Mobile Life, Silva AB and the Swedish Federation of Orienteering have received a grant from Vinnova to work with lead users, innovation and design. Orienteering is a sport which is well ahead in using technology for training, competition, and spectators, and within the orienteering community there are a lot of user created technical solutions. In this project we will combine the expertise and engagement from the orienteering community, our lead users, with the design and innovation expertise from Mobile Life and the product development expertise of Silva AB. We will develop a prototype application for running and through that process establish structures for industry and lead users to work creatively together.

TITLE: Sharing office, sharing bikes: My research experience at a design firm.

Mobile Life organises a seminar with Sara Ljungblad on Monday December 10th at 14:00. The seminar will be held at SICS, Isafjordsgatan 22/Kistagången 16, elevator B, floor 6. The seminar will last for an hour.

Dr. Magnus Larsson, Head, India Development Centre, ABB. Magnus has recently moved to Bangalore, India and will head the implementation of the many research results from ABB research. 

ABB - one of the major Swedish industry companies - becomes new partner in the Mobile Life Centre. ABB is cooperating with over 70 leading universities and research institutes in various fields. ABB is a leading provider of products and systems for power transmission and process- and industrial automation.

- What is interesting is that the centre look at user experiences and that are particularly important in consumer products - and we are interested in the end-users, says Magnus Larsson. There are increasing demands for our products to provide a user experience.

ABB is very good at products in terms of functional and effective technical solutions to customer needs, emphasize Magnus Larsson. In addition, there are other requirements.

- I want to get more knowledge about users and their experiences in what we do, explains Magnus Larsson. We want to focus on user experiences in addition to the technical requirements.

Magnus emphasizes that ABB has a lot of talented engineers and combining them with skills from Mobile Life, such as cognition, can produce very good products to come. It's about understanding how people react and see what they think is fun and what they think is boring.

- If we are going to continue to be competitive we must get better at the user side to complement the functional, emphasizes Magnus. Our customers are satisfied and should be satisfied in the future with our products, and it is therefore important that the products feel exciting to work with.

Magnus is convinced that more user-oriented products will make it possible to recruit the most talented new employees - both to ABB and the client companies.

- This is a very exciting area, and we look forward to working together in Mobile Life, says Magnus Larsson,

On October 25th, VINNOVA held their annual conference, this year under the theme Information society 3.0: "Informationssamhället 3.0". Kristina Höök, professor at KTH and senior researcher leader at Mobile Life was invitied to discuss and explore the world of apps. Also former co-worker Markus Bylund, SICS, was invited to talk and discuss Internet of Things. The conference was broadcasted live via Bambuser.

Words are not enough, says Petra Sundström, Dr, Human Computer Interaction at Stockholm University and researcher at Mobile Life. Petra comments on the 30th anniversary of the smiley in the daily news paper, Dagens Nyheter, October 1st, 2012.

Kristina Höök comments in the newspaper Sydsvenskan, about the well being apps that are becoming popular on the market.

The article is in Swedish.

Mikael Ydholm is the manager of research at IKEA. Within his area of activity is also the project called "Future Homes", a new initiative that started about a year ago.

- In the “Future homes” project we look about 10 years ahead, says Mikael Ydholm. We are thinking about how we will live and what future homes will look like.

The challenge is to find solutions that make us feel and function better in everyday life, and to enable more people to live better - regardless of economic conditions. Ideas and suggestions are obtained by traveling around the world and examine different future environments and home visits to common people. But equally important is finding good partnerships with companies, organisations and researchers. For this is not something that IKEA are able or willing to solve on its own, says Mikael.
The first contact with researchers from the Mobile Life Centre Mikael had at a conference in Innovation Pioneers. And that eventually led to a meeting with researchers at Mobile Life.
- What interests us is how to integrate technology in the home, explains Mikael. And then it is the software, which is interesting for us. We thought the Mobile Life Centre had an interesting approach in what they do.
What was interesting is the centre’s focus on the "good life" – that, which makes us feel good and have fun. 
- It felt like something new and exciting - something different from what many other researchers do, stresses Mikael. We were then in some workshops and it was confirmed that there really was something different.
- We at IKEA started out as a contender, and that we want to continue to be, stresses Mikael. In our heart and soul, we want to do stuff differently. That was what made this partnership feel so right.

