Justin D. Weisz

Watching together: integrating text chat with video

Watching video online is becoming increasingly popular, and new video streaming technologies have the potential to transform video watching from a passive, isolating experience into an active, socially engaging experience. However, the viability of an active social experience is unclear: both chatting and watching video require attention, and may interfere with one another and detract from the experience. In this paper, we empirically examine the activity of chatting while watching video online. We examine how groups of friends and strangers interact, and find that chat has a positive influence on social relationships, and people chat despite being distracted. We discuss the benefits and opportunities provided by mixing chat and video, uncover some of the attentional and social challenges inherent in this combination of media, and provide guidance for structuring the viewing experience.

Synchronous broadcast messaging: the use of ICT

IBM Community Tools (ICT) is a synchronous broadcast messaging system in use by a very large, globally distributed organization. ICT is interesting for a number of reasons, including its scale of use (thousands of users per day), its usage model of employing large scale broadcast to strangers to initiate small group interactions, and the fact that it is a synchronous system used across multiple time zones. In this paper we characterize the use of ICT in its context, examine the activities for which it is used, the motivations of its users, and the values they derive from it. We also explore problems with the system, and look at the social and technical ways in which users deal with them.

How text and audio chat change the online video experience

Many online video sites provide a text chat feature so viewers can chat with others while watching videos. How does chatting affect their experience? Would audio chat be more fun or would it be too distracting? The richer medium of audio may more closely approximate the living room or club experience, but human factors research suggests that audio chat could increase distraction and detract from the viewing experience. This paper presents the results of an experiment comparing text with audio chat when the video does or does not have dialogue, and when viewers are watching the videos in the same or a different order. A control group watched videos without chat. Overall, audio chat and text chat were equally distracting, and chat was more distracting when the video contained dialogue. Despite the presence of distraction, viewers found both text and audio chat enjoyable. Those who used audio chat preferred it to text chat for talking with others while watching videos with their friends.

Tracking drone orientation with multiple GPS receivers

Inertial sensors continuously track the 3D orientation of a flying drone, serving as the bedrock for maneuvers and stabilization. However, even the best inertial measurement units (IMU) are prone to various types of correlated failures. We consider using multiple GPS receivers on the drone as a fail-safe mechanism for IMU failures. The core challenge is in accurately computing the relative locations between each receiver pair, and translating these measurements into the drones 3D orientation. Achieving IMU-like orientation requires the relative GPS distances to be accurate to a few centimeters -- a difficult task given that GPS today is only accurate to around 1-4 meters. Moreover, GPS-based orientation needs to be precise even under sharp drone maneuvers, GPS signal blockage, and sudden bouts of missing data. This paper designs SafetyNet, an off-the-shelf GPS-only system that addresses these challenges through a series of techniques, culminating in a novel particle filter framework running over multi-GNSS systems (GPS, GLONASS, and SBAS). Results from 11 sessions of 5-7 minute flights report median orientation accuracies of 2° even under overcast weather conditions. Of course, these improvements arise from an increase in cost due to the multiple GPS receivers, however, when safety is of interest, we believe that tradeoff is worthwhile.

Expediting expertise: supporting informal social learning in the enterprise

In this paper, we present Expediting Expertise, a system designed to provide structured support to the otherwise informal process of social learning in the enterprise. It employs a data-driven approach where online content is automatically analyzed and categorized into relevant topics, topic-specific user expertise is calculated by comparing the models of individual users against those of the experts, and personalized recommendation of learning activities is created accordingly to facilitate expertise development. The systems UI is designed to provide users with ongoing feedback of current expertise, progress, and comparison with others. Learning recommendation is visualized with an interactive treemap which presents estimated return on investment and distance to current expertise for each recommended learning activity. Evaluation of the system showed very positive results.

TJBot: An Open Source DIY Cardboard Robot for Programming Cognitive Systems

TJBot is an open source, interactive robot designed to encourage people to build with cognitive services in a fun way. He is a paper robot, which can also be 3D printed, and comes with an initial set of recipes that bring him to life. Recipes are a combination of step-by-step instructions plus sample code that walk people through the assembly of the robot, its hardware components, and software code that connects him to Watson cognitive services. TJBot can be programmed to listen, speak, see and recognize, shine his LED, understand emotions, and wave his arm. TJBot was designed for two communities: makers, who enjoy the DIY aspects of building and programming novel devices, and students, who can learn about programming cognitive systems. At our demo, people can build their very own TJBot out of cardboard and interact with him through speech.

Creating the Mood: Design for a Cognitive Meeting Room

Mood affects the decisions we make and our attitudes toward work and the people with whom we work. The availability of peripheral and focal information also affects the quality and speed of decision-making processes. We are exploring ways to use ambient lighting, music, and images over the course of group meetings in order to understand how these ambient elements affect the quality of meetings, peoples attitudes, and the decisions made.

Privacy and Fear in the Drone Era: Preserving Privacy Expectations Through Technology

The increasing use of unmanned aerial vehicles (i.e. drones) is raising a number of privacy issues. The high-resolution cameras that drones can carry may pose serious privacy hazards to the general public. Numerous media stories highlight incidents of drones spying on people, often with negative consequences (e.g. lawsuits and arrests). Our research seeks to understand how incorporating privacy-preserving technologies in drone design can mitigate privacy fears. We identify several classes of privacy-preserving technological solutions and evaluate their potential efficacy across a variety of situations through a Mechanical Turk survey of 7,200 respondents. Our results inform both drone designers and regulators who wish to develop, operate, and/or regulate novel drone services while assuaging public fears of privacy violations.

Entanglion: A Board Game for Teaching the Principles of Quantum Computing

Educational games are a creative, enjoyable way for students to learn about technical concepts. We present Entanglion, a board game that aims to introduce the fundamental concepts of quantum computing -- a highly technical domain -- to students and enthusiasts of all ages. We describe our iterative design process and feedback from evaluations we conducted with students and professionals. Our playtesters gave positive feedback on our game, indicating it was engaging while simultaneously educational. We discuss a number of lessons we learned from our experience designing and evaluating a pedagogical game for a highly technical subject.

Integrating GLONASS with GPS for Drone Orientation Tracking

In addition to position sensing, GPS receivers can be leveraged for orientation sensing too. We place multiple GPS receivers on drones and translate their relative positions into orientation. Such an orthogonal mode of orientation sensing provides failsafe under Inertial sensor failures – a primary cause of drone crashes today. This paper integrates GLONASS satellite measurements with GPS for enhancing the orientation accuracy.