Cefn Hoile | Lancaster University (original) (raw)
Papers by Cefn Hoile
Abstract. Internet user forums have been proven to be effective not just as a community meeting p... more Abstract. Internet user forums have been proven to be effective not just as a community meeting place but also as a supporting tool for various business products. Traditional forums are designed with ”browse and read ” journey in which users have to select the right sub forum to get into and select topics to read from within. However, we have identified a new trend in forum design toward community question answering systems with an ”ask questions first ” user journey, a topic-less organisation, search based information retrieval and social network inspired alerting. Here, we report on the implementation and trial of such a forum, Hubbub, that epitomizes the aforementioned trend. It is designed to eliminate key issues found in current forum technologies and has been fielded as a support channel for a BT Softphone product, resulting in a significant reduction in support costs. We then report on the performance of this forum in practice and speculate on the reasons that forum design is...
Abstract. Internet user forums have been proven to be effective not just as a community meeting p... more Abstract. Internet user forums have been proven to be effective not just as a community meeting place but also as a supporting tool for various business products. Traditional forums are designed with browse and read journey in which users have to select the right sub forum to get ...
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2003
This paper reports on a series of facilitated software and electronics experiences for a nonspeci... more This paper reports on a series of facilitated software and electronics experiences for a nonspecialist audience, collectively known as Shrimping. These experiences are supported by community activities, collectivised resources and written material intended to catalyse and guide an audience of young people and adults in a deprived area to explore and selectively adopt practices characteristic of "Maker Culture".
This paper presents a novel approach for man machine interaction applying real time computer visi... more This paper presents a novel approach for man machine interaction applying real time computer vision techniques. We use a handheld camera to control the mouse cursor on a computer display. The camera captures an image of the display in its field of view and this can be used to judge the camera's position and orientation relative to the display. The problem is modelled as a plane-to-plane projection (homography). Once the mapping of the display in the camera view to the real world display is known, the intersection between the central axis of the camera and the surface of the display can be computed. The mouse pointer is then moved to the corresponding display position. This calculation can be iterated continuously to update the mouse cursor position as the camera position and orientation changes. The camera can then be used to control the mouse cursor just like a laser pointer controls a laser dot. A prototype has been developed to demonstrate the approach.
This paper presents a novel approach for man machine interaction applying real time computer visi... more This paper presents a novel approach for man machine interaction applying real time computer vision techniques. We use a handheld camera to control the mouse cursor on a computer display. The camera captures an image of the display in its field of view and this can be used to judge the camera's position and orientation relative to the display. The problem is modelled as a plane-to-plane projection (homography). Once the mapping of the display in the camera view to the real world display is known, the intersection between the central axis of the camera and the surface of the display can be computed. The mouse pointer is then moved to the corresponding display position. This calculation can be iterated continuously to update the mouse cursor position as the camera position and orientation changes. The camera can then be used to control the mouse cursor just like a laser pointer controls a laser dot. A prototype has been developed to demonstrate the approach.
Internet user forums have been proven to be effective not just as a community meeting place but a... more Internet user forums have been proven to be effective not just as a community meeting place but also as a supporting tool for various business products. Traditional forums are designed with "browse and read" journey in which users have to select the right sub forum to get into and select topics to read from within. However, we have identified a new trend in forum design toward community question answering systems with an "ask questions first" user journey, a topic-less organisation, search based information retrieval and social network inspired alerting. Here, we report on the implementation and trial of such a forum, Hubbub, that epitomizes the aforementioned trend. It is designed to eliminate key issues found in current forum technologies and has been fielded as a support channel for a BT Softphone product, resulting in a significant reduction in support costs. We then report on the performance of this forum in practice and speculate on the reasons that forum design is taking this direction. Finally, we conclude the paper with some thought about future direction of forums in the Web 2.0 era.
In the Black Shoals project, artificial evolution was employed to design articulated creatures wh... more In the Black Shoals project, artificial evolution was employed to design articulated creatures which interact with a world of real time financial data. Their phenotypes are composed of multiple interacting elements in a discrete time simulation of Newtonian physics. The couplings formed between evolved, recurrent neural nets and bodily components generate co-ordinated, efficient strategies for the exploitation of their environment. The ecosystem in which they are embedded implements a decentralised evolutionary algorithm, applying competitive selective pressure to the population through conservation of energy. It also couples them to a larger complex system. The opportunities in their world derive from real time stock market information fed from a live Reuters data-feed. The genotype to phenotype mapping employed offers the features of redundancy, neutrality and epistasis. Support is also provided for the ad hoc inclusion of new creature components without modifying the evolutionary algorithm. The focus of this paper is the design and implementation of the ecosystem-based population management, the genetic encoding and developmental process of the creatures.
This paper describes the architecture of a global, distributed, reliable data store. The system i... more This paper describes the architecture of a global, distributed, reliable data store. The system is based on a decentralised peer to peer network and uses cryptographic checksums to ensure validity and security and erasure codes to distribute fragments across the network to a set of peers whose attributes match the parameters specified by the user's preferences.
Consumers rely on a proliferation of personal electronic devices whose native capabilities are au... more Consumers rely on a proliferation of personal electronic devices whose native capabilities are augmented by software vendors and complemented by online service providers. It is feasible to compose tailored behaviours through bespoke software, but non-specialists face prohibitive technical and conceptual obstacles when attempting to program. The BT Rules project aims to put the authoring and sharing of new digital behaviours within the grasp of all our customers. This paper tries to articulate the key obstacles, and outlines the cognitive, technical, and social strategies we are employing to overcome them.
