Workshops

The main conference will be preceeded by two days of workshops, which provide a forum for people to discuss areas of special interest within pervasive computing with like-minded researchers and practitioners.

Two-Day Workshops

Monday 18th June

Tuesday 19th June

Mobile Data Challenge by Nokia

Website: http://research.nokia.com/mdc

Nokia Research Center Lausanne, together with its academic partners IDIAP and EPFL, ran a data collection campaign in 2009 – 2010, wherein contextual data was collected continuously using smartphones of the nearly 200 participating individuals. Mobile Data Challenge by Nokia (MDC) releases this comprehensive and relatively unexplored data set for the research community.

The data pertaining to MDC was released on January 8th to more than 500 individual participants for more than 400 challenge tasks. The participants are affiliated with hundreds of different universities and research institutes world-wide, with many leading universities in the field being involved with the challenge. The Challenge tasks are divided between Open and Dedicated Tracks. In the Open Track, participants were able to freely define the research questions. The tasks in the Dedicated Track are related to prediction (of semantic labels of places, of next destinations of users and of demographic attributes of the population) based on the mobile data.

Selected entries will be invited to participate in this workshop organized in conjunction with the Pervasive 2012 conference. The workshop will be distributed across two days, June 18-19. It will include oral presentations as well as posters and demos.

Organisers: Juha Laurila and Daniel Gatica-Perez

Workshop on Kinect in Pervasive Computing

Website: http://www.noggnogg.com/pervasivekinect

For the first time in the brief history of pervasive computing depth sensing is available for widespread use in the form of a consumer off-the-shelf technology. With freely available SDKs and posture trackers for Kinect modeling environments, activity recognition and context-aware and contactless user interaction are now a practical reality for researchers and product developers alike. It is likely that Kinect will have a significant impact on current and future research in pervasive computing by supporting or replacing many existing approaches to context aware computing that rely on traditional computer vision approaches and/or wearable and embedded sensing. Kinect also has a role to play in the collection of valuable ground truth data for systems that utilize embedded and wearable sensors, and computer vision approaches.

We are now at a point in time where we have the opportunity to enable researchers in our community to quickly adopt and share knowledge around uses of this new enabling technology and to maximize the collective impact of the community.

The workshop has an interactive format and participants of this workshop will be given the opportunity to quickly implement pervasive computing scenarios with Kinect in the hands-on sessions where each group will be provided with a programming template and support by a trained PC member. The objective of this workshop is to foster discussions around chances and challenges of using Kinect in pervasive computing (both social and technical) and to jointly identify and establish a set of new tools and to agree on uniform data standards.

Organisers: David Kim, Shahram Izadi and Otmar Hilliges

6th International Workshop on Ubiquitous Health and Wellness - UbiHealth 2012

Website: https://sites.google.com/site/ubihealth2012

This workshop continues the line of UbiHealth workshops previously organized at Ubicomp conferences in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2010.

The workshop's major theme will be relationship between behaviour and health. The topics will be centred on measuring and sensing behaviour, its correlation with overall physical and mental health, prediction of disorders/episodes from the measured behaviour and effects of persuasion on behaviour change. A specific objective of the workshop will be discussion of the latest findings on the relationship between physical behaviour and mental health. Considering that mental disorders affect around a quarter of all people at some point in their life and that these disorders are universal, affecting all countries and societies, and individuals of all ages, there is a significant need to discuss the latest findings and further advance this research area. Building on previous editions of UbiHealth workshop, authors of papers of high merit will be invited to submit extended papers to a journal Special Issue (details will be posted on the workshop website).

Organisers: Venet Osmani, Bert Arnrich and Oscar Mayora

5th International SAME Workshop (Semantic Ambient Media Experience)

Website: http://www.ambientmediaassociation.org/same2012

The medium is the message! And the message was transmitted via a single distinguishable media such as television, the Web, the radio, or books. In the age of ubiquitous and pervasive computation, where the information through a distributed interlinked network of devices the question, "what is content in the age of ambient media?" becomes more important. Ambient media are embedded throughout the natural environment of the consumer - in his home, in his car, in restaurants, and on his mobile device. Predominant example services are smart wallpapers in homes, location based services, RFID based entertainment services for children, or intelligent homes. Today the screen seems to be the main modality for consuming and interacting with media. However, the main challenge for ambient media is to 'render' the digital world in the natural environment, augment the world around us, and to bring the digital world into the real physical world.

