View From Afar News Scan

Here are some great links provided by MVIS Blog friend, view from afar.



Wearable Medical Technology

From a military aspect, the aforementioned advantages are extremely valuable—especially under field conditions or while transporting patients in-flight. The instantaneous diagnostic capability provides significantly improved patient care opportunities. The software technology is here. It’s just a matter of time before the wearable computing technology and its associated peripherals are durable enough to function during day-to-day operations.

Here's a link from the recent Society for Information Display meeting in Seattle, regarding Head Mounted Display Ergonomics. Participants include representatives from Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Philips Research Laboratories, Naval Health Research Center, Daimler Chrysler, among others:

61.1: Kinematics of Visual Search by Tunnel-Vision Patients with Augmented-Vision See-Through HMD (3:40)



An augmented vision see-through HMD, which displays a minified contour view of the real world over tunnel-vision patients’ natural view, was evaluated in a visual search experiment. Kinematic evaluation of subjects’ eye and head movement suggests that tunnel-vision patients can find and locate targets faster and more efficiently with this device.



61.2: Eye Movements during Visual and Auditory Task Performance (4:00)



The primary focus of this research effort involved the tracking of eye movements during complex cognitive tasks. Results showed a reduction in range on the order of 50% for eye movements and an increase in variability of vergence eye movements during the dual-task.



61.3: Invited Paper: A Virtual Display for Mobile Use (4:20)



Mobile devices have small displays, so a virtual display would be an interesting mobile accessory. An HMD ergonomics research program that has investigated the sickness symptons induced by HMDs will be described. These results clearly suggest what types of HMDs would be the best mobile accessories.

International gathering explores human-computer interface

High-powered scientists in human-computer interface research will gather in Christchurch this week for HIT Lab NZ's international Virtual Worlds Consortium at the University of Canterbury.



The 200 participants from New Zealand and around the globe will explore the outer reaches of how people think about computers and think with them.



The theme for the consortium, on 12 and 13 February, is Meeting of Minds - Tomorrow's Technology: Insights into future technology trends. Keynote speakers are Mr Jim Thomas, chief scientist and lab fellow at Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the US, and Dr Ivan Poupyrev from Sony's Computer Science Laboratory in Tokyo.



Mr Thomas is one of six consulting scientists for the US Department of Homeland Security and is tasked with advising the US Government on information technology to combat terrorism for a safer homeland and world. He will provide information on critical technologies, emphasise collaboration at the international level, and advise on how to access the US budget for international security.



Also attending will be Professor Lee Huntsman, President of the University of Washington in Seattle, and Professor Tom Furness, Founding Director of the HIT Lab at the University of Washington and the international director of HIT Lab NZ Ltd, as well as representatives from companies such as Eastman Kodak, Motion Sport, Jade Software Corporation Ltd, Trimble Navigation NZ Ltd, and Pulse Data International.



Professor Furness says HIT Lab (Human Interface Technology Laboratory) NZ is fuelling a revolution in the way the people will interact with computers and is already the leader of the emerging field of mixed reality and augmented vision.



Although computer technology has grown rapidly during the last decade, the interfaces to those computers have not changed much, he says.



"People still plunk fingers on keyboards and view a small two dimensional images on screens. Such interfaces don’t take advantage of the three dimensional architecture of humans…the way we are wired to interact with the real world.



"The HIT Lab NZ virtual interface technologies break down the barriers of these old interfaces and usher in ways to interact with computers that are natural and intuitive and even fun to use."



Some examples include:

• Virtual simulations to train medical students in complex surgical procedures

• New ways to visualize images from the body using advanced 3D medical imaging technologies.

• Better ways to educate children by giving them hands-on experiences in virtual space to do things and learn from them that cannot be done in the real world (e.g. assemble atoms).

• Enable better communications by building a transportation system for the senses, allowing eyes, ears and hands to go to other places.

• Entertainment and gaming systems that immerse participants in three dimensional interactive environments.