Annika Waern discusses Alternate Reality Games with the bestselling author Anders De la Motte and Johanna Koljonen. The fifteen minutes program is part of a series of web TV discussions investigating  the pan-European series 'The Spiral', a transmedia production consisting of a TV drama series and a game. You can find the webisode at http://www.svtplay.se/klipp/278584/in-i-spiralen-avsnitt-3 . The TV series 'The Spiral' can be found at http://www.svtplay.se/the-spiral and the online game at http://www.thespiral.eu/ .

When GPS Confuses, You May Be to Blame
By RANDALL STROSS
The turn-by-turn instructions of GPS-based navigation systems, ingeniously designed though they may be, can’t always save us from ourselves.

Consider the experience of a man from San Diego who flew to the East Coast and picked up a GPS-equipped rental car at the airport. After 20 minutes, he sensed he was headed in the wrong direction. Then he realized that he had unthinkingly entered his California address as his destination.

“The navigation system had dutifully set a route back to his home in San Diego, 3,000 miles away,” said Barry Brown, co-director of the Mobile Life Center, based in Stockholm, which does research on mobile communication. The incident happened to a friend of his. Read the article.

BuzzFeed interviewed Henriette Cramer, together with Motorola collaborators Frank Bentley and Santosh Basapur about location-based services and their study collecting handdrawn maps from people in Chicago (CHI'12 note) and Stockholm.

"We cannot resist the opportunity to start this yearly report by mentioning VINNOVA’s review of our progress. They concluded that in a relatively short period of time we have established ourselves as an international research lab with a “wow” factor; furthermore, they were of the opinion that we have made outstanding progress and have developed a distinctive multidisciplinary centre living up to VINNOVA’s guidelines. Let us say that we are very happy to have received such a positive evaluation." Oskar Juhlin.

Mobile Life Centre – one of Europes leading research centrets on mobile communication. The Centre has three new partners this year – IKEA, ABB and Movinto Fun. This is not only a contribution of new external partners but also other kinds of partners.

Annika Waern is the new Centre Director of the Mobile Life Centre - and she is obviously satisfied with the new party companies. IKEA's business is no longer just about furniture and furnishings, but will also be about consumer electronics, and ABB is an important actor in the Swedish industry. - There is so much fun with IKEA - they fit us so great, says Annika. And ABB is an interesting partner for us - just because they are not a consumer oriented company. We have worked with Movinto Fun before, and they bring experience from a company in the start-up phase. Satisfied partners Michael Ydholm is responsible for research at IKEA. What is interesting for IKEA is the focus Mobile Life has on the "good life" – that, which makes us feel good and have fun. - What interests us is how to integrate technology in the home, explains Mikael Ydholm. And then it is the software, which is interesting for us. We thought the Mobile Life Centre had an interesting approach in what they do. Dr. Magnus Larsson is Manager of Industrial Software Systems Research, ABB. ABB today is very good at products in terms of functional and efficient technical solutions, but in addition there are other requirements. - I want to get more knowledge about users and their experiences in what we do, explain Magnus Larsson. We want to focus on user experiences in addition to the technical requirements. Jin Moen, CEO of the small start-up company Movinto Fun with her playful product Oriboo. - It will be fun to be involved in developing consumer electronics that is not only "useful" but that gives joy. We must retain the playfulness to create innovations, says Jin Moen. Other exciting new partner will join. But who that will be will be told later.

Jakob Tholander, Associate Professor in Human-Computer Interaction at Stockholm University, says that  games are not shortcuts, teachers have to consider games as a tool just like a textbook. 

On June 8, the Interactive Institute's Arvid Engström succesfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "Going Live - Collaborative Video Production After Television" at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences at Stockholm University.

Abstract:
This thesis explores social and creative practices that emerge with new mobile video technology. The work frames a design space that spans across both social and technical domains. It associates emerging collaborative practices online with new means for producing and broadcasting media in real time, over mobile networks and using low-cost consumer technology just as these technologies are becoming widely available in the world. As a premise, we sketch a scenario where groups of non-professional users, enabled by new technology available in their mobile phones, produce live video together. We use detailed ethnographic inquiries into the practices of expert media producers to inform design and spur innovation of new technology. Over the course of the design research process, we have designed and developed two functional prototype systems and produced a number of theoretical contributions to research on video interaction and to the understanding of live video production.

