Abstract: In this talk I will discuss how deep learning can be applied to character animation. I will present a framework based on deep convolutional neural networks that allows for motion synthesis and motion editing in the same unified framework. Applications of this framework include fixing corrupted motion data such as that from the kinect, synthesis of character motion from high level parameters such as the trajectory, motion editing via arbitrary cost functions, and style transfer between two animation clips.

Biography: Daniel Holden is a PhD student at Edinburgh University studying how deep learning and data driven artistic tools can be used to save time in the production of high quality character animation. Outside of research he maintains several open source C projects and has a wide variety of interests including theory of computation, game development, and writing short fiction.

We are happy to report that there has been a wide dissemination of the results of the Deepview Project through a variety of press outlets.
BBC click features excerpts from an interview with one of our researchers about Gazer.
Furthermore a number of press articles have been written and circulated. The following shows a selection of articles and the venues that publicised each article.

• “New discoveries and enhanced visual experiences through gaze-contingent displays”. cordis.europa.eu, sigchi-technews.acm.org, phys.org, ecnmag.com

• “St Andrews Team ’Revolutionise’ 3D Image Viewing”. king-domfm.co.uk

• “Soon we’ll be able to watch 3D images without the big specs, thanks to St Andrews researchers”. thenational.scot

• “Diseñan una pantalla que reacciona a la mirada del espectador”. referion.com

• “La résolution des écrans pilotées par le regard”. techno-science.net

 

Abstract
As part of an EPSRC project into text entry for older adults we ran a series of workshops on the design of new keyboard for older adults. These workshops blew away some of the stereotypes of older adults – ours were well connected, adjusted text style for twitter vs email vs facebook and were more open to new keyboard layouts than our undergraduates. Error awareness was highlighted as a concern and we developed an Android keyboard that highlights errors and autocorrections. In this talk I’ll review some of our experimental keyboards, the main lessons from our highlighting keyboard, main lessons in study design for older adults and future directions.
Biography
Since 2000, Mark Dunlop has been a senior lecturer in computer science at Strathclyde. His research focuses on usability of mobile systems including mobile text entry, visualisation, sensor driven interaction and evaluation of mobiles. His first work on mobile text entry was published in 1999 and he’s been involved in the organisation of the MobileHCI conference series since it’s inception in 1998. Recent project involve text entry for older adults and mobile based driving crowdsourced braking alert system. His teaching is mainly in human computer interaction (HCI) and mobile/internet programming technologies. Prior to joining Strathclyde, Mark was a senior researcher at Risø Danish National Laboratory and a lecturer at Glasgow University. He completed his PhD in Multimedia Information Retrieval at Glasgow in 1991.

Our lab (SACHI) in the University of St. Andrews last year applied for, and was selected to receive the Project Soli alpha developer kit along with 60 other groups around the world. Project Soli is a Radar based sensor that can sense micro and subtle motion of human fingers. You can see more about this project here: https://atap.google.com/soli/
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SACHI will have a great presence at the upcoming CHI’16 conference .
We welcome the opportunity to meet students interested in studying with us, colleagues interested in visiting or collaborating, or companies interested in our work. You can find us helping and involved throughout CHI 2016 with the presentation of 5 full papers, 1 note, 1 workshop, 1 workshop paper and other activities.
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In March of 2016 Yuchen Zhao and Aaron Quigley from St Andrews attended the ACM SIGCHI Intelligent User Interfaces Conference in California. Yuchen was attending to present a long paper on a user study about location-privacy recommenders and a student consortium paper while Aaron was attending as the ACM SIGCHI Adjunct Chair for Specialised Conferences.

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Abstract

Perhaps the term computer ‘memory’ has led people to believe that human memory has to be perfect and infallible. Many people worry when they realise they forget and some turn to recording and collecting as much as they can, e.g. photos or videos through life logging. Some people assume that by collecting they can avoid forgetting or at least have access to the information anytime later. And that is where they might be wrong. First of all, recordings are not equivalent to memories, and memories ‘can not be stored’. Secondly it has already been shown that people collect too much and organize too little for them to be able to find information later [1]. Thirdly, human memory works best when we forget… a lot.
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On the 9th February 2016 Dr David Harris-Birtill gave a talk on the automated remote pulse oximeter system work that is in development in SACHI, and which his start-up company Beyond Medics Limited is working to commercialise. This was a great day in which 20 companies gave short 3 minute pitches describing their businesses. At the event, David also met Prince Andrew, and had the opportunity to discuss this exciting work with other companies and funding groups, including Scottish Enterprise.

Last week we were pleased to receive our Microsoft Surface hub which was awarded to us by Microsoft Research and Microsoft based on our Academic Research Request Proposal for the “Intelligent Canvas for Data Analysis and Exploration”. You can see a couple of videos of the unboxing below!

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Abstract

There is a huge and complex social psychology to managing client engagements effectively. Merely presenting actionable solutions that have valid data to back them up is not enough for clients. They become lost with the simplest of justifications and proof often focusing factors of little importance to the end users. In this talk I will offer some meeting navigation concepts that will enable people to facilitate client meetings, establish and reach defined outcomes and establish clear dialog and interaction methods.

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