing (ISWC 97) where he acted as local arrangements chair. A USAF Laboratory Graduate Fellow, Thad has received degrees in Computer Science, Brain and Cognitive Science, and Media Arts and Sciences and has worked in the Speech Systems Group at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN). His present research includes user modeling, augmented memory, augmented reality, intellectual collectives, and alternative power wearable computers. Thad is in his fifth year of incorporating wearable computing with his everyday life. More information can be found at http://www.media.mit.edu/~starner