World’s Preeminent Showcase for Interactive Technology Opens April 21
CHI 2018 Features Technologies that Help People Think, Create and Collaborate
New York, NY, April 5, 2018—The Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Special Interest Group on Human-Computer Interaction (ACM SIGCHI) has announced that the premier international conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2018, will take place in Montreal, Canada from April 21-26, 2018. Widely recognized as the world’s most important showcase for human-computer interaction (HCI), CHI gathers thousands of the top researchers, scientists, and designers in the world to present their latest research, solve their hardest problems, learn new material and build their networks. Held annually since 1982, CHI 2018 is expected to attract more than 3,000 attendees. Reflecting CHI’s growing prominence, 667 research papers were accepted and will be presented at this year’s event, representing an elite sampling of the thousands of papers that were submitted.
Since the development of the field, dozens of key HCI-generated products have been unveiled at the CHI conference prior to market deployment including multi-touch and 3D interaction, tangible interfaces, social networking, instant text messaging, personal health and elder care, fitness tracking, smart homes, Internet of Things, human-robot interaction and wearable devices. As the premier worldwide forum for the exchange of information on all aspects of HCI, the CHI conference is often the first public demonstration of such advanced technologies.
“One of the most exhilarating things about CHI is that attendees are among the first to experience tomorrow’s technologies today,” said Regan Mandryk, CHI 2018 Co-chair. “This year we are greatly expanding the CHI Expo, which will have considerably more offerings in virtual and mixed-reality technologies to reflect the ways these technologies are transforming so many aspects of how we live and work. We’ve built upon the best of what CHI attendees expect and added several new facets to this year’s gathering to make for an unforgettable week of celebrating innovation in all its forms.”
The theme of this year’s conference is Engage. “We’ve organized this year’s event to encourage attendees to engage with the technology, engage with the research, and engage with their colleagues within the SIGCHI community,” added CHI 2018 Co-chair Mark Hancock. “We’ve also taken steps to offer more engagement with CHI by considering health and wellbeing options and supporting attendees with families. For the first time this year, we are providing standing areas in paper sessions and a decompression room. We are also offering on-site childcare, nursing options and child passes for parents and caregivers.”
Novel features of this year’s conference also include a Game Jam, in which participants can design and implement their own games, and Science Jam, in which participants will design and run experiments in a two-day frenzy of activity and excitement.
HIGHLIGHTS of CHI 2018
Keynote Speakers
Christian Rudder
Co-founder of the popular dating site, OkCupid, Rudder will discuss core ideas from his recent book Dataclysm, in which he explores the human behavior behind datasets and explains how data provides a revolutionary look at who we truly are.
Sue Gardner
From 2007 to 2014, Gardner was executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia, the world’s largest and most popular encyclopedia. During her tenure she grew the Wikimedia Foundation into a sustainable business and an organization that stood against attempts at censorship. Gardner will share her experiences and discuss how she sees the challenges of public access to information and attempts at censorship developing in the future.
CHI 2018 Research Paper Highlights
“Falling for Fake News: Investigating the Consumption of News via Social Media”
The authors conducted a survey, in which two-thirds of respondents revealed that they regularly consumed news via Facebook, and that one-third had at some point come across fake news that they initially believed to be true. They also found that respondents relied on personal judgements as to plausibility and skepticism around sources and journalistic style. The authors contend that these findings reflect a shift away from traditional methods of accessing the news, and highlights the difficulties in combating the spread of fake news.
“What Did I Really Vote For? On the Usability of Verifiable E-Voting Schemes”
E-voting has been embraced by a number of countries, delivering benefits in terms of efficiency and accessibility. End-to-end verifiable e-voting schemes facilitate verification of the integrity of individual votes during the election process. A well-known technique for effecting cast-as-intended verification is the Benaloh Challenge. In their paper, the authors examine the Benaloh Challenge and recommend approaches for effective e-voting verification.
“Safety vs. Surveillance: What Children Have to Say about Mobile Apps for Parental Control”
Mobile applications developed to promote online safety rely heavily on parental control features that monitor and restrict their child’s mobile activities. In surveying children who use the apps, the study’s authors found that the children viewed the apps as overly restrictive and invasive of their personal privacy, negatively impacting their relationships with their parents. The authors outline design strategies that might improve online safety apps.
CHI 2018 Demonstration Highlights
Feeling Speech on the Arm
A team of researchers from Facebook introduces a language communication system that transmits a tactile representation of spoken or written language to the arm. Users receive messages without looking at their smart devices, and feel them through their skin. CHI attendees can take part in a three-to-five- minute demonstration that lets them get acquainted with the new system, learn building blocks for a small vocabulary and generalize them to new words. Applications of the new system for normal and impaired individuals will be discussed.
The MOMENT: A New Brain Controlled Movie
While many still consider interactive movies an unrealistic idea, current delivery platforms like Netflix, commercial VR and the proliferation of wearable sensors mean that adaptive and responsive entertainment experiences are an immediate reality. The authors produced an earlier brain-responsive movie that showed different views of scenes depending on levels of attention and mediation produced by a commercialized home-entertainment brain sensor. Based on lessons learned, this latest demonstration exhibits the new interactions designed for their forthcoming brain-controlled movie The MOMENT.
HCI Interventions for Monitoring Environmental Health
Hiroki Kibayashi is a leader of an emerging discipline called Human Computer Biosphere Interaction (HCBI), which has a goal of achieving ecological positive interaction between humanity and nature through computer systems. He will present a collection of HCI interventions designed to monitor radiation levels in the exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan.
For a complete conference program, please visit https://chi2018.acm.org.
About the ACM CHI Conference
Originally a small conference for psychologists interested in user interface design, the annual CHI conference has grown to include a diverse group of interaction designers, computer scientists, engineering psychologists, developers, and performing artists. CHI also addresses the organizational integration of technology, and the use of technology in all areas of life.
About SIGCHI
SIGCHI, the ACM Special Interest Group on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), is the premier international society for professionals, academics and students who are interested in human-technology and human-computer interaction (HCI). SIGCHI serves as a forum for ideas on how people communicate and interact with computer systems. This interdisciplinary group of computer scientists, software engineers, psychologists, interaction designers, graphic designers, sociologists, and anthropologists is committed to designing useful, usable technology which has the potential to transform individual lives.
About ACM
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting educators, researchers, and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources, and address the field's challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession's collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking.
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