Tactile interaction: looking at both ends of the fingers

Please notice exceptional date, time and place!!

Location: Ernst-Reuter-Platz 7 (TEL), Room 1315 (Consilium; 13th floor)

SPEAKER: Thomas Pietrzak

TITLE: Tactile interaction: looking at both ends of the fingers

BRIEF DESCRIPTION:Tactile is used in many new interactive systems such as smartphones, tablets, tabletops or interactive walls. These systems provide new kinds of interactions that are sometimes considered as more natural. They use direct manipulation, which means that the users manipulate objects directly with their fingers instead of through cursors. Interfaces like keypads on telephones are more configurable  because they only use soft buttons. However even if the user can touch virtual objects, they cannot feel them. Therefore one of the main advantages of tangible controls is lost. We will discuss solutions proposed by the research community, including programmable friction surfaces, and wireless wearable devices augmented with vibrators.
 
SHORT BIO:
Thomas Pietrzak is an Assistant Professor at the Université de Lille 1, and conducts his research in the MINT team of the LIFL laboratory. His research interests include Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and haptic interaction. He earned his Ph.D. in 2008 from the Université Paul Verlaine - Metz, working with Benoît Martin and Isabelle Pecci on haptic interaction for visually impaired children. He joined Telecom ParisTech in 2009 as a postdoc researcher, working with Éric Lecolinet on interaction with digital pen for the classroom.  In 2011 he worked with Ravin Balakrishnan at the DGP lab of the University of Toronto as a postdoc researcher, and designed a Haptic Wristband for gestural interaction. Further information, including publications can be obtained on www.thomaspietrzak.com [1]