Welcome to the March 2020 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.

Robots Are Taking Manufacturing Jobs but Making Firms More Productive
New Scientist
Donna Lu
February 21, 2020

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) analyzed more than 55,000 French manufacturing companies to determine which had purchased robots between 2010 and 2015 and what impacts those purchases had. The team found that while just 1% of firms had purchased robots, a 20% increase in robot use across the French manufacturing industry resulted in a 3.2% industrywide decline in employment. The 1% of firms that did purchase robots accounted for a fifth of total employment in the French manufacturing industry. The researchers also found that those firms that use robots increased their value by an average of 20%.

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Video Game Makers Want to Get Players Off the Couch
The New York Times
Aili McConnon
February 17, 2020

Video game developers are trying to coax players to exercise more by incorporating fitness routines into game design, in a bid to improve customer loyalty and make workouts less monotonous. Games currently use motion sensors, smartwatches, and even virtual reality to track player movements, which feeds into the "exergaming" trend. Some games mask fitness routines as role-playing or other activities like fleeing from zombies. Other games are fitness and health apps that guide players through workouts with game-like features like scoreboards, real-time feedback, and multiplayer options. Said Rik Eberhardt of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Game Lab, "Developers are trying to reach people who want fun and fitness at the same time."

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A Novel Approach to Counseling Depressed, Anxious Teens: Video-Chatting with Therapists
The Boston Globe
Kay Lazar
February 24, 2020

Three rural school districts in Western Massachusetts are testing virtual counseling, connecting troubled teenagers and therapists through video chats, as a potential solution to the lack of availability of mental health providers in rural areas. The chat sessions are facilitated on secure, school-based computers, and therapy can typically begin within days of a student being identified as needing help. Boston Children's Hospital is expanding its telehealth options following a successful two-year pilot that provided telepsychiatry evaluations to roughly 600 Massachusetts children. A poll of patients and doctors found a 90% or higher satisfaction rate with waiting times and quality of care in virtual counseling.

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Technology in Higher Education: Learning with It Instead of From It
Mizzou News
Brian Consiglio
February 24, 2020

Researchers at the University of Missouri (MU) have found that activity-based learning enhances student creativity and knowledge retention by allowing students to use technology to develop their own original ideas. Examining how higher education professors in Europe use mobile technology in their classes, the researchers found student creativity was most enhanced by professors who allowed them to use technology in a team setting to develop a novel product or idea. Said MU researcher Isa Jahnke, "Creativity will lead to better innovators, entrepreneurs and business owners, but first we need to ask ourselves as educators if we are using technology to put our students in positions to be creative in the first place."

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'Wristwatch' Monitors Body Chemistry to Boost Athletic Performance, Prevent Injury
NC State University News
Matt Shipman
February 3, 2020

Researchers at North Carolina State University (NC State) have developed a device that can monitor an individual's body chemistry to help improve athletic performance and identify potential health problems. The device, about the size of a wristwatch, is equipped with a replaceable strip embedded with chemical sensors. The strip rests against a user's skin, where it comes into contact with the user's sweat. Data from the sensors are analyzed inside the device, which then records the results and sends them to a user's smartphone or smartwatch. The researchers now are testing the technology under a variety of conditions. “We want to confirm that it can provide continuous monitoring when in use for an extended period of time,” said NC State's Michael Daniele.

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The One Ring—to Track Your Finger's Location
UW News
Sarah McQuate
February 3, 2020

University of Washington (UW) researchers have developed a ring/wristband combination that pinpoints the location of the wearer's index finger and continuously tracks hand movements. AuraRing emits a signal that can be picked up by the wristband, identifying the ring's position, orientation, and the finger it is on. The device has a coil of wire wrapped 800 times around a three-dimensionally-printed ring; a current running through the wire produces a magnetic field detected by wristband sensors, with its precise spatial position determined by the sensed values. Through continuous tracking, AuraRing can detect the act of handwriting, or imbue someone with a virtual hand that mimics their own hand's movements. UW's Shwetak Patel said, "Because AuraRing continuously monitors hand movements and not just gestures, it provides a rich set of inputs that multiple industries could take advantage of."

