Dear AoIR-lers, Please spread the word about this workshop happening in Melbourne, Australia on June 28 & 29. Thanks, Aaron. -----Original Message----- Call for Papers and Participation: HCSNet Workshop on Natural User Interfaces: Multitouch and Gestural Interactions What is the next major evolution in user interaction? HCSNet is offering a workshop that brings together people from different disciplines interested in Natural User Interfaces (NUI). This workshop will discuss the role NUI can play, themes of interest as well as future work that NUI enables. Do gestures completely replace typical mouse pointers or simply augment it for some functionality? Do all applications work with gestures or only a select few? The goal of this workshop is to make a first step in identifying challenges and characterising NUI design obstacles. Possible themes of interest include: * Multimodal interfaces * Robust spoken-language interaction * Intelligent user interfaces * Social interaction strategies * Gesture and embodied interaction * Conversational agents * Task and activity modelling * Environment-specific issues * Tangible and mobile devices We are pleased to announce a keynote presentation by Daniel Wigdor. Daniel is the User Experience Architect on the Microsoft Surface project, where he leads a team developing fundamentals of touch and gestural interaction. Before joining Microsoft, he conducted research in advanced user interfaces and devices at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, at the Initiative in Innovative Computing at Harvard University, and at the University of Toronto where he completed an MSc and a PhD in computer science, specializing in multi-surface direct-touch environments. Learn more about Daniel Wigdor. Our second international speaker is Jamie Zigelbaum. Jamie is now working at Oblong Industries in Los Angeles. He was a PhD student in the Tangible Media Group at the MIT Media Lab where he built and studied next generation computer interfaces. He specializes in gestural and tangible interfaces and works to create new interactions between humans and machines that enable the full use of our evolutionarily developed skills, expressive capabilities, and nuanced social behaviors. Oblong Industries is the developer of the g-speak spatial operating environment. Find out more about Oblong Industries. This workshop examines the NUI field as a base for future work within a multidisciplinary environment. The hope of this workshop is to develop a series of themes and design practices which have the potential to act as a base for future collaboration. We encourage those interested to participate in this workshop. Participants are required submit a short abstract discussing their thoughts on this field, and how it can fit within their existing work. HCSNet will fund a number of travel grants of up to $500 to help cover the costs of travel and accommodation for participants from outside the Melbourne area. For more information please visit: http://www.hcsnet.edu.au/hcsnetevents/2010/nui10