Titel: "Att spela på riktigt". Seminarium med Annika Waern i arrangemang av Kista Science City den 16:e maj i Kista Mobile Showcase.

Titel: "En framtid där hundar och katter har mobiltelefoner". Seminarium med Oskar Juhlin i arrangemang av Kista Science City. 2:a maj - Kista Mobile Showcase

"I want to increase our impact outside the academy"

Professor Annika Waern is the new director of the Mobile Life Centre from April 1. The next two years, she will head a leading research centre within mobile communications with some fifty researchers and nine strong industry partners.

Annika Waern is one of the senior researchers at the Mobile Life Centre, and has been involved since the start in 2007. Now she will take over as director. The Centre has rapidly become one of the leading centres in mobility in Europe.
“Being a director is a little like being a project manager for a large EU project. Everyone participates with their own agenda, and they are not always controllable”, says Annika with a laugh.

The role as director involves having responsibility for the overall objectives. In 2011, the centre wrote an Operational Plan managed by the former centre director Oskar Juhlin. A very ambitious plan for the continued research at the centre, and Annika hopes that her role will involve little more than just to monitor the plan.
“So I started thinking about things we are good at and things we are less good at. We are good, but there is always room for improvement. We are academically very successful, but our impact is not clear. This will be our focus the next five years”, Annika explains.

Annika expects that this will be a joint project for the researchers at the centre in the coming year. All ideas will be put on the table and will result in a "map" of everything that can be done to increase the centre's impact. The ideas will then be discussed and prioritised in an Action Plan.
“I want us to create that feeling "I was there" - even 20 years after the centre ceased its activity. I would like us to set standards and be the role model for other research centres”, says Annika.

In many ways the centre is already something of a model for its different ways to conduct research. Visiting researchers are impressed by the creative environment and the flat organisation. Everybody sit together in an open office space and take part in the social activities.

“We have an academic dialogue on a daily basis - not only within a project”, emphasises Annika. “It is appreciated - and is something that is missed when leaving the centre.”
Annika underlines that this is not just a question about academic influence. She wants the centre to have an impact on the world outside - and there is a lot to be done. This is not about communication, but about focusing on what the research actually achieves.

“Is it spin-offs and new products we should focus on? Is that the best we can achieve? Or should we be more active in undergraduate and master level education and educate the next generation of researchers?” Annika ponders.

Annika also want to see a wider internationalisation of the centre, which she feels has been too focused on Europe and the western countries. Today there are 14-15 nationalities within the centre - something that should be exploited.
“And we'll do a joint study visit to a developing country. It will probably be India, where our partners have good contacts”, Annika says.

New partners
Mobile Life Centre has got three new partners this year - IKEA, ABB and Movinto Fun. Annika is very pleased with the broadening of the centre the three new partner companies will mean. IKEA is no longer just about furniture and interior design - their new venture Future Homes means also investing in consumer electronics.
“It is incredibly fun with IKEA - they fit us so great”, Annika explains. “And ABB is an interesting partner for us - just because they are not consumer-oriented company. We have worked with Movinto Fun before, and they bring experience from a company in the development phase.”
Other exciting new partners are coming. But which will be revealed later.

Phd-doctoral position in Computer and Systems Sciences with specialization in “Video interaction and consumer-oriented Internet of Things services”, at the Mobile Life Centre

Topic: The PhD student will investigate a new hybrid media that combines emergent mobile technologies for video interaction with the advances in the Internet of Things in order to generate consumer-oriented applications. Combining these sources into new hybrid formats could produce more diverse ways of experiencing remote contexts. We are interested in the role of emerging enjoyment services in temporally and spatially distributed leisure and experience activities. We foresee that developing new hybrid media to broadcast the wild and nature, and its display and presentation in home environments. Building on ethnographic work studying people’s experiences of nature and the wild, as well as outdoor activities, we propose to build trial systems that support sharing nature experiences online and display them at home in urban areas. Using sensors, cameras, microphones and mobile phones we will experiment with medialising what goes on in forests and in the sea, as well as sharing it online over the web to phone and on the web.

About the doctoral position and requirements: The Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV) belongs to Stockholm University and is located in one of the world's leading ICT clusters, Kista, just outside Stockholm, Sweden. The department conducts research and education in different areas of computer and systems sciences, and has about 200 employees.

