Welcome to the March 2019 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.

Hiroshi Ishii Wins ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Research Award
MIT News
Janine Liberty
February 20, 2019

Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Hiroshi Ishii has been awarded the 2019 ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Research Award, which will be presented to him in May at the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Glasgow, Scotland. The award's recipients are individuals who have conducted fundamental, influential research in human-computer interaction (HCI). Ishii's research focuses on hypothetical generation of mutable materials that can change form and properties dynamically and computationally. His team's projects have played a key role in the formation of a new branch of "shape-changing user interface" research in the HCI community. Ishii said, "Our goal is to invent new design media for artistic expression as well as for scientific analysis, taking advantage of the richness of human senses and skills we develop throughout our lifetime interacting with the physical world, as well as the computational reflection enabled by real-time sensing and digital feedback."

Full Article

Adaptive Video Game Controllers Open Worlds for Gamers With Disabilities
The New York Times
Jason M. Bailey
February 20, 2019

Physically disabled video game players are supported by a community that modifies existing controllers or designs new ones altogether, and Microsoft is aiding those efforts with the release of an adaptive Xbox One controller. Microsoft's Bryce Johnson said, "We tried to figure out a way to accelerate [these communities'] practices so that they could help more people. The idea of cracking open a controller for someone who just needs a couple of extra buttons is an arduous task." Rather than relying on finger movements, users of the adaptive controller can press their elbows against one of its two four-inch buttons. The controller is powered via 19 3.5-millimeter input jacks and two USB ports, allowing users to plug in peripherals such as external switches and buttons.

Full Article

IBM's Fast-Talking AI Machine Lost to a Human in a Live Debate
CNN
Rachel Metz
February 12, 2019

On February 11, Harish Natarajan, a grand finalist in the 2016 World Debating Championships, faced off against IBM's Project Debater, a computer that uses artificial intelligence to meaningfully debate humans. Natarajan won the debate, but the computer system demonstrated the increasingly complex arguments that AI is starting to make. Project Debater is designed to come up with coherent, convincing speeches of its own, while considering the arguments of a human opponent and creating its own rebuttal. The system also formulates its own closing argument. Project Debater generates its arguments using newspaper and magazine articles from its own database, though it is not connected to the Internet and cannot crib arguments from sites like Wikipedia. Said IBM Research director Dario Gil, Project Debater is "really pushing the boundaries [of the] kinds of AI systems that are more interactive with us and can understand us better."

Full Article

How You Could Control Your World With Just Your Fingertips
BBC News
Mark Smith
March 1, 2019

Touchless human-computer interfaces are under development to ease interaction with digital systems. A project in this arena from Google and the University of St. Andrews in the U.K. involves the use of mini-radars precise enough to distinguish between subtle hand gestures. The researchers used machine learning to refine the design, and St. Andrews' Aaron Quigley said, "A major issue we had to solve is that the energy that comes back from the objects we want to track is a remarkably complex signal. We need to train our system to recognize the objects from these thousands of overlapping signals and we solved this using advanced AI [artificial intelligence] algorithms." Another technology, from Bristol-based Ultrahaptics, uses ultrasound signals to generate tactile sensations in mid-air. Touchless advocates envision such products being incorporated into vehicles, assistive technology for disabled people, and industrial machines and devices.

Full Article

At Arizona State, Big Lectures Are History
The Wall Street Journal
Douglas Belkin
February 27, 2019

Arizona State University (ASU) has phased out the traditional lecture-homework-exam model of higher education, in favor of a more technological approach aligned with a more tech-savvy student body. About 30 large, public universities have adopted ASU's model, which advocates said prepares students for careers with employers eager for workers who can collaborate and apply technology for problem-solving. ASU employs 300 computer scientists and course designers to deconstruct and reimagine the curriculum, with faculty input. ASU's Dale Johnson said the goal is to "deliver the right lesson to the right student at the right time," using adaptive software to track each student's mastery of concepts in real time, and modifying course materials to help them. When the class was a lecture, confused students sometimes felt too embarrassed to ask a question, said Chandrani Banerjee, a math professor who teaches the algebra class; now, the computer program just redirects those students to the concepts they need to master.

Full Article

Can Google Help Bridge Language Gaps Between Doctors, Patients?
U.S. News & World Report
Robert Preidt
February 27, 2019

New research from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) suggests Google Translate could help doctors overcome language barriers when treating non-English-speaking patients. Dr. Elaine Khoong of UCSF said, "Google Translate is more accurate than a lot of clinicians believe, and I think it's definitely more useful than not providing anything at all." Khoong and colleagues analyzed 100 sets of emergency discharge instructions translated by Google, and determined they were 92% accurate for Spanish, and 81% accurate for Chinese. Only 2% of inaccurately translated Spanish instructions and 8% of mistranslated Chinese instructions could potentially harm patients, with problems stemming from grammar or typographical errors in the written English version. Google Translate also encountered problems with colloquial terms, as well as medical jargon, and the researchers concluded it is most effectively used in combination with human interpreters.

