Time for a break…not a 100% break…but priorities will shift in a few weeks from now.
V4R I had a great time with you guys the last 3 years…see you again Oct 2017!
My Hertha-Firnberg Project is over
Years fly by when you have fun…
In 2012/2013 I got awarded with a Hertha-Firnberg postdoc scholarship, which enabled me to pursue my research on Human-Robot Collaboration. Have a look on the project website if you are interested in details. And as a nice ending my university also published a press article about the project today:
http://www.tuwien.ac.at/aktuelles/news_detail/article/10203/
Proceedings of STS Graz 2016 are online
I hardly ever do this, but in that specific case I want to call your attention to one of my recently published papers, entitled:
It was published in the framework of the 15th Annual STS Conference Graz 2016 Critical Issues in Science, Technology and Society Studies.
This is a reflection that constantly accompanies my thoughts on HRI research and I would be happy about any comments and thoughts from fellow researchers. Just drop me a line in case…🙂
Invited Panellist: ForGenderCare
I was invited to contribute to a panel and workshop discussion on the interrelations between gender, care, and assistive technology, which took place last week in Munich, Germany. The workshop was hosted by the “Forschungsverbund ForGenderCare”, which studies from an interdisciplinary theoretical and empirical perspective how gender and care play together.
I gave insights from my experiences within the GENUINE and the HOBBIT project. Our main discussion points in the breakout sessions were,
(1) if user-centered design research in HRI is technic-deterministic.
(2) how to better relate STS research and HRI research to guarantee a better up-take of interdisciplinary research endeavours.
HRI2017: Call for Papers
Also check out the guide to submission types!
The ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction is a premiere, highly-selective venue presenting the latest advances in Human-Robot Interaction. The 12th Annual HRI Conference theme is “Smart Interaction,” following Vienna’s “Smart City” initiative. The conference seeks contributions from a broad set of perspectives, including technical, design, methodological, behavioral, and theoretical, that advance fundamental and applied knowledge and methods in human-robot interaction. Full papers will be archived in the ACM Digital Library and IEEE Xplore Digital Library.
More information on other tracks, including alt.HRI papers, Late-Breaking Reports, Tutorials, Workshops, Demonstrations and Videos, will be available soon.
Important Dates:
- 3 October 2016 (11:59 PDT): Submission of Full Papers
- 8-12 November 2016: Author Rebuttal Period
- 21 November 2016: Notification of Full Paper Acceptance
- 4 January, 2016: Final Camera-Ready Full Papers Due
Trip Report Austrian Robotics Workshop (ARW)
After the STS Conference in Graz I attended the Austrian Robotics Workshop (ARW) in Wels. A bigger contrast topic-wise would have been hardly possible I guess. Nevertheless, it was also a great experience meeting several people again I have not talked to for quite some time, such as Prof. Andreas Uhl from University of Salzburg and Prof. Gerald Steinbauer from Graz University of Technology.
My colleague Markus Ikeda from profactor presented the results from the first year of the AssistMe project at the conference and we got some good questions and feedback on our work.
Besides that my colleagues Georg Halmetschlager-Funek and Edith Langer presented their research in the FRANC and SQUIRREL project. Finally, Markus Vincze presented our lessons learned on autonomous navigation in the Hobbit project. So I would say our research group was quite well represented at the event🙂.
Trip Report STS Conference Graz 2016
Last week I attended the 15th Annual STS Conference Graz 2016 on Critical Issues in Science, Technology and Society Studies. 
It was a great experience taking part in a more sociological event again. A very different type of discussion and contents compared to the robotics and HCI events I usually attend. I gave an invited talk on my user-centered HRI research at the Robotics and Society Panel organized by Andreas Bischof and Arne Maibaum. We had great discussions about how to link STS, sociology and robotics and I enjoyed talking to Diego Compagna and Martin Meister again. One of my favourite talks was a presentation on “The rise of disaster robotics in South Korea”. It was a wonderful meta reflection on the co-production of science, technology, and the impact of mass media. Besides that I enjoyed the keynote of Prof. Ingo Schulz-Schaeffer who talked about scenario usage and development in ubiquitous computing. And I was positively surprised that there is a Department of Social Sciences at the Technical University of Berlin…maybe I should establish something like that at Vienna University of Technology as well…;)