May 7, 2012, 14:30 (GMT – 6) Privacy + Self Disclosure - The Mismeasurement of Privacy: Using Contextual Integrity to Reconsider Privacy in HCI - Louise Barkhuus - Mobile Life @ Stockholm University, Sweden. Contribution & Benefit: The paper criticizes the ways in which privacy issues have been studied within HCI and ubicomp. It provides an analysis of privacy on the basis of contextual integrity. ACM
 

May 8, 2012, 09:30. (GMT – 6). Games: Community + Communication - Athletes and Street Acrobats: Designing for play as a Community Value in Parkour – Paper. Annika Waern - Mobile Life Centre, Sweden, Elena Balan - Mobile Life Centre, Sweden, Kim Nevelsteen - Mobile Life Centre, Sweden. Contribution & Benefit: We developed a mobile community service for the Parkour community. We discuss how the successful design relied understanding the culture as a 'fun community', valuing play over achievement and competition. ACM
 

May 8, 2012, 15:50. (GMT – 6) Interactivity - Mobile ActDresses: Programming Mobile Devices by Accessorizing – Interactivity. Mattias Jacobsson - Mobile Life @ SICS, Sweden, Ylva Fernaeus - Mobile Life @ SICS, Sweden, Stina Nylander - Mobile Life @ SICS, Sweden, Contribution & Benefit: Mobile ActDresses is a design concept where existing practices of accessorizing, customization and manipulation of a physical mobile device is coupled with the behaviour of its software.
 

May 9, 2012, 14:30. (GMT – 6). Culture, Playfulness, and Creativity-Honorable mention. Appreciating plei-plei around mobiles: Playfulness in Rah Island – Paper Pedro Ferreira - Mobile Life, Sweden, Kristina Höök - Mobile Life @ Stockholm University, Sweden, Contribution & Benefit: Describes field work in Vanuatu around first time mobile phone adoption in an isolated community. Can assist designers and researchers involve playfulness in the design process of limited, inexpensive technologies. ACM
 

May 9, 2012, 09:30. (GMT – 6). Mobile Computing and Interaction - Mobile Service Distribution From the End-User Perspective - The Survey Study on Recommendation Practices - Long Case Study. Zeynep Ahmet - Mobile Life @ Interactive Institute, Sweden, Kaisa Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila - Tampere University of Technology, Finland. Contribution & Benefit: A presentation on findings from a study focused on recommendation practices of users of mobile services, including motivations, means, context and types of services recommended to others.
 

May 9, 2012, 09:30. (GMT – 6). Mobile Computing and Interaction - Best paper award. The Normal Natural Troubles of Driving with GPS. Barry Brown - Mobile Life Centre, Sweden, Eric Laurier - School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, UK. Contribution & Benefit: Presents a video analysis study of driving using GPS navigation systems in natural settings. The paper argues for a driving with GPS as an active process and not as 'docile driving'. ACM
 

May 9, 2012, 09:30. (GMT – 6). Mobile Computing and Interaction - Drawing the City: Differing Perceptions of the Urban Environment – Note Frank Bentley - Motorola Mobility, USA, Henriette Cramer - Mobile Life Centre at SICS, Sweden, William Hamilton - Interface Ecology Lab, Texas A&M University, USA, Santosh Basapur - Motorola Mobility, USA. Contribution & Benefit: We provide an updated study of the Milgram Mental Maps experiment, also considering demographic and tech-use attributes. Useful to those working on mobile LBS and Urban Computing services. ACM
 

May 9, 2012, 09:30. . (GMT – 6). Best paper award. Pasts + Futures - Revisiting the Jacquard Loom: Threads of History and Current Patterns in HCI – Paper. Ylva Fernaeus - Mobile Life, KTH, Sweden, Martin Jonsson - Södertörn University, Sweden, Jakob Tholander - Mobile Life, Stockholm University, Sweden, Contribution & Benefit: We describe and reflect on the workings of the Jacquard loom from the perspective of contemporary HCI: materiality, graspability, full body interaction, sustainability and age. ACM.
 