Abstract. Internet user forums have been proven to be effective not just as a community meeting p... more Abstract. Internet user forums have been proven to be effective not just as a community meeting place but also as a supporting tool for various business products. Traditional forums are designed with ”browse and read ” journey in which users have to select the right sub forum to get into and select topics to read from within. However, we have identified a new trend in forum design toward community question answering systems with an ”ask questions first ” user journey, a topic-less organisation, search based information retrieval and social network inspired alerting. Here, we report on the implementation and trial of such a forum, Hubbub, that epitomizes the aforementioned trend. It is designed to eliminate key issues found in current forum technologies and has been fielded as a support channel for a BT Softphone product, resulting in a significant reduction in support costs. We then report on the performance of this forum in practice and speculate on the reasons that forum design is...
Abstract. Internet user forums have been proven to be effective not just as a community meeting p... more Abstract. Internet user forums have been proven to be effective not just as a community meeting place but also as a supporting tool for various business products. Traditional forums are designed with browse and read journey in which users have to select the right sub forum to get ...
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2003
This paper reports on a series of facilitated software and electronics experiences for a nonspeci... more This paper reports on a series of facilitated software and electronics experiences for a nonspecialist audience, collectively known as Shrimping. These experiences are supported by community activities, collectivised resources and written material intended to catalyse and guide an audience of young people and adults in a deprived area to explore and selectively adopt practices characteristic of "Maker Culture".
This paper presents a novel approach for man machine interaction applying real time computer visi... more This paper presents a novel approach for man machine interaction applying real time computer vision techniques. We use a handheld camera to control the mouse cursor on a computer display. The camera captures an image of the display in its field of view and this can be used to judge the camera's position and orientation relative to the display. The problem is modelled as a plane-to-plane projection (homography). Once the mapping of the display in the camera view to the real world display is known, the intersection between the central axis of the camera and the surface of the display can be computed. The mouse pointer is then moved to the corresponding display position. This calculation can be iterated continuously to update the mouse cursor position as the camera position and orientation changes. The camera can then be used to control the mouse cursor just like a laser pointer controls a laser dot. A prototype has been developed to demonstrate the approach.
This paper presents a novel approach for man machine interaction applying real time computer visi... more This paper presents a novel approach for man machine interaction applying real time computer vision techniques. We use a handheld camera to control the mouse cursor on a computer display. The camera captures an image of the display in its field of view and this can be used to judge the camera's position and orientation relative to the display. The problem is modelled as a plane-to-plane projection (homography). Once the mapping of the display in the camera view to the real world display is known, the intersection between the central axis of the camera and the surface of the display can be computed. The mouse pointer is then moved to the corresponding display position. This calculation can be iterated continuously to update the mouse cursor position as the camera position and orientation changes. The camera can then be used to control the mouse cursor just like a laser pointer controls a laser dot. A prototype has been developed to demonstrate the approach.
Internet user forums have been proven to be effective not just as a community meeting place but a... more Internet user forums have been proven to be effective not just as a community meeting place but also as a supporting tool for various business products. Traditional forums are designed with "browse and read" journey in which users have to select the right sub forum to get into and select topics to read from within. However, we have identified a new trend in forum design toward community question answering systems with an "ask questions first" user journey, a topic-less organisation, search based information retrieval and social network inspired alerting. Here, we report on the implementation and trial of such a forum, Hubbub, that epitomizes the aforementioned trend. It is designed to eliminate key issues found in current forum technologies and has been fielded as a support channel for a BT Softphone product, resulting in a significant reduction in support costs. We then report on the performance of this forum in practice and speculate on the reasons that forum design is taking this direction. Finally, we conclude the paper with some thought about future direction of forums in the Web 2.0 era.
In the Black Shoals project, artificial evolution was employed to design articulated creatures wh... more In the Black Shoals project, artificial evolution was employed to design articulated creatures which interact with a world of real time financial data. Their phenotypes are composed of multiple interacting elements in a discrete time simulation of Newtonian physics. The couplings formed between evolved, recurrent neural nets and bodily components generate co-ordinated, efficient strategies for the exploitation of their environment. The ecosystem in which they are embedded implements a decentralised evolutionary algorithm, applying competitive selective pressure to the population through conservation of energy. It also couples them to a larger complex system. The opportunities in their world derive from real time stock market information fed from a live Reuters data-feed. The genotype to phenotype mapping employed offers the features of redundancy, neutrality and epistasis. Support is also provided for the ad hoc inclusion of new creature components without modifying the evolutionary algorithm. The focus of this paper is the design and implementation of the ecosystem-based population management, the genetic encoding and developmental process of the creatures.
This paper describes the architecture of a global, distributed, reliable data store. The system i... more This paper describes the architecture of a global, distributed, reliable data store. The system is based on a decentralised peer to peer network and uses cryptographic checksums to ensure validity and security and erasure codes to distribute fragments across the network to a set of peers whose attributes match the parameters specified by the user's preferences.
Consumers rely on a proliferation of personal electronic devices whose native capabilities are au... more Consumers rely on a proliferation of personal electronic devices whose native capabilities are augmented by software vendors and complemented by online service providers. It is feasible to compose tailored behaviours through bespoke software, but non-specialists face prohibitive technical and conceptual obstacles when attempting to program. The BT Rules project aims to put the authoring and sharing of new digital behaviours within the grasp of all our customers. This paper tries to articulate the key obstacles, and outlines the cognitive, technical, and social strategies we are employing to overcome them.