Full Article

More Than 50% of People Use Voice Assistants to 'Ask Fun Questions.' Here's What Else They Do
CNBC
Lucy Handley
February 26, 2019

In an Adobe survey of 1,000 U.S. residents, 58% of respondents said they used voice-activated smart speakers to ask "fun" questions. Playing music was the most popular smart speaker pastime, followed by checking weather forecasts. The percentage of users who used smart speakers to shop declined to 26%, from 30% since last August. The number of respondents who use smart speakers to manage finances fell from 13% to 5% over that same period, while just 11% employed voice assistants to research hotels or flights; only 14% used them for ordering takeout. The researchers said 32% of U.S. consumers prefer using voice assistants to conduct online searches over typing a query on a mobile device or desktop computer. Adobe analytics director Colin Morris said in terms of encouraging more smart speaker use by consumers, "Simplicity is key, and starting with a single-function 'hero feature' is the best starting point."

Full Article

Your Next Personal Trainer Could be a Robot
ZDNet
Kelly McSweeney
February 21, 2019

Researchers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland have demonstrated how robotic personal trainers could be used in the future, having developed a robot that successfully taught humans how to row. In the study, volunteers with no prior rowing experience practiced using a rowing simulator. While the participants were rowing, the robotic trainer performed data analysis online in real time. If a participant made a mistake, such as moving the oar the wrong way, the robot immediately called attention to the error, either visually, audibly, or through haptic feedback. Said ETH Zurich researcher Georg Rauter, "Not only did the provided feedback allow learning of the task, but due to a closed-loop setting of human performance assessment and accordingly individualized feedback by a robotic system, human motor learning could be accelerated."

Full Article

Self-Driving Cars Learn to Predict What Pedestrians Will Do
Futurity.org
Jim Lynch
February 13, 2019

Researchers at the University of Michigan are teaching self-driving cars how to recognize and predict pedestrian movement with greater precision by analyzing humans' gate, body symmetry, and foot placement. The vehicles collect data through cameras, LiDAR, and GPS, allowing the researchers to capture video snippets of humans in motion and then recreate them in a three-dimensional simulation. The researchers used the simulation to create a "biomechanically inspired recurrent neural network" that catalogs human movements. The team used the neural network to predict poses and future locations for one or several pedestrians at distances of up to about 50 yards from a vehicle. Said University of Michigan researcher Matthew Johnson-Roberson, "Now, we’re training the system to recognize motion and making predictions of not just one single thing—whether it’s a stop sign or not—but where that pedestrian’s body will be at the next step, and the next and the next."

Full Article

USC Researchers Create Speech Therapy Game
Daily Trojan (University of Southern California)
Beatrice Gao
February 11, 2019

Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) have developed a voice-assisted, choose-your-own-adventure speech therapy game for children with cerebral palsy. The project won second place at an event hosted by the Consortium for Technology Innovation in Pediatrics. The Amplify system delivers speech therapy instruction through an interactive audio game. The voice-assisted technology is combined with artificial intelligence to allow children to navigate different plots in the story through speech exercises. The exercises are recorded so speech therapists can analyze them using the Amplify software. Said USC researcher Christopher Laine, "We wanted to find a way that motivates them to practice the exercises they need to do … because any [form of] physical therapy is about repetition and practice."

Full Article

Pre-Programming Autonomous Machines Promotes Selfless Decision-Making
Army Research Laboratory
February 11, 2019

Research by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and Northeastern University found that the use of autonomous machines increases cooperation among individuals. The study showed that people are more likely to make unselfish decisions to favor collective interest when asked to program autonomous machines ahead of time, compared with making such decisions in real time on a moment-to-moment basis. The evidence suggests this happens because programming machines causes selfish, short-term rewards to become less salient, leading to considerations of broader societal goals. Said ARL researcher Jonathan Gratch, "It is as if by being forced to carefully consider their decisions, people placed more weight on prosocial goals. When making decisions moment-to-moment, in contrast, they become more driven by self-interest."

Full Article

VR Technology Which Allows Social Workers to Experience Abuse Through a Child's Eyes to Be Used to Cut Gang Crime
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)
Camilla Tominey
February 10, 2019

Following a successful pilot in the U.K., virtual reality (VR) technology allowing social workers to experience abuse from a child's point-of-view is slated to be used to try to reduce knife and gang crime. More than 30 local authorities and organizations are employing the technology from VR pioneer Cornerstone to give social workers, teachers, and district judges a better understanding of the needs of children in care. The current VR program features 12 episodes on how abuse and neglect damages children, from before their birth to their late teenage years. Said Cornerstone CEO Helen Costa, "Ninety percent of social workers who used it said they would do something differently as a result, 88% of district judges agreed, and so did 91% of teachers. The immersive VR experience has a proven track record of increasing empathy and producing better outcomes for children in care."

Full Article