The plethora of interactivity becomes a modality for connecting the physical world to the digital overly and an interaction with physical objects triggering actions in the digital domain. Today, the main device for interaction is the screen and the display - what about no-screen, no-keyboard, no-mouse media? Current developments as e.g. fluid interfaces, displays beyond mobile phone and PC screens, gadgets for gaming, and outside media products show us that no-screen, no-keyboard, and no-mouse media are possible. Semantic ambient media, that can be touched, listened to, felt, smelled, rendering traditional screen, keyboard, and mouse concepts obsolete. Within the scope of this workshop we solely focus on no-screen, no-keyboard, no-mouse based semantic media applications.

Organisers: Artur Lugmayr, Thomas Risse, Bjorn Stockleben, Bjorn Stockleben, Bogdan Pogorelc and Estefania Serral Asensio

Pervasive Intelligibility: Second Workshop on Intelligibility and Control in Pervasive Computing

Website: http://research.edm.uhasselt.be/pervasive-intelligibility/

Due to the proactive and complex dynamics of pervasive computing applications, it is important that systems are intelligible (or scrutable) to allow end-users to understand "what the systems know, how they know it, and what they are doing". Furthermore, these systems should put end-users at the center of control by empowering them to better co-ordinate, control, and personalize pervasive systems. Intelligibility and control are crucial to improve the usability of these novel, and possibly unintuitive, systems and to help users understand, appreciate, trust, and ultimately adopt them.

The aim of the Pervasive Intelligibility workshop series is to provide a forum for specifying, designing, developing, and evaluating intelligible and user-controllable pervasive computing systems. Drawing upon the state-of-the-art, our goal is to refine existing and identify new directions for research in intelligibility and user-centric controls for pervasive computing that will foster further work in the community. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: novel intelligible applications and interaction techniques, algorithms, toolkits and frameworks to support intelligibility and control, user studies and techniques (metrics and methods) to evaluate intelligibility and controllability.

Organisers: Jo Vermeulen, Brian Y. Lim and Fahim Kawsar

Fourth International Workshop on Security and Privacy in Spontaneous Interaction and Mobile Phone Use

Website: http://www.medien.ifi.lmu.de/iwssi2012/

Mobile devices in general, and mobile phones in particular, present unique challenges not only in terms of user interface, battery life, and form factor, but also in terms of ensuring their users' privacy and security. Privacy and security are often in conflict with another and have been the topic of many research projects. Emerging mobile payment and ticketing solutions require the secure transmission and storage of financial information, while electronic health records or access certificates/tokens might imply the use of highly sensitive personal information on such devices. Securing the potentially massive amount of interactions using mobile devices is difficult, because typically there will be no a priori shared information such as passwords, addresses, or PIN codes between the phone, its user, and the service they want to use. Additionally, mobile devices often lack powerful user interfaces to support classical authentication methods.

The 4th International Workshop on Security and Privacy in Spontaneous Interaction and Mobile Device Use (IWSSI/SPMU'2012) provides a forum to discuss these challenges and to put forward an agenda for future research. The workshop is intended to foster cooperation between research groups and to establish a highly connected research community.

Organisers: Marc Langheinrich, Rene Mayrhofer, Alexander De Luca and Max-Emanuel Maurer

Pervasive Information Architectures as Architectures of Meaning for Complex Cross-channel Systems

Website: http://andrearesmini.com/blog/architectures-of-meaning

In the past few years, the practice of information architecture (IA) as the structural design of shared information environments has been changing under the influx of media convergence and ubiquitous and pervasive computing. Today, IA is uniquely positioned to help improve the design of successful user experiences and customer journeys in pervasive, cross-channel environments.

The workshop aims at bringing both researchers and practitioners to the table to: reframe information architecture and its role as the enabling layer for pervasive systems where information permeates physical space and products become cross-channel services; tackle established problems within the field with a multi-disciplinary perspective centered on indeterminate problem solving; identify new directions of research in this specific area which might advance both the theory and practice of information architecture in pervasive information spaces; promote the shared understanding of issues, challenges and opportunities among individuals and institutions that participate in the creation of complex, pervasive digital / physical information spaces or services from a user-centered perspective.

The workshop welcomes both theoretical reflections and academic perspectives and case study-related best practices and insights.

Organisers: Andrea Resmini, Terence Fenn and Jason Hobbs

.NET Gadgeteer Hack-Fest

Website: http://di.ncl.ac.uk/gadgeteer/hackfest

Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer is a rapid prototyping platform for small electronic gadgets and embedded hardware devices. It combines the advantages of object-oriented programming, solder-less assembly of electronics using a kit of hardware modules, and quick physical enclosure fabrication using computer-aided design.