May 9, 2012, 16:30. (GMT – 6). Design Theory & Practice - Understanding Agency in Interaction Design Materials – Paper. Jakob Tholander - Mobile Life, Stockholm University, Sweden, Maria Normark - Mobile Life Centre, Sweden, Chiara Rossitto - Stockholm University, Sweden. Contribution & Benefit: The notion of agency is used to analyse materiality in interaction design. We illustrate the various levels at which agency emerge in the context of intensive short-time prototyping sessions. ACM

Kista Science City is arranging a seminar series in their Showroom in Kista Science Tower. On May 2, Oskar Juhlin will talk about a future where dogs and cats have mobile phones. On May 16, Annika Waern will talk about games. To play for real: Street play and role play with mobile technology". For more information and registration click here.

Kristina 'Kia' Höök, professor i interaktionsdesign på CSC-skolan vid KTH, är den prisbelönta och medialt uppmärksammade forskaren som bland annat fått 10 miljoner för känslosam dataforskning. Framtiden ska hon vika åt att göra din värld skönare, med hjälp av de tekniska prylarna du har runt omkring dig. 

The world economic forum ranked Sweden as no 1 on the networked readiness index. The TV news at SVT 1 interviewed the IT-minister and visited the Mobile Life Centre to found out why.

Om konferensen Internet of things i Hjälpmedelsinstitutet.

The TV 4 program Nyhetsmorgon has picked up on the debate around the study that suggests that social media and smartphones are making us  unhappy. Oskar was invited to give his view on the topic. See the interview.

Internet of Things, IoT, är ett av de 10 hetaste teknikområdena under 2012 enligt analysföretaget Gartner. Nu genomförs den första stora svenska heldagskonferensen om ”Sakernas Internet” i Kista den 9 februari. Konferensen är redan fullsatt med över 500 anmälda. Det handlar om en kraftsamling med företrädare för både forskning och näringsliv för att etablera Sverige som föregångsland inom det nya området.

Hur kommer nästa generation av mobilvideo se ut och hur kommer det att fungera? Studion Bronx gästades av Oskar Juhlin från Mobile Life som delade sina tankar om några framtidsvisioner men visade också upp en del faktiska prototyper som gav exempel på hur vi kommer kunna använda mobilvideo. 

She wants to take playfulness seriously.

Annika Waern is newly appointed professor at DSV. In her early career, her research was "super theoretic" as she says. Outside the academic circles she is now known as Sweden’s Gaming Queen. She is one of the senior researchers at Mobile Life Centre and has worked with various types of gaming research for more than 10 years. Now she is interested in new attractive areas within playfulness.
It was somewhat by chance that Annika Waern got into computer science. She began to study physics, but dropped out. After helping her mother with Basic programming, she got a job at LM Ericsson working with high-level programming. She realized that she probably would need an education to get a better job. So she took leave to enter the completely new programme in computer science at Uppsala University in the early 80's.

“I stumbled into the area by chance, and it was great,” Annika Waern stresses. “I was early in, and I have been able to follow the entire developments within computers. The rest is history. But I never expected to become a scholar. When I started I was going to study for two years, and then go back to Ericsson!

