Welcome to the January 2018 SIGCHI edition of ACM TechNews.

ACM TechNews - SIGCHI Edition is a sponsored special edition of the ACM TechNews news-briefing service focused on issues in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). This service serves as a resource for ACM-SIGCHI Members to keep abreast of the latest news in areas related to HCI and is distributed to all ACM SIGCHI members the first Tuesday of every month. ACM TechNews is a benefit of ACM membership and is distributed three times per week on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays to over 100,000 ACM members from over 100 countries around the world. ACM TechNews provides timely coverage of established and emerging areas of computer science, the latest trends in information technology, and related science, society, and technology news. For more information on ACM TechNews and joining the ACM, please click. The Interactions mobile app is available for free on iOS, Android, and Kindle platforms. Download it today and flip through the full-color magazine pages on your tablet or view it in a simplified low-bandwidth text mode on your phone. And be sure to check out the Interactions website, where you can access current and past articles and read the latest entries in our ever-expanding collection of blogs.

Meltdown and Spectre Fixes Arrive--but Don't Solve Everything
Wired
Lily Hay Newman
January 6, 2018

Although patches for the Meltdown and Spectre bugs, which were found to affect practically all computers, have been issued, the revelations about the vulnerabilities have wreaked digital havoc and left a mass of confusion in their wake. Part of the problem is that the bugs impact nearly all aspects of a computer system and addressing them involves multiple players, including users. Chipmakers are working with both hardware and software companies to deploy the fixes; Intel has published firmware patches for its chips and is working with manufacturers to distribute them, and coordinating with operating system developers to circulate software-level mitigations. Meanwhile, browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Edge/Internet Explorer, and certain OSes, have preliminary Spectre patches, although Apple says it is still working on its patches. Furthermore, cloud providers are applying patches to their systems and struggling with attendant performance slowdowns, although such slowdowns should not impact average users significantly. However, innumerable smaller vendors and developers likely will lag in their patch applications.

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UNSW Students Design the New Wave of Wearables
UNSW Newsroom
Lucy Carroll
January 5, 2018

Students at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia have designed a variety of wearable technology prototypes in collaboration with Chinese students and manufacturers, including an anti-stress meditation hood and an anti-smog scarf. "Designing in China meant the students had a platform for broader debate around wearable technology, our future selves, and human interactions in this future landscape," says UNSW lecturer Patricia Flanagan. "The projects challenged students to work across disciplines and cultures and envision what wearables could eventually look like." UNSW's Haptic Interface program had students work directly with manufacturers to ensure they had the technical resources to produce their prototypes. The anti-smog scarf features air pollution sensors that vibrate when pollution content exceeds safe levels, while servomotors automatically signal the mask to lift over the wearer's face. Meanwhile, the meditation hood is equipped with an interior camera to block out logos and other outside distractions.

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How Brains and Machines Can Be Made to Work Together
The Economist
January 4, 2018

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) show enormous potential across a broad range of applications, such as restoring mobility to paralysis victims and sensory input and control to people with other disorders and handicaps. However, translating human BCI breakthroughs into clinical practice is problematic, with experts often needed to operate such devices. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs may play a decisive role in BCI technology's acceleration, with examples such as Braintree founder Bryan Johnson investing $100 million in his Kernel startup to "read and write neural code." Johnson imagines the advancement of artificial intelligence spurring a proportional upgrade in human capabilities, such as obtaining new skills or knowledge from the cloud at will or telepathic person-to-person communication. Meanwhile, Tesla founder Elon Musk's Neuralink firm is pursuing BCI implants to help disabled people. However, many neuroscientists look upon such efforts with skepticism, and note effective BCI requires multidisciplinary participation as well as rigorous clinical trials and regulatory approval.

