Collaboration Technologies and Social Computing

Traditionally, the field of human–computer interaction (HCI) was primarily concerned with designing and investigating interfaces between humans and machines. The primary concern of surface computing is also about designing better interfaces to information. However, with recent technological advances, the concept of enhancing, augmenting, or even re-designing humans themselves is becoming a very feasible and serious topic of scientific research as well as engineering development. Augmented human is a term that I use to refer to this overall research direction. Augmented human introduces a fundamental paradigm shift in HCI: from human–computer interaction to human–computer integration. In this talk, I will discuss rich possibilities and distinct challenges in enhancing human abilities. I will introduce recent projects conducted by our group including the design and applications of wearable eye sensing for augmenting our perception and memory abilities, design of flying cameras as our external eyes, a home appliance that can increase your happiness, an organic physical wall/window that dynamically mediates the environment, and an immersive human–human communication called “JackIn.”