The Human Media Lab (HML) is a research laboratory in Human-Computer Interaction at
Queen's University Queen's or Queens University may refer to:
*Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada
*Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
**Queen's University of Belfast (UK Parliament constituency) (1918–1950)
**Queen's University of Belfast ...
's School of Computing in Kingston, Ontario. Its goals are to advance user interface design by creating and empirically evaluating disruptive new user interface technologies, and educate graduate students in this process. The Human Media Lab was founded in 2000 by Prof.
Roel Vertegaal
Roeland "Roel" Vertegaal (born July 13, 1968) is a Dutch-Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or ...
and employs an average of 12 graduate students.
The laboratory is known for its pioneering work on
flexible display
A flexible display or rollable display is an electronic visual display which is flexible in nature, as opposed to the traditional flat screen displays used in most electronic devices. In recent years there has been a growing interest from nume ...
interaction and paper computers, with systems such as PaperWindows (2004),
PaperPhone (2010)
and PaperTab (2012).
HML is also known for its invention of ubiquitous eye input, such as Samsung's
Smart Pause and
Smart Scroll technologies.
Research
In 2003, researchers at the Human Media Lab helped shape the paradigm
Attentive User Interfaces, demonstrating how groups of computers could use human social cues for considerate notification.
[Gibbs, W. (2005) Considerate Computing. Scientific American 292, 54 - 61] Amongst HML's early inventions was the eye contact sensor, first demonstrated to the public on
ABC Good Morning America.
[Vertegaal, R., Dickie, C., Sohn, C. and Flickner, M. (2002). Designing attentive cell phone using wearable eyecontact sensors. In CHI '02 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM Press, pp. 646-647.] Attentive User Interfaces developed at the time included an early iPhone prototype that used eye tracking electronic glasses to determine whether users were in a conversation,
an attentive television that play/paused contents upon looking away, mobile Smart Pause and Smart Scroll (adopted in Samsung's
Galaxy S4
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is an Android smartphone produced by Samsung Electronics as the fourth smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series and was first shown publicly on March 14, 2013, at Samsung Mobile Unpacked in New York City. It is the succes ...
)
[Dickie, C., Vertegaal, R., Sohn C., and Cheng, D. (2005). eyeLook: using attention to facilitate mobile media consumption. In Proceedings of the 18th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology (UIST '05). ACM Press, 103-106.] as well as a technique for calibration-free eye tracking by placing invisible infrared markers in the scene.
Current research at the Human Media Lab focuses on the development of
Organic User Interfaces
In human–computer interaction, an organic user interface (OUI) is defined as a user interface with a non-flat display. After Engelbart and Sutherland's graphical user interface (GUI), which was based on the cathode ray tube (CRT), and Kay and ...
: user interfaces with a non-flat display. In 2004, researchers at the HML built the first bendable paper computer, PaperWindows,
[Holman, D., Vertegaal, R. and Troje, N. (2005). PaperWindows: Interaction Techniques for Digital Paper. In Proceedings of ACM CHI 2005 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM Press, 591-599.] which premiered at CHI 2005. It featured multiple flexible, hires, colour, wireless, thin-film multitouch displays through real-time depth-cam 3D
Spatial Augmented Reality
Projection mapping, similar to video mapping and spatial augmented reality, is a video projection, projection technique used to turn objects, often irregularly shaped, into display surfaces for video projection. The objects may be complex industr ...
. In May 2007 HML coined the term
Organic User Interfaces
In human–computer interaction, an organic user interface (OUI) is defined as a user interface with a non-flat display. After Engelbart and Sutherland's graphical user interface (GUI), which was based on the cathode ray tube (CRT), and Kay and ...
. Early Organic User Interfaces developed at HML included the first multitouch spherical display, and Dynacan, an interactive pop can: early examples of everyday computational things with interactive digital skins.
In 2010, the Human Media Lab, with
Arizona State University
Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...
, developed the world's first functional flexible smartphone, PaperPhone. It pioneered bend interactions and was first shown to the public at ACM CHI 2011 in
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
.
[Lahey, B., Girouard, A., Burleson, W. and R. Vertegaal. (2011). PaperPhone: Understanding the Use of Bend Gestures in Mobile Devices with Flexible Electronic Paper Displays. In Proceedings of ACM CHI’11 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM Press, 1303-1312.] ![Human Media Lab by Karim Rashid](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Human_Media_Lab_by_Karim_Rashid.jpg)
In 2012, the Human Media Lab introduced the world's first pseudo-holographic, live size 3D video conferencing system, TeleHuman.
[Kim, K., Bolton, J., Girouard, A., Cooperstock, J. and Vertegaal, R. (2012). TeleHuman: Effects of 3D Perspective on Gaze and Pose Estimation with a Life-size Cylindrical Telepresence Pod. In Proceedings of CHI’12 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM Press, 2531-2540.]
In 2013, HML researchers unveiled PaperTab,
[Warner, B. (2013). PaperTab a Fold-Up, Roll-Up Tablet Computer. Bloomberg Businessweek, May 2013.] the world's first flexible tablet PC, at CES 2013 in Las Vegas, in collaboration with Plastic Logic and Intel.
Location and Facilities
The Human Media Lab is located in Jackson Hall on
Queen's University Queen's or Queens University may refer to:
*Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada
*Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
**Queen's University of Belfast (UK Parliament constituency) (1918–1950)
**Queen's University of Belfast ...
campus in Kingston, Ontario. The facilities were designed by
Karim Rashid
Karim Rashid (born 1960) is an Egyptian-born and Canadian raised industrial designer. His designs include luxury goods, furniture, lighting, surface design, brand identity and packaging. ''Time'' magazine has described him as the "most famous ind ...
.
External links
Human Media Lab website
References
{{Queen's University
Queen's University at Kingston
Human–computer interaction
Flexible displays