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Virtual Twin in 10 Minutes
Bielefeld University (Germany)
January 2, 2018

Researchers at Bielefeld University's Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology in Germany have created an accelerated process for generating personalized avatars, or digitized twins of people, for ICSpace, a virtual fitness and movement environment. The researchers use a 40-camera array to photograph a subject from all sides and compute several million three-dimensional sample points on the person's body. A generic simulated human is fitted to this data to correspond with the shape and appearance of the scanned person. "Our virtual human model...contains statistical knowledge about human body shape and movement," says Bielefeld professor Mario Botsch. "Only through this model are we able to create avatars quickly and automatically." Botsch's team developed algorithms to expedite the processing of photographic data into the animated avatar, and Bielefeld's Jascha Achenbach notes avatars can be generated in as little as 10 minutes. The work was presented in November at the ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST 2017) in Gothenburg, Sweden.

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Vast Majority of Serfs Toiling Away as Mechanical Turks for Megabucks Amazon Earn Less Than Min Wage
The Register (UK)
Thomas Claburn
December 14, 2017

People who work for Amazon Mechanical Turk are vastly underpaid, earning less than the U.S. minimum wage, according to a study to be presented in April at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018) in Montreal, Canada. An analysis by an international research team found only 4 percent of Mechanical Turk workers earn more than $7.25 an hour, while the average hourly wage is approximately $2, with zero benefits. The study is based on observations of 2,676 workers performing 3.8 million tasks (HITs) via Mechanical Turk, using data collected via the Crowd Workers Chrome plugin between September 2014 and January 2017. "On average, each worker in our dataset returned 26.5 percent of HITs and spent 17.2 hours on average on them," the researchers note. "Evaluating these tasks at the hourly wage ($1.77) suggests that workers wasted $30.44 worth of time on average."

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The Next Technology Shift: The Internet of Actions
Forbes
Jennifer Kite-Powell
December 29, 2017

Todd Richmond, director of the University of Southern California's Mixed Reality Lab, predicts the next meaningful technology transformation will be the Internet of Actions (IoA), in which digital technology becomes a more effective partner for humans as mixed-reality worlds take root in daily life. Richmond expects artificial intelligence to enable IoA's personalization capabilities. "Human-machine teaming will be a major area of research and development over the next decade or two, and as algorithms move into literally life-or-death decision-making, very human reactions will come to the fore," he says. Richmond cites the Mixed Reality Lab's focus on understanding the user's technology experience as it specifically relates to user intent evaluation. He envisions drones that employ human-machine teaming as potentially contributing significantly to future IoA, and he also stresses the importance of narrative. "[The] combination and collaboration of technologists/scientists and artists/storytellers are absolutely critical as we move forward into our digital epoch," Richmond says.

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Software Enables Robots to Be Controlled in Virtual Reality
News from Brown
Kevin Stacey
December 14, 2017

Researchers at Brown University have developed software enabling users to operate robots over the Internet with commercially available virtual reality (VR) hardware. The software links a Baxter robot's arms and grippers, its onboard cameras, and sensors to an HTC Vive VR system, which enables users to control the position of the machine's arms to perform manipulation tasks by moving their own arms. The data transferred between the robot and the VR unit is sufficiently compact to be transmitted over the Internet with minimal lag, facilitating remote guidance over great distances. "We think this could be useful in any situation where we need some deft manipulation to be done, but where people shouldn't be," says Brown's David Whitney. He also notes the seamless twinned movement of users' bodies and their robotic counterparts in VR "lets people focus on the problem or task at hand without the increased cognitive load of trying to figure out how to move the robot."

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IIIT-H Studies the Ameerpet Phenomenon
Hindu Business Line (India)
K.V. Kurmanath
January 2, 2018

The Ameerpet district in the Indian state of Hyderabad has matured over the past 20 years into a highly popular nexus of Indian information technology (IT) education--so popular that the International Institute of Information Technology-Hyderabad (IIIT-H) has commissioned a study to analyze its evolution. IIIT-H professor Nimmi Rangaswamy says the Ameerpet training institutes' teaching model is "student-centric and affordable. They go slow in teaching the skills and they give hope. They come down to the level of students to make them understand things." Virtually any IT training course is available in Ameerpet, and Rangaswamy notes the model stands out by virtue of its "quick response to the gaps in skillsets." She says Ameerpet is "non-elite and caters to those who are intelligent but could not make it to the good academic institutes." The IIIT-H study has been conditionally accepted for presentation in April at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018) in Montreal, Canada.

