Welcome to the June 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.

For Those With Dementia, Help From Technology
The Wall Street Journal
Shirley S. Wang
May 28, 2018

Emerging technologies could potentially help people with dementia maintain their social circle and family contacts. "Technology has the potential to help preserve independence, or at least maintain it, for many, many more years than is currently possible," says Duke University's P. Murali Doraiswamy. Products currently available include remote home surveillance systems that enable basic monitoring of persons using a mobile phone. For example, wrist-worn motion detectors and global positioning system devices can track a person's in-home activities, and potentially help detect falls or find people who wander off. Nathalie Bier at the University of Montreal in Canada is designing smart homes by outfitting residences with off-the-shelf wireless sensors. Her team also is developing a smart pillbox that can track whether someone is taking their medication. Tablet computers are another product of interest, with Bier's team conducting experiments that suggest people with dementia can use tablets to adhere to schedules and orient themselves to the correct date.

Full Article

An Elastic Fiber Set to Revolutionize Smart Clothes
Printed Electronics World
May 29, 2018

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) has come up with a fast, simple way to produce super-flexible, high-performance fibers composed of multiple materials for use in smart textiles. Researchers at EPFL's Laboratory of Photonic Materials and Fiber Devices developed a method incorporating varying microstructures in these fibers, converting them into sensors by adding electrodes in one instance. The researchers have tested weaving the fibers into large-mesh clothing to detect compression and stretching, and working with the Technical University of Berlin's Oliver Brock, they integrated the fibers into robot fingers as artificial nerves. "Our technology could be used to develop a touch keyboard that's integrated directly into clothing," suggests EPFL's Fabien Sorin.

Full Article

Toddlers May Learn More From Interactive Than Noninteractive Media
Society for Research in Child Development
May 22, 2018

Interactive digital media may help preschoolers learn more effectively than they would by watching noninteractive TV and videos alone, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin, Madison's Heather Kirkorian. She suggests interactive media may be more cognitively demanding for children, who must decide on and generate appropriate motor responses. However, it could enable learning by encouraging a sense of agency, boosting toddlers' engagement via personally relevant responses or directing children to stare at pertinent onscreen content. Kirkorian sees significant variance in the degree to which interactivity increases screen-based learning, which may reflect age-related changes in children's learning strategies or cognitive limitations. It also could be tied to some toddlers' inability to restrain their behavioral impulses. "The extent to which young children learn from screen media depends on, among other things, the intersection between the cognitive demands of a particular learning task and each child's cognitive resources," Kirkorian says.

Full Article

How Scientists Cracked the Code for Getting Humans to Appreciate Computer-Made Art
Artnet News
Rachel Corbett
May 22, 2018

A new study examined how humans' empathetic reactions to artwork are changing in the digital age, questioning whether people value art more or less when they know it is created by machines. Although the researchers determined that humans judged computer-generated art to be less aesthetically valuable than man-made works, they also found viewers tend to ascribe greater value to art made by anthropomorphic robots. The team used an artist's robotic installation in Belgium, in which webcams shot photos of sitting people while a planar arm drew their portraits with a pen. During the process, desk-mounted, human-like figures enacted lifelike movements, creating the illusion of staring at the sitter and scanning their face as the arm follows in parallel. Participants who were shown the robots at work appreciated the drawings more than those that were said to be performed by robots, and more than those produced by unknown artists.

Full Article

Microsoft to Launch Disability-Friendly Xbox Controller
The Guardian
Keith Stuart
May 17, 2018

Microsoft has developed a new adaptive Xbox controller specifically for people with disabilities. The controller is a wireless, customizable device intended to support a wide range of needs, making video games more accessible. The device features two large buttons on its face, which can be operated with hands, elbows, or feet. The controller is designed to be positioned on the user's lap, on a table, or on the floor, enabling several control options. In addition, the device has a row of 3.5-millimeter ports along the back of the pad, representing each of the inputs and buttons on the standard controller. Players can use these 19 ports to plug in various add-ons such as bite switches, foot pedals, touch-sensitive pads, and other accessibility products, permitting control setups to be highly personalized, as players can use a dedicated application to create controller configurations, and quickly switch between three preconfigured profiles.