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AI Baby Monitors Attract Anxious Parents
The Washington Post
Drew Harwell
February 25, 2020

Baby-monitor companies promote artificial intelligence (AI) technology as safeguards for infants—but medical, parenting, and privacy experts say scientific research does not bear out such claims, which exploit young parents' anxieties. Pediatrician David King at Sheffield Children's Hospital in the U.K. said no evidence suggests that camera-equipped AI-powered monitors reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome or suffocation. Critics also cited a privacy downside, since the cameras collect intimate data on children's early weeks of life, open homes to potential cyberattack, and expose parents to the constant dread of alerts and false alarms on their cellphones. Author Kim Brooks said such technology "undermines parents' feelings of basic competence: that they can't trust themselves to take care of their babies without a piece of $500 equipment."

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How Social Media Makes Breakups That Much Worse
CU Boulder Today
Lisa Marshall
February 13, 2020

A study by University of Colorado, Boulder researchers found that social media has made ending relationships more difficult, as the emotional toll of moving on is often exacerbated by constant online reminders of those relationships. Study participants had experienced an unhappy online encounter involving a breakup within the past 18 months, and some received reminders of exes from social media despite attempts to eliminate them from their online lives. Facebook's News Feed interface frequently delivered news of ex-lovers announcing new relationships, while another source of pain was Facebook Memories, which automatically posts pop-ups of past events. The researchers suggested platform designers could minimize this heartbreak by providing tools to hide posts from the social periphery—those individuals, groups, photos, and events surrounding a connection between two users.

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Socially Assistive Robot Helps Children with Autism Learn
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Caitlin Dawson
February 26, 2020

Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) Viterbi School of Engineering Interaction Laboratory have designed personalized learning robots for autistic children. The researchers installed a socially assistive robot called Kiwi in each of the homes of 17 children with autism for about a month. Kiwi tailored its instruction and feedback to each child's distinct learning patterns in real time via reinforcement learning, as the children played space-themed math games on a tablet. Analysis revealed the robot could autonomously detect the children’s engagement with 90% accuracy. Said USC's Shomik Jain, "The hope is that future studies ... can take all the things that we've learned and hopefully design more engaging and personalized human-robot interactions."

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Storytelling Can Reduce VR Cybersickness
Waterloo News
February 13, 2020

A study by researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada found storylines that offer context and details can enhance the immersive feeling of virtual reality (VR), and ameliorate symptoms of cybersickness (nausea experienced in VR). Prior to entering a VR simulation, study participants were told a story about the experience; half were given basic details, while the other half received a narrative featuring emotionally evocative details. Listeners to the enhanced story said they felt significantly more "presence" in VR, while those who were not experienced gamers also felt less cybersickness. Said Waterloo’s Michael Barnett-Cowan, "Enriched narratives seem to enhance presence and reduce cybersickness due to the decreased focus on problems with the multiple inputs to their senses."

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Psychologist Uses Computer-Simulated Patients to Untangle Sociological Influences in Pain Care
News at IUPUI
Niha Alasapuri
February 26, 2020

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis psychologist Adam T. Hirsh has investigated racial disparities in pain care using computer-simulated patients. The simulated patients allow Hirsh and colleagues to improve analytical accuracy by filtering out unwanted variables. Hirsh said, "It lets you standardize patients across all the other characteristics but only manipulate or change the race." The researchers concentrated on chronic lower back pain, and Hirsh hopes this research will help make medical providers more aware of how their comfort level with people of different races and backgrounds can affect their treatment of patients.

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Multi-Sensor Band Quickly, Simply Records Subtle Changes in Patients with MS
UC San Diego Health
Scott LaFee
February 26, 2020

An international study led by the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) School of Medicine assessed a multi-sensor band that can measure subtle changes in multiple sclerosis patients, allowing doctors to respond more quickly to those changes. The band combines sensors repurposed from commercial applications, including accelerometers, gyroscopes, and surface electromyography. Patients wear the band on the forearm or calf, then perform 20 finger or foot taps, with data wirelessly downloaded to a computer in real time. This procedure takes than five minutes to complete on all four limbs. UC San Diego Health's John Graves said, "A great advantage is potential use by non-experts and even non-clinicians, such as medical assistants or research coordinators."

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