16 Nov 2012

Call for Book Chapters: Hyperconnectivity and the Future of Internet Communication

posted in: Uncategorized |

Call for Chapters: Hyperconnectivity and the Future of Internet Communication
Proposals Submission Deadline: December 15, 2012
Full Chapters Due: March 15, 2013

Introduction
Over the past few decades, there has been a revolution in computing and communication. Machines that once occupied whole rooms have moved to the desktop, the lap and palm, and into clothing itself. Stand-alone systems are now networked with each other and a wide range of different devices across vast distances. For the first time in human history, we have become instantly globally connected, leading to a hyperconnected society and a 168 (24×7) world.

One of the consequences of this revolution is an explosion in interactive internet media technologies. Interactive media is one of the main developments that emerged as a product of the technological, intellectual, and cultural innovations of the late 20th century. Interactive media means much more than the convergence of telecommunications, traditional media, and computing. Using Marshall McLuhans definition of media as an extension of man, new media includes all the various forms in which we as humans can extend our senses and brains into the world. It includes new technologies that allow us to facilitate these new communications and create natural and humanistic methods of interfacing with machines, as well as other people, remotely over large distances using the full range of human gestures such as touch, sight, sound, and even smell. Thus, new media includes new ways of communication between people, between cultures and races, between humans and machines, and between machines and machines. The vision of new media is that it will bring about radical developments in every aspect of human life in the form of new kinds of symbioses between humans and computers, new ways of communication between people, and new forms of social organization and interaction. New research and products in internet communication will bring a new sense of presence of humans in the real and virtual worlds. Although there are many books related to internet technologies, the aspect of communication with all human senses in a constant hyperconnected manner still requires much scholarly research. This book will be at the forefront of scholarship in multisensory hyperconnected human communication and be of great resource to scholars and experts.

Objective of the Book
This book will examine and expose future internet communication technologies and telexistence paradigms to allow a hyperconnected presence of all our five senses, as well as non-verbal and emotional communication, through digital networks and the physical world of humans and devices/gadgets. It will examine the human communication habits and preferences in the internet age and the possibilities of new media being truly extensions of man. Researchers need to go beyond this approach and focus on human emotions and nonverbal language as key components in the communication process. Case studies will examine corresponding new forms of communication, culture, economy and business, healthcare, learning, and play.

Target Audience
In order for businesses and countries to flourish commercially and culturally in the new millennium, it is necessary for them to understand and foster the growth of interactive media technologies and open-minded creative experimentations. This book will provide new perspectives on the field of internet media for communication, learning, and entertainment. The potential audience of this book will be scientists, engineers, and researchers of internet and digital media communications. In addition, the proposed book will aid the prospective audience, e.g. university lecturers and professors, students, researchers, and developers of internet technologies. It will allow a fundamental understanding of hyperconnectivity with all human senses, and will provide a great resource for scholarship as well as internet application development.

Recommended topics include, but are not limited to the following:

Future internet communication technologies concerning multisensory and hyperconnected human communications. The chapter topics may include sub-topics related to:
*Affective Computing? Augmented, Mixed, and Virtual Reality
*Avatars and Autonomous Characters
*Cultural Computing
*Digital Broadcasting/Podcasting
*Educational
*Emerging World
*Entertainment
*Interaction and Experience Design
*Funology
*Game Design, Programming, and Production
*Human-Robot Interaction
*Children-Computer Interaction
*Location-Based Interaction
*Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing
*Persuasive Computing
*Smart Gadgets and Toys
*Social Networks
*Tangible Interfaces
*Urban Communities
*Visual Arts

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before December 15, 2012, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by December 30, 2012 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by March 15, 2013. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project.

Publisher
This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the “Information Science Reference” (formerly Idea Group Reference), “Medical Information Science Reference,” “Business Science Reference,” and “Engineering Science Reference” imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com. This book is anticipated to be released in early 2014.

Important Dates
December 15, 2012: Proposal Submission Deadline
December 30, 2012: Notification of Acceptance
March 15, 2013: Full Chapter Submission
April 30, 2013: Review Results Returned
June 30, 2013: Final Chapter Submission

Editors

Adrian David Cheok (Keio University, Tokyo, Japan)

Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document):

Adrian David Cheok
Keio University
adriancheok@kmd.keio.ac.jp
www.adriancheok.info

28 Oct 2012

IEEE Spectrum article on Adrian Cheok

posted in: Media |

“I believe we need to move from the age of information, which we have reached today, into the age of experience,” he says. A 2007 project extended the chicken research to children: The Huggy Pajama allows faraway parents to give their kid a remote good-night hug by pressing an input module’s buttons. In user surveys, parents and children reported higher levels of emotional engagement thanks to the huggy system. Now Cheok’s working on a commercial product that would let a user send a squeeze—and a warm thought—to the ring on a loved one’s finger. He hopes to have a prototype ready by the start of 2013.