Full Article

Reading the Minds of Pilots on the Fly
Drexel Now
Lauren Ingeno
May 21, 2018

Drexel University's Hasan Ayaz worked with Frédéric Dehais and a team of researchers at France’s Institut supérieur de l'aéronautique et de l'espace (ISAE-SUPAERO) to quantify the brain activity of pilots in real time via functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The researchers used Drexel's portable fNIRS system, which is worn like a headband so subjects can move freely in their natural settings; it tracks blood oxygenation changes in the prefrontal cortex involved with problem-solving, memory, judgment, and impulse governance. Using two pilot cohorts, one group who flew an actual aircraft and another who were tested in a flight simulator, the team monitored participants' brain activity as they performed an array of memorization tasks from pre-recorded air traffic control instructions, whose difficulty levels were varied. Pilots in actual flight situations made more mistakes and exhibited higher anterior prefrontal cortex activity than those in simulated scenarios when performing cognitively demanding tasks.

Full Article

Researchers Combine Wearable Technology and AI to Predict the Onset of Health Problems
University of Waterloo News
Pamela Smyth
May 16, 2018

Applying artificial intelligence (AI) to the right combination of data retrieved from wearable technology can detect whether the user's health is failing, according to researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada. The study involved monitoring active, healthy men in their twenties who wore a shirt equipped with sensors for heart rate, breathing, and acceleration for four days. The team compared the data with laboratory responses and found it was possible to accurately forecast health-related benchmarks during daily activities. "The research found a way to process biological signals and generate a meaningful single number to track fitness," says Waterloo's Richard Hughson.

Full Article

NVIDIA Deep Learning Research Helps Robots Learn in Real Time
Internet of Business
Rene Millman
May 21, 2018

NVIDIA researchers have developed a deep learning system that can train robots to complete a task simply by monitoring a person's actions. The goal of the new system is to help collaborative robots work alongside people more easily and intuitively. The new system enables a test robot to learn and mimic a task from a single real world demonstration. The test robot is outfitted with a camera that lets two neural networks determine the positions of, and relationships between, objects in real time. The system then generates a human-readable description of the steps necessary to recreate the task, which enables users to identify and remedy any mistakes in the robot's interpretation. The team relied on synthetic data to train the system because it allows for an almost unlimited amount of labeled training data to be produced with very little effort.

Full Article

Video Games Could Be Serious Tools for Historical Research
Technology Review
May 11, 2018

Researchers at Abdullah Gul University in Turkey have developed an undergraduate history course in which students use historical computer games to learn their subject. Over the last four years, the team led by Mehmet Sükrü Kuran has incorporated diverse computer games into the history course to determine which best stimulate discussion and improve student understanding of three ages in history: the Middle Ages; the early modern age, including the Industrial Revolution; and the modern age. As part of the course, students were assigned certain goals to achieve on their own in the game, and then asked to write about their experience. The team found one game series was better for learning purposes because it provided the most comprehensive experience and historical accuracy. The researchers also learned that gameplay gave students a much better understanding of global geography, as well as the complex interactions between economic, religious, technological, political, and cultural factors.

Full Article

Wearable Ring, Wristband Allow Users to Control Smart Tech With Hand Gestures
Georgia Tech College of Computing
David Mitchell
May 11, 2018

Using acoustic beeps emitted from a ring and received by a wristband, a system developed by Georgia Institute of Technology researchers can recognize tiny finger gestures that could be programmed to various commands. The researchers also demonstrated that the FingerPing system can accurately recognize hand poses using the 12 bones of the fingers and digits "1" through "10" in American Sign Language. FingerPing consists of a thumb ring that generates acoustic chirps that travel through the hand and are detected by receivers on a wristband. It utilizes specific patterns in which sound waves travel that can be altered by the hand's pose. FingerPing enables the user to achieve up to 22 pre-programmed commands. The research was presented in April at the 2018 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018) in Montreal, Canada.

Full Article