Welcome to the December 2022 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.

Paralyzed People Navigate a Room via Mind-Controlled Wheelchair
New Scientist
Carissa Wong
November 18, 2022

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin (UT at Austin) found that a brain-computer interface could allow people who are paralyzed to steer an electric wheelchair using their thoughts. The researchers tested the technology on three people with little or no capability of movement in their limbs. The participants wore skullcaps equipped with electrodes that detect signals from the brain's sensorimotor cortex and send them to a laptop attached to the back of the wheelchair. An artificial intelligence system then translates the brain signals generated when the patients imagined moving their limbs, into wheel movements.

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Empowering Social Media Users to Assess Content
MIT News
Adam Zewe
November 16, 2022

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers built an experimental social media platform to analyze the effects of empowering users to evaluate content and to regulate the posts they view based on others' accuracy assessments. The researchers found users could effectively assess misinforming posts without any training beforehand on the Trustnet platform. Users post and share real news articles and can follow each other to see content others post, but they must rate content as accurate or inaccurate, or query its truthfulness, before posting. Users also can privately select trusted individuals whose content evaluations they will see. MIT's Farnaz Jahanbakhsh said the research demonstrates that a decentralized moderation framework can boost content reliability, while offering greater efficiency and scalability than centralized moderation architectures.

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Buildings Made of Wool and Fungus?
The Washington Post
Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson
November 15, 2022

Computational textile designer Felecia Davis of Pennsylvania State University and her colleagues are exploring how an experimental knitted material called MycoKnit could provide a framework for buildings, with a straw-mycelium fungus mix functioning as infill. With the assistance of an algorithm developed by one of Davis’ students, she and her team can virtually assemble and examine the structure stitch-by-stitch in order to predict its shape, before building it and letting the fungus propagate overtop. In 2016, Davis was part of project FELT (Feeling Emotion Linked by Touch), which included a computational textile panel capable of changing shape on its own. As she later wrote in a book, a textile that can move or change its shape “could be used on a robot as robot skin, for example, for people who may benefit from some communication through vision and touch.” Said Davis, “This is kind of at the edge of what computation can actually tell you."

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Apple AirPods Can Work as Hearing Aids, Study Finds
Gizmodo
Andrew Liszewski
November 15, 2022

Researchers at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan found that Apple's AirPods could work as hearing aids in some situations while using Apple's Live Listen feature, which enables iPhones and iPads to be used as sound-boosting microphones. The researchers compared the $129 AirPods 2 and $249 AirPods Pro, paired with iPhone XS Max smartphones running iOS 13, with the $10,000 OTICON Opn 1 and the $1,500 Bernafon MD1 in tests involving 21 individuals experiencing mild to moderate hearing loss. The researchers found the AirPods Pro performed as well as the least-expensive hearing aid, and nearly as well as the premium model in quiet settings. The device performed almost on par with the premium model in noisy settings, due to its built-in noise cancellation.

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Driving Simulator Helps Teens with ADHD Keep Eyes on the Road
Reuters
Shawana Alleyne-Morris
November 30, 2022

A multi-institutional team of researchers created a driving simulator that can help adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) stay focused on the road, reducing accidents and near-collisions. Participants undertook five 90-minute training sessions wearing eye-tracking glasses that monitored their head and eye movements. They averaged approximately 22 long glances away from the virtual road during every 15-minute simulated drive at the beginning of the study. The researchers said these glances and variations in lane positions lessened with the addition of feedback when drivers looked away for two seconds or more. The trainees receiving feedback had fewer collisions and near-collisions in the following year than study participants who did not receive feedback.

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Researchers Use AI to Assess Patients' Vocals After Larynx Surgery
Interesting Engineering
Brittney Grimes
November 29, 2022

A substitute voice evaluation index developed by researchers at Lithuania's Kaunas University of Technology Faculty of Informatics (KTU IF) and Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LSMU) uses artificial intelligence (AI) to assess changes in a person's voice following laryngectomy. The AI-based algorithm examines a patient's substitute voice (the post-surgical portion of the laryngeal structure) to identify voice pathologies, and automates the post-operative process and analysis. The Acoustic Substitution Voice Index (ASVI) assesses pathologies of the vocal cords using a combination of acoustic parameters of voice signal and AI techniques. Said LSMU's Virgilijus Ulozas, "Until now, in medical practice, there was no suitable method to objectively and quantitatively evaluate the 'substitute' voice. Our proposed ASVI algorithm allows the evaluation process to be done automatically in a concise time."

