Abstract:

Designing Chameleon things

What does it mean when interactive things can easily change their shape and function?  This talk explores how physical, and visual change have been used in my interactive scenario work. 

While Computer controlled physical change may have started in manufacturing robotics; plummeting costs of display and actuator technologies now gives us the opportunity to ubiquitously integrate such change into anything.

How will interactive function/perceptual experiences evolve and be evaluated? The Chameleon term is most used in animals that change their look or shape for social goals. Social engagement, teaching, and entertainment might be as compelling for physical computer interaction as robotic/functional change.   My current work In Aarhus with Dr. Marianne Graves and Tim Merritt strives to continue this exploration of  physical interactive systems and how they might change to support aesthetic, educational, social, and functional goals.

Bio

Ted Selker is a visiting Professor at Aarhus University and Distinguished researcher at UC Berkeley. 

Ted’s work strives to demonstrate considerate technology, in which people’s intentions are recognized and respected.

A creator and tester of new scenarios for working with computing systems, his design practice includes consulting wherever innovation is possible.

Ted spent five years as Director of Considerate Systems research at Carnegie Mellon University Silicon Valley. He was also responsible for developing the campus’ research mission, teaching HCI, Android product design. Ted spent ten years as an Associate Professor at the MIT Media Laboratory where he created the Context Aware Computing group, co-directed the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, and directed the CI/DI kitchen of the future/design of the future project. He has also served as a consulting professor at Stanford University, taught at Hampshire College, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Brown University.  

His successes at targeted product creation and enhancement led to his role of IBM Fellow and director of User Systems Ergonomics Research at IBM. He also worked at Xerox PARC and Atari Research Labs.

Ted's innovation has been responsible for profitable and award winning products, ranging from notebook computers to operating systems. For example, his design of the TrackPoint in-keyboard pointing device is used in many notebook computers. His visualization and visual interface work has made impacts in the performance of the PowerPC, usability in OS/2, ThinkPad setup, Google maps, etc. His adaptive help system has been the basis of products as well.   Ted’s work has resulted in numerous awards, patents, and papers, and has often been featured in the press.  Ted was given the American Association for People with Disabilities Thomas Paine Award for his work on voting technology, and was co-recipient of the Computer Science Policy Leader Award for Scientific American 50.