After a week of the usual troubles while working in a half-way boxed-up office-space, the CrossWorlds Team finally is moving into their new habitat, half a World away aCross the street. If you want to find us, remember to look into the A-Wing of Reichenhainer Str. 70, Rooms 312 through 317.
CrossWorlds / General
General
As every year the biggest HCI conference in Germany the Mensch und Computer is a great opportunity to present our work and get into discussion with researchers from various fields. This years Mensch und Computer took place from 31st August to 3rd Semptember in Munich.
Fellow Michael Storz attended the doctoral symposium where he presented the current state of his thesis. A big thanks goes to the organizers professors Herrmann and Leimeister. Furthermore fellow Michael Heidt and research student Linda Pfeiffer contributed to the conference demo session.
For us this years highlight on MuC was Arne Bergers contribution “Personal Spacer” to the “Visionen” contest. A video featuring a provocative vision of the technology use in 2026. You can watch it here. (sorry, german only)
Cocontributor Stefan Kahl presents Arne Bergers contribution to this years MuC Visionen contest.
July 20, 2014 by Madlen Wuttke in General
Comments Off on The first ‘Crossie’ defended his PHD thesis!
It happened! The first one of our Crossworlds colleagues, Daniel Pietschmann, has successfully defended his PhD thesis on July 17th. His dissertation is titled ‘Spatial Mapping in virtuellen Umgebungen: Der Einfluss von Stereoskopie und Natural Mapping auf die User Experience’ (Spatial Mapping in virtual environments: the influence of stereoscopy and natural mapping on the user experience). Daniel, the team congratulates you and your dedication to science and we hope to join you in the ranks of PhD, soon. 😀
Comments Off on Thank you for a great conference!
This monday and tuesday, many months of preparation finally culminated in having our CrossWorlds 2014 conference on Theory, Development, & Evaluation of Social Technology at Chemnitz University. On these two days, over 60 participants enjoyed interesting talks on interdisciplinary topics concerning the boundaries of virtual and real social worlds and also shared engaging discussions with each other – both at the conference venue and at the social evening on monday.
On behalf of the whole CrossWorlds team, we thank all the presenters and participants for making our conference a huge success. We hope, you had a great time in Chemnitz and enjoyed the conference as much as we did. We’re already looking forward for our next conference in 2016.
Now, after the conference, we are especially interested in your feedback and comments. We will also post pictures and presentation slides in the coming days. So please, check back, soon.
Your CrossWorlds team
From June 22nd until Friday the 27th, the Human Computer Interaction International Conference 2014 took place in Heraklion, Crete. The HCI wants to promote the dissemination and exchange of scientific research in the field of human computer interaction. Within this context, the Crossworlds team presented papers about various topics ranging from stereoscopy and virtual environments to pedagogical agents and the social interactions during a trip to the museum. Many parallel sessions and multiple chats about ongoing research later, the participants agreed on one thing: the research of the Crossworlds team is certainly on the pulse of the time.
Comments Off on CrossWorlds Interactive Tabletop is touring through Germany
CrossWorlds fellows Michael Storz and Kalja Kanellopoulos contributed an interactive tabletop to the exibition-ship MS Wissenschaft. The ship is touring through Germany and Austria until 28th of september with its exhibition “Digital unterwegs”. A detailed tour plan can be found here.
The tabletop offers two applications, a turn based card game for up to four and a pong game for up to six players. Additionally the tabletop is equipped with a user tracking system which notices when new players approach the table. In front of new players a dialog automatically pops up enabling users to log into the game.
Children playing at the CrossWorlds Tabletop.
© Ilja Hendel/Wissenschaft im Dialog
Tabletop applications can be used by up to six players.
© Ilja Hendel/Wissenschaft im Dialog
Three teams of the CrossWorlds research group were chosen by the DFG for being advertised on the Terra Digitalis Website, which is now online – check it out!
Please scroll down on the page to make your balloon travel across the Terra Digitalis. Or simply click on these links to get to the CrossWorlds projects immediately:
Anke Tallig & Andreas Bischof
Kalja Kanellopoulos & Michael Storz
Madlen Wuttke & Kai-Uwe Martin
Comments Off on Crossworlds @ Studentische Medientage Chemnitz
On April 25th and 26th the 10th Studentische Medientage took place at the new auditorium building (NHG) at Technische Universität Chemnitz. In accordance with this year’s theme ‘Get Connected!’ numerous communication professionals discussed the importance of networking in lectures and workshops.
Once again the CrossWorlds team supported the conference by displaying their research projects. Amongst other examples, the second prototype table platform of Kalja Kanellopoulos and Michael Storz, presenting a card game and a game of Pong, was open to public experimentation. Currently, their second table is aboard the ship ‘MS Wissenschaft’ and travels across the rivers of Germany. Furthermore, Michael Heidt preseted a join
t human-computer exploration device and Anke Tallig tested the detection capabilities of non-verbal communication behavior by her new robot-guide installation.
And in addition to the professional audiences, the mentoring program ‘Girl’s Tandem’ visited the symposium and interacted with the various exhibitions from CrossWorlds.
The ‘Studentischen Medientage‘ are developed and organized solely by students of the Institute for Media Research at the Technische Universität Chemnitz but nevertheless established itself as a networking platform for other students and media professionals across Germany. This annual conference, established in 2005, meanwhile attracts more than 500 visitors from science and practice, in order to discuss media-relevant developments, new media perspectives and ideas.
On 12th of february CrossWorlds was visited by Prof. Dr. Harald Reiterer professor for Human Computer Interaction at University of Konstanz. His talk “Die reale Welt als Vorbild – Neue Wege der Interaktion mit digitalen Welten”(Taking the real world as an example – New ways of interaction in digital worlds) gave us inspiring insights into several projects of his workgroup. His research focus on interactive systems and tabletops ties on our own efforts in this direction. After the talk our fellow researchers Michael Storz and Kalja Kanellopoulos had the opportunity to demonstrate their own developed tabletop and its applications. Especially our design for an “in the wild”-setting of the tabletop, which was and will be tested and evaluated in museum situations, appealed to our guest.
His talk was recorded and edited by the television studio of the professorship Media Informatics.
Comments Off on Associated PhD student Arne Berger defended his thesis.
Crossworlds associated PhD student Arne Berger successfully defended his PhD thesis
“Prototypes In Interaction Design” on Nov, 22nd, 2013. Arnes research focusses on prototypes as agents for reducing complexity at the intersection of design and computer science and reflecting players in interdisciplinary settings. His book is a must read for teams of mixed professions and will be available as Open Access (http://monarch.qucosa.de/startseite) very soon. Well done, Arne!