Haptics are just the beginning. Cheok has a “digital lollipop” in the works that electrically and thermally stimulates the tongue to produce basic flavors—bitter, sour, salty, sweet. He dreams of a system that would let friends in Paris send you a taste of their wine over the Internet. “The ultimate Internet,” he says, “will integrate all our senses.”

23 Apr 2012

Measuring my mind using Quantified Mind experiments

posted in: Uncategorized |

I found this site which allows one to measure their mind and test yourself against different conditions. I think it is very useful to learn more about oneself. I think the next step of data and internet will be measuring (almost) everything about oneself and analyzing it in the cloud. And if you find yourself in need of a healthy way to improve your skin, check South Beach Skin Lab.

From the site:
Quantified Mind experiments
Quantified Mind is ready to be used in mind-boggingly fun experiments! Advance everyone’s knowledge of factors that affect our mental performance by actively taking cognitive tests under different conditions. Here are a few ideas for things to test: sleep, exercise, diet, drugs and supplements, treadmill desk, time of day, level of background noise, etc..

22 Apr 2012

On Loneliness & Technology

posted in: Uncategorized |

FJP: We’ve been reading different takes on digital social networks and how/if they impact solitude, loneliness, and offline socializing. Here is a mash-up of the conversations we’ve been following.

The Atlantic: Social media—from Facebook to Twitter—have made us more densely networked than ever. Yet for all this connectivity, new research suggests that we have never been lonelier (or more narcissistic)—and that this loneliness is making us mentally and physically ill.

NY Times: New communications technologies make living alone a social experience, so being home alone does not feel involuntary or like solitary confinement. The person alone at home can digitally navigate through a world of people, information and ideas. Internet use does not seem to cut people off from real friendships and connections.

The Atlantic: We have never been more detached from one another, or lonelier. In a world consumed by ever more novel modes of socializing, we have less and less actual society. We live in an accelerating contradiction: the more connected we become, the lonelier we are. We were promised a global village; instead we inhabit the drab cul-de-sacs and endless freeways of a vast suburb of information.

Slate: Articles about American alienation may well feel true to those who long for simpler, happier times, but they’re built on fables and fantasies. In fact, there’s zero evidence that we’re more detached or lonely than ever.

The New Yorker: M.I.T. psychologist Sherry Turkle, takes issue with the basic promises of digital connection. She thinks that togetherness, far from being strengthened by technology, has been crowded out by “the half-light of virtual community.”

The Atlantic: But it is clear that social interaction matters. Loneliness and being alone are not the same thing, but both are on the rise. We meet fewer people. We gather less. And when we gather, our bonds are less meaningful and less easy. The decrease in confidants—that is, in quality social connections—has been dramatic over the past 25 years.

The New Yorker: Klinenberg’s research suggests that our usual perceptions about life alone get things backward. Far from being a mark of social abandonment, the solo life tends to be a path for moving ahead, for taking control of one’s circumstances. And, rather than consigning individuals to suffer in their solitude, aloneness may come at a cost to the community. The single life is inherently self-interested: it calls for vigilance on matters of self-preservation both large (financial autonomy) and small (dish detergent), and, in many cases, it frees the solitary from the sorts of daily interaction that help craft a sense of shared responsibility.

NY Times: The Pew Internet Personal Networks and Community Survey — a nationally representative survey of 2,512 American adults conducted in 2008 that was the first to examine how the Internet and cellphones affect our core social networks — shows that Web use can lead to more social life, rather than to less. “Social Isolation and New Technology,” written by the Rutgers University communications scholar Keith Hampton, reveals that heavy users are more likely than others to have large and diverse social networks; more likely to visit parks, cafes and restaurants; and more likely to meet diverse people with different perspectives and beliefs.

The New Yorker: Given our digital habits, the question isn’t whether we should use technology to ease our loneliness. It’s how.

FJP (Jihii): Ah, key question. So, where do we stand? I’ll quote Michael.

FJP (Michael): What do I think about social media? For my personal use it’s a bit of a time suck and I have to remind myself to step away from it, head outdoors and wrap my mind around something more substantive than the flurry of information I find myself in. For professional use it’s integral to the FJP’s ability to build audiences and engage with them. I can’t think of how we would be able to accomplish what we do without it. Societally, I’m a big believer in tools and platforms that allow people to connect, organize and share information. Social media increases the speed with which people can do so more than any other tool in history. This is great. My fear with it though is that people will increasingly build information silos around themselves and only hear and expose themselves to information that they want to hear, and from a partisan perspective from which they’d like to hear it. (http://bit.ly/HsAnMN)

FJP (Jihii): So yes, the power is in our hands, social media users. How do you choose to use your social networks? I think the key point is to continually check ourselves and reflect on just that.

PS: Sorry for the lack of links. This post format won’t allow it. Here are links to the articles. (Note that both the NY Times piece and Slate piece are by Eric Klinenberg.)

