Michael Storz

Loaded Dice: Exploring the Design Space of Connected Devices with Blind and Visually Impaired People

This paper proposes Loaded Dice, two wireless connected Arduino based, 3D-printed cubes consisting of various sensors in one cube and various actuators in the other. It is an interactive tool intended to support co-design activities with blind and visually impaired people within the design space of smart connected devices. The design rationale and design process that led to the implementation of the interactive co-design tool are described as well as the interactive tool itself and an analysis of how co-designers utilized it within a co-design workshop to explore the technology of smart and connected devices. Findings from this workshop are presented. The proposed interactive tool and supporting co-design activities proved to be empowering and engaging to imagine and ideate future technologies based around the IoT.

Annotate. Train. Evaluate. A Unified Tool for the Analysis and Visualization of Workflows in Machine Learning Applied to Object Detection

The development of classifiers for object detection in images is a complex task that comprises the creation of representative and potentially large datasets from a target object by repetitive and time-consuming intellectual annotations, followed by a sequence of methods to train, evaluate and optimize the generated classifier. This is conventionally achieved by the usage and combination of many different tools. Here, we present a holistic approach to this scenario by providing a unified tool that covers the single development stages in one solution to facilitate the development process. We prove this concept by the example of creating a face detection classifier.

A support framework for automated video and multimedia workflows for production and archive

The management of the massive amount of data in video- and multimedia workflows is a hard and expensive work that requires much personnel and technical resources. Our flexible and scalable open source middleware framework offers solution approaches for the automated handling of the ingest and the workflow by an automated acquisition of all available information. By using an XML format to describe the processes, we provide an easy, fast and well-priced solution without the need for specific human skills.

Smart Connected Sensations: Co-Creating Smart Connected Applications through Distributed Serendipity

This demo presents Loaded Dice, two wirelessly connected Arduino based, 3D-printed cubes consisting of sensors in one die and actuators in the other. It is an interactive tool to support co-design activities. This demo focuses on a work-in-progress application during the conference for participants to explore the design space of smart connected devices by rolling the dice in different rooms for exploring serendipitous qualities of smart connected sensations.

Exploring the Playfulness of Tools for Co-Designing Smart Connected Devices: A Case Study with Blind and Visually Impaired Students

In this paper we compare two tools for co-designing smart connected devices on their playfulness. First littleBits, a commercially available tool and Loaded Dice, a self developed tool, are introduced. Second frameworks for comparing the playfulness of such tools are briefly reviewed. We then report on co-design sessions we conducted with blind and visually impaired students and compare those sessions on the playfulness of the two tools. It is shown how tools that engage in playful exploration sustain successful co-design sessions, while tools with a lower level of playfulness constrain such co-design sessions to an extent where more functional and less imaginative design concepts are produced.

Rapid Model-Driven Annotation and Evaluation for Object Detection in Videos

Nowadays, the annotation of ground truth and the automated localisation and validation of objects in audiovisual media plays an essential role to keep pace with the large data growth. A common approach to train such classifiers is to integrate methods from machine learning that often demand multiple thousands or millions of samples. Therefore, we propose two components. The first constraints the annotation space by predefined models and allows the creation of ground truth data while providing opportunities to annotate and interpolate objects in keyframes or in-between by granting a user-friendly frame-wise access. The graphical user-interface of the second component focuses on the rapid validation of automatically pre-classified object instances in order to alter the assignment of the class label or to remove false-positives to clean-up the result list which has been successfully applied on the task of Instance Search within the TRECVid evaluation campaign.

ComforTable: A Tabletop for Relaxed and Playful Interactions in Museums

We present the ComforTable an all-in-one interactive tabletop system with integrated seats and a camera based user tracking system. The seats allow groups of users relaxed interactions with the interface. The system and its applications are made for and tested in museums and exhibitions. A card game and a pong game support up to six players playing competitively together. The tracking system recognizes persons approaching the table. This information is used to blend in helpful instructions and interaction options next to the userss position.

Sensing Home: Participatory Exploration of Smart Sensors in the Home

More and more things in the home are sensor equipped and connected to an all encompassing Internet of Things (IoT). These »smart« things may offer novel ways to interact but also raise questions around their social implications. While participatory research on IoT for the smart city has shown that technically functioning IoT toolkits are valuable research tools, surprisingly few such toolkits exist for participatory research on the smart home. Thus, we have developed the toolkit »Sensing Home« to involve people into designing and understanding use and context of IoT in the home. We will report on the design, development, and subsequent field studies of Sensing Home. Three use cases will be presented, to discuss how Sensing Home enabled several modes of participatory exploration. The first use case reports on people developing custom sensor applications within their homes. The second use case describes how students appropriated Sensing Home for empirical in-the-wild studies of smart sensing in the home. For the third use case, Sensing Home was deployed in households to explore and to make sense of collected sensor data together with inhabitants.

Sensing Home: Designing an Open Tool That Lets People Collect and Interpret Simple Sensor Data from Their Homes

Abstract The Internet of Things in the home is a design space with huge potential. With sensors getting smaller and cheaper, smart sensor equipped objects will become an integral, preinstalled part of the future home. With this article we will reflect on Sensing Home, a design tool to explore sensors in the home together with people. Sensing Home allows people to integrate sensors and connectivity into mundane domestic products in order to make them smart. As such, it can be used by people to experience and explore sensors in the home and daily life. They may explore possible use cases, appropriate sensor technology, and learn about this technology through use. At the same time people may also be empowered to understand the issues and implications of sensors in the home. We present the design rationale of Sensing Home, five usage examples of how Sensing Home allowed people to explore sensor technology, and the deployment of Sensing Home together with a self-developed group discussion method to empower people to understand the benefits and pitfalls of sensors in their home. The article ends with a brief reflection whether Sensing Home is a probe or a toolkit.

Bricks, Blocks, Boxes, Cubes, and Dice: On the Role of Cubic Shapes for the Design of Tangible Interactive Devices

Cubic shapes play an astonishing role in the design of tangible interactive devices. Due to our curiosity for this widespread design preference lasting over thirty years, we constituted a literature survey of papers, books and products since the late 1970s. Out of a corpus of fourty-seven papers, books and products that propose cubic shapes for tangible interactive devices we trace the origins of cubicle tangibles and highlight the rationale for their application. Through a comparative study, we analyze the properties of this shape for tangible interaction design and classify these along the themes of: Manipulation as Input, Placement in Space as Input, Arrangement, Multifunctionality, Randomness, Togetherness & Variations, Physical Qualities, Container, and Pedestal for Output. We propose a taxonomy for cubic shaped tangible interactive devices based on the reviewed contributions, in order to support researchers and designers in their future work of designing cubic shaped tangible interactive devices.