From the analytical models to computer games Annika Waern has been a researcher at SICS during the bulk of her career. It started with a PhD position in 1986 and research in analytical models. But that was too much theory and in the end she felt that the subject was almost one of "intellectual masturbation". She wanted something more connected to reality, and her focus was more on human-machine interaction and artificial intelligence.
“I worked with intelligent interfaces and agents throughout the 90's. But in the end I felt the topic to be a bit exhausted, and I wanted to change direction,” she says.
It was now that her interest in gaming was awakened. She saw how quickly her three kids took to computer games. They had some kind of innate drive - something that adults do not really understand she explains. So Annika started to be interested in games. In the early 2000s, she worked at startup company Gamefederation.
“During this time I met all the game companies - especially on the mobile side. It was great, and it was a good way to get started,” she explains.
Pervasive games
After a few years at Gamefederation the basic development work was done. Annika knew she probably was a bit "too academic" and longed to get back to research. In 2003 she came back to SICS, and eventually she became coordinator of a major EU project on pervasive gaming, IperG. Pervasive gaming is a form of mobile games that interact with the environment.
“It was a huge project with ten partners and 10 million Euros for three and a half years. We developed a method both for technology and for design solutions,” Annika Waern explains.
The visible result of the project was a book that was published 2009: Pervasive Games: Theory and Design. The book presents a method on how to work with technology and design in an integrated cycle. Annika is satisfied with the project itself, but notes that very little of the results was commercialised. Today she is a little sceptical of the existing model of EU projects.
EU requires that so-called demonstrators are created - often impressive system which doesn’t hold together after the evaluation. Give the money to small businesses instead and bring entrepreneurs into the projects, she urges.
Commercialisation
Annika Waern work with research that is close to applications, but she is not quite convinced that research is the best way to commercialise technology solutions. As a researcher, you sometimes create overly complex solutions she says.
The platform she developed for pervasive games has been used commercially by a startup company, Company P,  a of spin-off from research. Her research has also helped other small businesses - like Movinto Fun - to develop their products with game ideas and design solutions.
“I will finish the pervasive games project in March. Today there are so many commercial games, so it is more important to do sociological studies than design research in this field. And design research is the strength of my research group,” she stresses.
Sweden can take the lead again
Annika Waern worries that Sweden has lost the leading position in the IT field that it had during the 80 - and 90's. But she sees opportunities to regain the lead in the rapidly emerging field of Internet of Things - IoT. It's about the increasing number of connected things around us.
“The technical platform for apps comes from the West Coast, USA. But now we have a chance to catch up, if we invest in the new field of Internet of Things. But we need both research and commercialisation - simultaneously! Companies must also take a commercial lead now, and develop technical solutions for the future, she says.
Annika points out that 3G will not handle the large volume of data the Internet of Things will bring. She argues that politicians must invest so that we can take the technological leap. The companies lie ahead - they are already thinking on the next move.
“Right now everyone assumes that the operators will build 4G so that everything works. But no one really knows how to make money from it, Annika underlines.
Computer games education
DSV is a pioneer in computer games and was among the first to offer an academic education in game development. Annika Waern is of course one of the lecturers, and she keeps a course on game analysis. It is a rather theoretical course on how to look at games with a critical eye and analyse the game from different angles. It's hard to get all students in the course to keep up, according to Annika Waern. They are good at playing and having opinions. But they are not so good at understanding why.
“This can be a good tool for students. I think it's good that game developers are taught this analytical perspective,” says Annika Waern.

And what's next?
Annika Waern will leave the area of pervasive games for research on "playfulness". What she envisions is a small lab with researchers with a background in games where the emphasis will be on play and playfulness.
“What if all people could be street performers for a little while? Can technology encourage people to be playful and spontaneous?” she wonders.
She envisions a kind of open and interactive installations where the entire emotional spectrum can be expressed in different ways - including with the body.
Annika looks back on a long research career where she has been able to follow the development in the IT field. She recognises that she probably has worked a little bit too much the last ten years - at times she has been working “infinitely much”. Now she starts to think about the balance in life.
“I am 51 years old and I think it's a wonderful age. I think better when I’m not working quite so hard. I think you can get a bit stupid if you work too much! I usually take a long summer vacation, and then I read a lot and write a little. When I come back from that, I always have new ideas, Annika Waern concludes.

Först kom internet i datorn, sedan i mobilen. Nu börjar det bli dags för nästa steg. Internet i nästan alla prylar omkring oss. Forskarna har jobbat länge med tekniken och räknar med att prylarnas internet nu är i samma fas som vanliga internet var i början av 1990-talet när de första webbläsarna kom.

The annual list of the most powerful IT-women in the world. Kristina Höök is listed no. 18. Read more. (In Swedish)

On February 22:nd Professor Kristina Höök gave a seminar i Aula Magna. See the seminar (in Swedish)

Vi har letat, spånat, frågat och diskuterat. Och spanat, frågat vidare, efterforskat och funderat. Resultatet är 62 superkreativa förebilder i det digitala Sverige att hålla ögonen på framöver! 

Includes Kristina Höök and Alexandra Weilenmann.

Kista new hub for Internet of Things. Today, Thursday, is the starting point for a new centre dedicated to the Internet of Things, in Kista. With the technique we can monitor our health, enjoy ourselves with role play and gemaes and work out more efficiently, says the researcher Kristina Höök. Read the article. (In Swedish)

Kristina Höök and her colleagueas from SICS were interviewed in conjunction with the Internet of Things day by Vetandets världs in Swedish radio.

Kineserna arbetar med grundlighet och stora resurser för att bli bäst på sakernas internet. Men om vi i Sverige satsar på de som ska använda tekniken - konsumenterna - kan vi bli ledande. Det hävdar professor Kia Höök.

Stockholm University arranges an open seminar in Aula Magna with Kristina Höök. Feb 21st, 18:00-19:30.