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Disabled Shoppers Struggle with Inaccessible Self-Checkouts
The Wall Street Journal
Katie Deighton
November 21, 2022

Self-checkout kiosks are often unusable for disabled shoppers, which could potentially inhibit retailers' automation efforts. The National Federation of the Blind's Matt Hackert said blind customers can access self-service checkouts and ordering systems equipped with a headphone jack, screen-reader software, and a tactile keyboard. Although companies say disabled customers can get help at self-checkouts or alternately use staff-operated checkouts and ordering systems, disabled people say they should have the same self-checkout options as others. U.S. technological accessibility regulations lack coverage for self-service checkouts and kiosks, while the University of Maryland's Gregg Vanderheiden said few businesses have been forced to ensure many self-service technologies have universal accessibility.

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Meet Your New Corporate Office Mate: A 'Brainless' Robot
The New York Times
John Yoon; Daisuke Wakabayashi
November 17, 2022

South Korean Internet conglomerate Naver has deployed a fleet of around 100 robots in its Seoul office tower to deliver packages, coffee, and meals. They utilize robot-only elevators to move from floor to floor, and can operate next to human workers without getting in their way. The company's Naver Labs subsidiary plans to develop a blueprint for office robots. Naver Labs' Kang Sang-chul said, "Our effort now is to minimize the discomfort they cause to humans." Researchers have determined the optimal spot for robots in crowded elevators and found that giving robots animated eyes that gaze in their intended direction can help employees better anticipate their movements.

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Training on Treadmill with VR Can Help MS Patients
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
Judy Siegel-Itzkovich
November 24, 2022

A team of Israeli, U.S., and German researchers found that training on a treadmill with virtual reality (VR) can benefit patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). Approximately 100 MS patients aged 18 to 65 underwent six weeks of treadmill training, with 51 exercising with an attached physical therapist, while 53 also used an VR system projected on a screen, displaying obstacles and other navigational challenges. The researchers learned treadmill training improved patients' walking speed by about 10% whether or not they walked with or without an additional task, while adding VR helped advance cognitive improvement and decreased depression. The program demonstrated that treadmill training with or without VR enhances patients' gait and mobility.

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Caregiving Simulator Advances Research in Assistive Robotics
Cornell University Chronicle
Patricia Waldron
November 29, 2022

Cornell University researchers have developed an open-source robotic simulation platform that paves the way for advanced research in assistive robotics. The RCareWorld platform simulates home caregiving scenarios using six realistic avatars that represent people with varying levels of motor impairments, including spinal-cord injuries, brainstem stroke, or cerebral palsy, in terms of range of motion and muscle strength. The platform allows researchers to test navigation and manipulation algorithms, access data from the robots' multimodal sensors, and control both the robots and the human avatars via a virtual reality interface. Said Cornell's Tapomayukh Bhattacharjee, "We are giving people a variety of tools that are necessary to come up with behaviors for physical caregiving or social caregiving scenarios."

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Are You Ready for Workplace Brain Scanning?
IEEE Spectrum
Evan Ackerman; Eliza Strickland
November 19, 2022

Electroencephalography (EEG) technology has emerged in the commercial marketplace, and neural sensors could be deployed in the workplace to increase employee productivity and improve their well-being. Israel-based startup InnerEye uses deep learning for image-recognition tasks, classifying EEG signals into responses indicating "targets" and "nontargets." The idea is to increase the speed of image recognition by using EEG to access the output of the brain's visual processing and decision-making systems. Meanwhile, San Francisco-based Emotiv collects EEG brain data from workers wearing sensor-equipped Bluetooth earbuds. Emotiv's MN8 system collects data on workers' attention, distraction, and stress to help determine the impact on productivity and well-being.

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Subway Selling Premade Sandwiches in Smart Vending Machines
CNN
Jordan Valinsky
November 14, 2022

The Subway fast food chain debuted its first Grab and Go "smart fridge" filled with premade sandwiches at the University of California, San Diego. The company intends to deploy more of the fridges in North America in high-trafficked areas such as other college campuses, airports, and hospitals. Local franchises will make and deliver sandwiches to the refrigerators, which feature artificial intelligence and natural language processing so customers can order vocally. The company hopes the smart vending machines will provide sales growth, despite decreasing numbers of Subway's brick-and-mortar establishments.

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Audi Adds Holoride VR Entertainment Option to Its Vehicles
PC Magazine
Stephanie Mlot
November 4, 2022

Holoride's virtual reality (VR) entertainment system is being installed in several Audi models in Germany. For an extra €699 ($684), German Audi owners with compatible vehicles can take advantage of Holoride's "elastic content," games and apps that use real-time vehicle data to react to the user and their vehicle. Holoride hopes to minimize motion sickness, a bane of VR, by matching virtual steering, braking, and acceleration with real-life vehicle movements. Said Holoride's Nils Wollny, "Despite amazing advances in automotive technology over the last few decades, passenger experience and in-car entertainment has remained largely the same. With the introduction of Holoride, we are not only elevating the stale experience; we are redefining how you spend your time on the go."

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