The .NET Gadgeteer Hack-Fest will teach attendees how to utilise this new and exciting platform to develop rich, functional hardware prototypes for use in their research. The day will commence with a brief overview of the key (hardware and software) principles of Gadgeteer. Following this, attendees will be able to get hands on with Gadgeteer, by working in small groups to create a range of exciting prototypes. As the theme of the workshop is Hack the Conference, attendees will be provided with a range of Gadgeteer modules and libraries that will allow prototypes to be developed that interact with real sensor data drawn from the conference venue. The best of these creations will be put on display for all to experiment with throughout the remainder of the conference. If you would like to take part in the .NET Gadgeteer Hack-Fest please fill out an application form, which can be found on the project website.

Organisers: Jonathan Hook, Tom Bartindale, Thomas Smith and Patrick Olivier

Web of Things 2012

Website: http://www.webofthings.org/wot

The Web of Things is about extending the Internet of Things concept beyond the connection of things and considering issues like heterogeneity, scalability, and usability with respect to pervasive computing. It is seen as the next logical step in the evolution towards global networks of sensors and actuators, enabling new applications and providing new opportunities. The goal of this initiative is to reuse the architectural principles that made the Web successful and apply them to the interaction with smart devices, thereby making them first-class citizens of the Web. While most pervasive computing applications assume a homogeneous and centrally managed infrastructure that is tailored to support a specific application scenario, the approach taken by the Web of Things is to look at the problems and research issues that emerge when considering the interaction of heterogeneous devices within composite applications.

Continuing the successful Web of Things workshop series, this workshop aims at further exploring the use of technologies and principles at the core of the Web to provide methods for a seamless integration of physical devices. In particular, our goal is to foster discussion on systems towards a real-time Web of Things and the discovery, search, and composition of services provided by Web-enabled things. The Web of Things workshop solicits contributions in all areas related to the Web of Things, and we invite application designers to think beyond sensor networks and Web applications, and to imagine, design, build, evaluate, and share their thoughts and visions on what the future of the Web and of networked devices will be.

Organisers: Simon Mayer, Dominique Guinard and Erik Wilde

Frontiers in Accessibility for Pervasive Computing

Website: http://pervasive-accessibility.shorturl.com/

The primary objective of the workshop is to provide a venue for sharing and discussing frontier technologies and evaluation methodologies for accessibility in pervasive computing. We propose, but are not limited to, two research questions regarding the interplay between pervasive computing and accessibility. First, we aim to determine what it means for a pervasive system to be accessible and how can we measure it. Second, we propose to discuss how pervasive computing systems can provide accessibility support for everyday tasks that would otherwise be impossible or very difficult to manage independently. We want to encourage the workshop's participants to discuss lessons learned from previous design successes and failures, raise methodological issues in designing special evaluations given the nature of pervasive computing and of the target user populations, and propose future research questions and challenges.

Organisers: Mario Romero, Jeff Bigham, Tiago Guerreiro, Shaun Kane, Sergio Mascetti, Caleb Southern, Konstantinos Votis and Gottfried Zimmermann

The Second Workshop on Pervasive Urban Applications (PURBA-2012)

Website: http://www.ibm.com/ie/dublinresearchlab/purba/

The PURBA 2012 workshop aims to bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss and explore the research challenges and opportunities in applying the pervasive computing paradigm to urban spaces. We are seeking multi-disciplinary contributions that reveal interesting aspects about urban life and exploit the digital traces to create novel urban applications that benefit citizens, urban planners, and policy makers.

Organisers: Francesco Calabrese, Santi Phithakkitnukoon, Dominik Dahlem and Giusy Di Lorenzo

The 5th Workshop on Pervasive Advertising

Website: http://pervasiveadvertising.org/?page_id=371

The focus of the 5th workshop on Pervasive Advertising will be on novel applications of pervasive computing for advertising purposes. Pervasive Advertising is finally gaining importance at a rapidly accelerating pace also outside of research labs, and policy makers, industrial players, and citizen have difficulty in keeping up. The success of this workshop series in exploring and structuring the field has recently been demonstrated by the book on Pervasive Advertising that has been co-authored by leading researchers of the community. We envision to continue and further establish the workshop series as a prime venue bringing together people from academia and practice, hence driving forward research in the field of Pervasive Advertising. We hence invite papers that address any relevant issues, especially Calm vs. Engaging Advertising, Lessons from Deployments, Audience Measurement and Personalization, and Economic Key Performance Indicators (KPI). Accepted papers will be published in the Workshop Proceedings of Pervasive 2012 and on the workshop website. Authors of selected articles will be invited to submit an extended version for a special issue in the Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (PUC) journal.