More info. http://www.su.se/om-oss/evenemang/oppna-forelasningar/kanslor-i-mobilen-det-innerligas-design-1.74914

Ericsson is one of the partners in the Mobile Life Centre and, Martin Körling was chair of the board until October 2011.
- There are many very important reasons for us to get involved in the Mobile Life Centre. Ericsson is a key player within mobility, and for us the centre provides important feedback in terms of our development in that area.
- This collaboration has given us both knowledge and inspiration. The collaboration also plays an important role in our development with our increased focus on end-users that are important to Ericsson, and we need to have a competent partner to discuss these issues.
Martin Körling will leave Sweden, but not Ericsson. For the next upcoming years he will be the head of Ericsson Research in Silicon Valley.
- I expect to continue to interact with Mobile Life, even when I am in Silicon Valley even though the forms of it are not yet clear. It feels natural to continue working together as a continuation of what we have already done in the field of Internet of Things.
Martin Körling also gives examples of areas where the collaboration have provided concrete results.

• Lars Erik Holmquist's development of several small apps for the web
• Oskar Juhlin’s research on video
• Kristina Höök's work in Affective Health
• Graduate students’ internships at Ericsson

In collaboration with SICS, Mobile Life organises an Internet of Things Day on February 9th, 09:00-16:00. Most of the talks will be broadcasted online through Bambuser. Please check the link: http://bambuser.com/channel/mobile%2Blife

Kristina Höök in Interaction-Design.org defining Affective computing: As Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Interaction Design moved from designing and evaluating work-oriented applications towards dealing with leisure-oriented applications, such as games, social computing, art, and tools for creativity, we have had to consider e.g. what constitutes an experience, how to deal with users’emotions, and understanding aesthetic practices and experiences. Here I will provide a short account of why in particular emotion became one such important strand of work in our field. Read more

On February 9 the first big Swedish conference on the new hot area of Internet of Things will take place in Kista. The conference has created great interest, and 490 people have registered.

The SICS Internet of Things Day is arranged in collaboration with EIT ICT Labs, Wisenet, KTH and Mobile Life. Among the speakers are Professor Kristina Höök and Professor Oskar Juhlin from Mobile Life Centre.

SICS is creating a centre for Internet of Things with consumer focus in collaboration with Ericsson, Microsoft, KTH, Mobile Life Centre, Stockholm University, Wisenet, Swedish ICT and a number of small companies including Company P, Ant Micro, and Vendolocus.

Program and registration

An international evaluation team has evaluated the performance of The Mobile Life VINN Excellence Centre so far in Stage 2 (April 1, 2009 – March 31, 2012). The evaluators are very positive to the performance of the Centre, but also indicate areas for improvements.

Conclusions for Scientific Quality and Productivity:

The Centre has, in a relatively short period of time, established itself as an international research lab with a ‘wow’ factor. It is to be commended for taking on board the recommendations from the last evaluation and building the foundation for a centre for excellence. It is to be congratulated on its interdisciplinary and innovative research ideas. The research environment appears to be excellent for nurturing and mentoring junior researchers and establishing senior researchers as international leaders.

General conclusions:

The evaluation team is of the opinion that the Centre has made outstanding progress since the last review and has developed a distinctive multidisciplinary Centre meeting VINN Excellence Centre guidelines.

"Right now it feels great to be director of a center that receives such recognition. It is the result of a long and hard work by many smart people,” the centre Director Oskar Juhlin underlines.

"We are now recharging for three more years, and we will have many exciting news about partners and partnerships to reveal shortly”, Oskar Juhlin concludes.

Stockholm University spreads the news about Mobile Life's succesful evaluation by VINNOVA in November 2011 on their website.

Johanna is dsscussing Affective Health and technology. The interview is conducted in Swedish and can be found 13 min. and 15 sec. into to program. Johanna is also promoting the Internet of Things conference on the 9th of February. 

Internet of Things, IoT, är ett av de 10 hetaste teknikområdena under 2012 enligt analysföretaget Gartner. Nu genomförs den första stora svenska heldagskonferensen om ”Sakernas Internet” i Kista den 9 februari. Konferensen är redan fullsatt med över 500 anmälda. Det handlar om en kraftsamling med företrädare för både forskning och näringsliv för att etablera Sverige som föregångsland inom det nya området.