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Connecting the Human Brain to the Internet in Real Time
The University Network
Cameron Carpenter
December 29, 2017

Researchers at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa say they have successfully linked a human brain to the Internet in real time for the first time ever, marking the development of the world's first Internet of Things (IoT) brain node. The device broadcasts brain waves collected by an Emotiv electroencephalogram (EEG) onto the IoT, with the specially designed EEG interpreting and projecting these signals to a website that anyone can access. The University of Witwatersrand's Adam Pantanowitz says this "brainternet" can function as a prototype brain-machine interface that demonstrates the rapid advance of the technology. "I wanted to become the first person to live-stream consciousness, and allow people to observe what I was doing in an open source way," he says. Pantanowitz also stresses the importance of having dialogues about such breakthrough technology, because he envisions "dramatic changes" in humanity's future "as we become more integrated with networks and computers."

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Stanford Students Learn to Enhance Computers and Robots With Touch
Stanford News
Nathan Collins
December 18, 2017

Students at Stanford University are developing haptic technology under the guidance of Stanford professor Allison Okamura. Among their inventions is a device called a "Haptic Headband," which combines ultrasonic distance sensors and miniature vibrating motors with wearable prototype electronics to help visually impaired people navigate their environment. "You can feel large objects coming toward you" via vibrational alerts on the headband, says Stanford's Elina Thadhani. Other students in Okamura's course have built assistive haptic devices, including a vibrating glove designed to impart depth perception to blind users, a navigational wristband that vibrates in order to trigger directional movements, a footbed outfitted with pressure sensors that communicate information to a vibrating armband, and haptic training systems. Okamura notes her haptics course is unique because "it has a unique interdisciplinary nature to it" that touches on engineering, human biology, social interaction, and ethics.

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10 New Principles of Good Design
Co.Design
Suzanne LaBarre
January 3, 2018

The past 12 months has made it clear that the parameters of good technology design have changed, and among the principles coming into the fore is the need for transparent interfaces so users can make informed decisions about their privacy, their browsing habits, and other issues without being inundated. Also valuable is design accounting for long-term consequences, with long-term remedies favored over quick fixes. Meanwhile, good design should promote honesty about the user experience, and be upfront concerning its political implications. Furthermore, designers should be skilled in articulating their designs in a clear and concise fashion to better pitch concepts, while a multifaceted design approach improves the odds of products connecting with consumers. Finally, good designs should not be averse to taking risks, and both human and machines should be considered within the design paradigm to accommodate a human-machine hybrid user that promises better productivity and performance than humans or computers alone.

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HCI and AI Combine for New, Meaningful Model to Data Sharing
University of Southampton
December 15, 2017

Researchers at the University of Southampton in the U.K. are developing concepts to envision and influence the Internet of Things as a human-centric space where consent is more meaningful and less disruptive than current protocols. Southampton professor m.c. schraefel's team has proposed a radical new approach to personal data sharing that integrates artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. "Our aim is to help empower citizens and services to have a better, more informed relationship about the use of personal data without having to deal with these decisions constantly, personally," schraefel says. "We want to design interactions between AI and a person both to capture a person's data-sharing preferences, so that agents can negotiate with a service about the terms and conditions of data access, as well as help track that use and revise it."

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UNB Prof Seeks to Level the Playing Field in Video Games for Out-of-Touch Parents
CBC News (Canada)
Joseph Tunney
December 16, 2017

University of New Brunswick in Canada professor Scott Bateman says his team is trying to help parents bond with their children over increasingly technical video games by modifying such games so there is less of a learning curve for parents to contend with--a practice he refers to as "player balancing." Bateman not only believes that such tinkering enables players to better compete, but also thinks the narrowing-down of scores means that players derive more pleasure from the gaming experience overall. "[And] what's interesting about human psychology is [the unskilled player] still takes a bit of the credit, even if the game's been helping them," Bateman says. "It's called attribution theory." Bateman also sees broader implications of such research as it applies to a wide variety of human-computer engagement. "We interact with technology every day," he notes. "We should think about how these interactions can be improved."

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