HCI research over three decades has shaped a wide spanning research area at the boundaries of computer science and behavioral science, with an impressive outreach to how humankind is experiencing information and communication technologies in literally every breath of an individuals life. The explosive growth of networks and communications, and at the same time radical miniaturization of ICT electronics have reversed the principles of human computer interaction. Up until now considered as the interaction concerns when humans approach ICT systems, more recent observations see systems approaching humans at the same time. Humans and ICT Systems apparently approach each other confluently.
With modern ICT systems (pervasive, globe-spanning, omnipresent and participative ICT) deployed at very large scale (5.3 billion mobile phones being in use today, 1 billion active facebook users monthly, 1 billion (smart) cars on the roads, the emerging internet of things, etc.), we do see technology confluently going together with society as a whole (rather than individual users). This large scale confluence has led to notions like “Socio-inspired ICT”, assuming that future, globe scale ICT systems should be viewed as social systems. Complex socio-technical systems challenge research to identify and formalize the principles of interaction and adaptation in social systems, so as to be able to ground future ICT systems on those principles.
Alois Ferscha was with the Department of Applied Computer Science at the University of Vienna at the levels of assistant and associate professor (1986-1999). In 2000 he joined the University of Linz as full professor where he heads the Excellence Initiative “Pervasive Computing”, the department of Pervasive Computing, the Research Studio Pervasive Computing Applications and RIPE (Research Institute of Pervasive Computing). Currently he is focused on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing, Networked Embedded Systems, Embedded Software Systems, Wireless Communication, Multiuser Cooperation, Distributed Interaction and Distributed Interactive Simulation.

Journée du 17 juillet 2013

Human Computer Confluence – Unbreakable Ties in the Symbiosis of Society and Technology Aloïs Ferscha (Johannes Kepler Universität, Austria) Learning to use sensory substitution devices Malika Auvray (LIMSI-CNRS, France)