Gibbons Lecture Series: From Interaction to Understanding

Speaker: Professor Mark Billinghurst
Human Interface Laboratory New Zealand, The University of Canterbury

When: 6pm for 6.30pm start, Thursday 21st May, 2015
Where: Owen G Glenn Building, Room OGGB3/260-092, level-0
Note that there is public parking in the basement of the Owen G Glenn Building at 12 Grafton Road. Refreshments will be served in the level-1 lobby.

Professor Billinghurst is a graduate of Waikato University where he completed the degrees of BCMS (Bachelor of Computing and Mathematical Science) in 1990 and Master of Philosophy (Applied Mathematics & Physics) in 1992. He went on to complete his PhD in Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington with a thesis entitled "Shared Space: Exploration in Collaborative Augmented Reality". One of his research projects, the MagicBook, was winner of the 2001 Discover award for best Entertainment application, and his AR Tennis project won the 2005 IMG award for best independent mobile game. He was awarded the 2013 IEEE VR Technical Achievement Award for contributions to research and commercialization in Augmented Reality. In 2001 he co-founded ARToolworks, one of the oldest commercial AR companies.

Professor Billinghurst is Professor of Human Computer Interaction in the School of Computer and Information Science at the University of South Australia. He was formerly Director of the Human Interface Technology Lab New Zealand (HIT Lab NZ) at the University of Canterbury where he maintains an adjunct professorship. His research interests are in computer interfaces that provide new ways to seamlessly blend the real and digital worlds to enable people to connect and collaborate. The HIT Lab NZ conducts research with emerging technologies such as Augmented Reality, Next Generation Video Conferencing, Immersive Visualization and Human-Robot Interaction.

Synopsis: The first computer interfaces required user to learn how to operate the machine, using technologies such as physical wires, punch cards and teletype input. Over the fifty years since then technology has evolved to the point where computers understand natural user behaviour such as speech and gesture interaction. Machines now adapt to the human rather than requiring the human to learn how to use the machine. This talk will discuss the progression from Interaction to Understanding and in particular the trend towards Empathic computing where computers can recognize and understand emotions. Examples will be drawn from current research at the HIT lab NZ and other leading research groups worldwide.

The lecture will be streamed live.
Currently you can test the link to ensure that your computer is set up correctly.

3D printed robot at the HIT Lab NZ