NY Times: http://nyti.ms/I22q7e
Slate: http://slate.me/J8BJzY
The Atlantic: http://bit.ly/I0nwmI
The New Yorker: http://nyr.kr/InwNEz

11 Apr 2012

Q&A for Seoul Digital Forum

posted in: Keynote Speeches and Talks |

For the Seoul Digital Forum 2012 which will occur in May 2012, I was asked some questions about the topics of the conference. The questions and my answers are below.

1. What does ‘coexistence’ mean to you in this digital era?

Recently the world has rapidly accelerated in communication speed, traffic, and devices and we have now arrived into a hyperconnected world. We now have immediate and fully accessible communication between people, between cultures and races, between humans and machines, and between machines and machines. This hyperconnectivity will bring about radical
developments in every aspect of human lives in the form of new kinds of symbioses between humans and computers, new ways of communication between people, and new forms of social organization and interaction. Thus hyperconnectivity has brought about a global coexistence between people and people, between people and machines, and between machines and machines.

2. Which technology do you think has made the biggest contribution to our ‘humanness’ (based on your understanding/conceptualisation of humanness)?

Hyperconnectivity has made a revolution in humanness by breaking down the boundaries of both time and space. Humans, animals, the environment, and gadgets are brought together anywhere and at anytime. The impact on society is enormous and we are only beginning to see the resulting massive changes in humanity. Hyperconnectivity has increasing led to less importance to physical place, such as developed or developing world, or urban or rural distinctions.

3. What do you think is the missing piece that will complete the technology puzzle? What kind of technology will be most needed in our future?

Currently it is difficult to reproduce a true sense of presence through the internet. In traditional human communications, body gestures, the physical environment, and touch can often more deeply explain the intended mind and provide intrinsic information, which makes for a more rich communication exchange. Furthermore, we often communicate emotionally using all the senses simultaneously, including sight, touch, sound, but also through taste and smell, such as sharing a meal together or cooking for a partner. We thus need to create fundamentally new forms of media to connect humans in the physical world and through the virtual world, not just in the transmission of information and verbal communication, but through meaning and nonverbal communication to increase the sense of telexistence using all the senses. This will allow more opportunities for people to make meaningful exchanges using media in both the physical and virtual world.

4. How do you feel about speaking at SDF2012? What are your expectations?

The program is exciting and highly relevant and addressing important issues for our present and future, with the input of world experts. I expect this to be produce new changes in both industry, government and academia.

5. What/who do you want to see/meet the most in Seoul (or among the speakers of SDF2012 – please refer to the attached speaker line-up)?

I am looking forward to meet many leading visionaries and I also hope to have discussions with passionate general attendees especially young people.

6. What kinds of technologies realize the ‘reality-virtuality coexistence’ in our daily life?

The world has become hyperconnected. The Internet and web application are are available instantly and anywhere. People and the environment can communicate with each other instantly. Combined with almost unlimited data on the cloud and social media we are seeing a process of hyperconnectivity which effectively merges the physical reality with digital data.

7. Where is this zeitgeist heading and how will they shape our future?

The hyperconnected world will extend to encompass more of our senses and feelings. This feeling communication will extend beyond humans into the physical environment, gadgets, and machines. In the ubiquitous environment that our world is developing into, there is great potential for our homes, cars, personal devices, gadgets, and workspace, to communicate with us in all of our human senses, and in non verbal and emotional forms. We could envision social networks extending beyond humans to an emotional communication between humans, their environment, and their personal objects.

8. How to make AR/MR become more humanized and thus sustainable?

To develop such a humanized communication system, there are fundamental, theoretical issues that must be addressed as well as technical challenges such as inventing new smell and taste sensors and actuators to extend augmented reality to all of our senses
Physical presence takes a major role and it should dive into a new dimension of cutting edge technologies offering improvements to ordinary day-to-day feelings and experiences. I aim to develop new technologies related to multimodal sensing and actuation to give the user more definition in their experience in the co-space environment. Visual, Auditory, Haptic, (Olfactory) Smell, and (Gustatory) Taste are the five sensors that humans use for environmental sensing, and emotional feeling communication. In addition to traditional communication through telephone and video-conferencing, the use of smell, and taste communication will enable a new paradigm of tele-communication. It is a field, which still presents great technical challenges which can lead to early technical breakthrough results.

Based on these inventions, I believe such a multisensory telecommunication will allow new forms of collaboration and learning on a global scale. I am particularly interested in how children will grasp these technologies to make new innovation and value creation. I am thus in in the process of examining how to nurture and inspire young children to create new value propositions that will benefit their individual selves, communities and countries. In the 21st century the democratization of communication tools may allow emerging markets to make creative leaps into new business and industry. We can view young children in developing countries as creative innovators and ambassadors of new technologies, rather than passive end-users consumers. Thus in this aim, I am creating design applications and workshops with the use of new media technologies for children in local schools.