Organisers: Jörg Müller, Florian Alt, Daniel Michelis, Bo Begole

1st International Workshop on Language Technology in Pervasive Computing (LTPC)

Website: http://ltpc2012.blogspot.com/

The main objective of the workshop is to consider the intersection of two research domains which have been separated the past years: Natural language Processing (NLP) and pervasive computing. In pervasive and ubiquitous computing scenarios, spoken language is in many cases the ideal modality for human beings to interact with a "disappearing" computer, i.e. to directly formulate their intentions and to receive feedback from the system. However, despite recent advances in speech technology, many developers still have objections to employ NLP due to concerns of low recognition rates and issues of disambiguation etc. These limitations of NLP components are not surprising, considering that even human beings can only make sense of spoken language by contextual knowledge. Sensing context however is one of the key topics of the Pervasive Computing conference series, particularly location sensing and activity recognition. We believe that the pervasive computing community can make an important contribution to the field of NLP.

The location of users within the environment and the surrounding objects are of major importance for dialogue between the user and a system. It is more likely that the user refers to objects that are nearby and visible, so the speech system should consider this. Gesture recognition is another pervasive technology that can improve speech-enabled systems through multimodality, with manifold applications. The quality of user interfaces may be further increased by personalization through speaker recognition. Finally, user interfaces of pervasive computing systems must be translated and localized to different languages and cultures in order to be successful on global markets.

Organisers: Dimitra Anastasiou and Christoph Stahl

Workshop on Recent Advances in Behavior Prediction and Pro-active Pervasive Computing

Website: http://www.ibr.cs.tu-bs.de/dus/Awarecast/

Behavior and context prediction breaks the border from reaction on past and present stimuli to proactive anticipation of actions. Researchers have for about one decade now considered the prediction of such stimuli to enable pro-active context computing. Research directions spread from applications for behavior and context prediction over event prediction, machine learning, architectures for prediction, data formats and algorithms.

The workshop will bring together researchers of this field and reveal important open issues. The workshop especially targets the potential of context and behavior prediction in sustainability applications. With current research challenges in sustainability and new possibilities such as crowd sourcing and mobile sensing, it is the time to advance context prediction further and improve, for instance, prediction of room level location/room occupancy, prediction of traffic condition, prediction of air quality, and prediction of energy demands. Additional challenges cover collaborative context prediction through crowd sourcing and mobile sensing, prediction based on more sensors, prediction based on remote context histories, adaptation to user behaviour changes, and prediction using resource limited devices.

Further topics address the accurate prediction of seldom events, continuous learning, user behaviour and habit changes over time, public spaces, data sets and benchmarks, sharing of prediction and time series as well as privacy and trust.

Organisers: Niklas Klein, Brian Ziebart and Stephan Sigg

The Second Workshop on Smart Mobile Applications (SmartApps'12)

Website: http://www.mobile.ifi.uni-muenchen.de/aktuelles/smartapps2012/index.html

Mobile applications are rapidly developing and becoming more and more important as mobile devices are becoming even smarter. They are computer networked and user reconfigurable. A device can be seen as part of a cloud or operate autonomously. It is a device, consisting of CPU, storage and network access and has the intelligence to perform services both reactive and proactive. It can also be seen as a part of a smart environment, i.e. interact with a physical world consisting of sensors and actuators, displays and computational elements that are connected through a continuous network. However this type of service has severe problems if it is to be adopted in the business area. Some aspects which are not solved for the mobile domain include dependability, device management, provability of intent and information filtering. Due to the increasing computing capabilities and the increasing quality of hard- and software of smartphones, we expect these problems to find solutions in the next years and solicit any original scientific work which addresses one of these unsolved challenges.

This one-day workshop intends to bring together researchers, professionals and practitioners to discuss and address recent developments and challenges for the design, operation and backend integration of mobile applications for non-commercial Apps as well as enterprise applications. Furthermore, one of the challenges is to bring the different mobile platforms together and to have secure concepts for additional services like location, payment, authorization etc.

Organisers: Claudia Linnhoff-Popien and Stephan Verclas

Sponsors

Microsoft Research Nokia SiDE Culture Lab
Intel WSAQualcomm Computing Community Consortium