Anna Carreras

Promotion of creative activity in children with severe autism through visuals in an interactive multisensory environment

Autism is a developmental disorder which presents disability in communication and socialisation and a lack of imagination. To promote creativity, exploration and enjoyment in low functioning autistic children that have no verbal communication, we propose MEDIATE, an interactive environment that generates real time visual, aural and vibrotactile stimuli. This paper focuses on the design of interaction with visuals within MEDIATE. The design is guided by the objectives of giving children a sense of agency and enhance non repetitive actions. Other guidelines of this design include natural interaction, use of non invasive technology and non representational visuals. This visual interaction (together with sound and vibrotacile) allows the children to enjoy MEDIATE and be creative within this environment.

Cricking: customer-product interaction in retail using pervasive technologies

The popularization of eCommerce has led to effective customer shopping experiences. Pervasive computing could bring the benefits of eCommerce to brick and mortar stores, merging both online and physical worlds into a unique system. We define crick as the extension of the (c)lick and b(rick) concept, by means of pervasive technologies. In this paper, we summarize our work-in-progress research on using pervasive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to sense human-product interaction. These cricks can be performed through diverse interfaces in the retail domain, and automatically receive feedback in different manners. We believe that integrating RFID and other pervasive technologies in retail stores is the next step to obtain comprehensive customers user models and preferences. Retail management improvement, or personal and collaborative recommendations, are envisioned to be successful applications of cricking.

CUIDATS: An RFID–WSN hybrid monitoring system for smart health care environments

Abstract The continuous development and improvement of low-power wireless communication technologies is enabling the emergence of many new applications in the field of the Internet of Things (IoT). One of the main areas of research within the Smart City context is smart health, which engages novel IoT initiatives to improve both quality and access to health care and smart services in general. In this paper we present CUIDATS, an IoT hybrid monitoring system for health care environments which integrates RFID and WSN technologies in a single platform providing location, status, and tracking of patients and assets. After its performance validation in a suitable testbed, CUIDATS has been deployed and evaluated with a high degree of success in a real hospital.

Projection of RFID-Obtained Product Information on a Retail Stores Indoor Panoramas

RFID can be used to obtain information about objects present in a physical space, including their approximate location. Handheld RFID readers, smart shelves, zenithal antennas, and autonomous robots can obtain additional information with varying time and space resolutions. The authors present a system that projects this information on a panoramic view of a retail store, allowing users to virtually navigate the space and obtain quasi-real-time information about the products as they actually are in the store. For example, when a user clicks on the image of a shelf in the panorama, product information appears at or near that position from the last RFID-based inventory, which could be as recent as a few seconds ago.

Browsing reality: dynamic contextualization in human scale smart spaces

Augmented Reality (AR) systems can provide a method for browsing information that is situated in the real-world. We have developed a system that enable the user to browse the objects in the real-world with the help of AR. Our system is an AR application that incorporates information obtained by a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system. Our application runs on a smartphone or a tablet and its target space is a shelf. By aiming a mobile phone or tablet camera at a collection of items present on a shelf, a user can browse and interact with the items through the smartphone or tablet.The shelf is termed as smart shelf and it is equipped with the RFID system that makes it a smart space. All the items present on a shelf are RFID-tagged, so they can be inventoried and their locations are calculated with the help of the RFID system. The project is focused on enhancing and enriching the user experience in browsing physical reality.

Designing an Interactive Installation for Children to Experience Abstract Concepts

In this chapter we present the design process followed for an interactive experience in a museum installation for children of age 14 to 18. The experience wishes to communicate a set of abstract concepts through full-body interaction following the interaction-driven design strategy. We also present a design framework that we have derived from the design process of this and previous full-body interactive experiences, in an attempt to generalize the steps we have followed. This framework is based on five levels, namely: conceptual, symbolic, semantic, user attitude, and user action levels. We believe this will allow designers to achieve experiences that better communicate abstract concepts and notions through interaction itself by making the users “live” the experiences in their own flesh through full-body interaction.

Coupling digital and physical worlds in an AR magic show performance: Lessons learned

“Magic for a Pixeloscope” is a one hour show conceived to be represented in a theater scenario that merges mixed and augmented reality (MR/AR) and full-body interaction with classical magic to create new tricks. The show was conceived by an interdisciplinary team composed by a magician, two interaction designers, a theater director and a stage designer. The magician uses custom based hardware and software to create new illusions which are a starting point to explore new language for magical expression. In this paper we introduce a conceptual framework used to inform the design of different tricks; we explore the design and production of some tricks included in the show and we describe the feedback received on the world premiere and some of the conclusions obtained.