CMSC 23240/CMSC 33240: Emergent Interface Technologies


News & Announcements

Grade breakdown
This class is graded 40% assignments and 50% final project and 10% participation.
Published by Pedro Lopes on Jan 10 2021

Class hours
Lectures happen on zoom Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:20pm to 5:40pm. You will get invite to the zoom in your inbox before the first class.
Published by Pedro Lopes on Jan 6 2021

Start of Winter class (in Jan 2021)
Welcome to the Emergent Interface Technology class. A class on Human Computer Interaction, with a emphasis on understanding the technology behind the cutting edge research.
Published by Pedro Lopes on Jan 3 2021

Synopsis

In this class, we critically examine emergent technologies that might impact the future generations of computing interfaces, these include: physiological I/O (e.g., brain and muscle computer interfaces), tangible computing (giving shape and form to interfaces), wearable computing (I/O devices closer to the user's body), rendering new realities (e.g., virtual & augmented reality), haptics (giving computers the ability to generate touch and forces) and unusual auditory interfaces (e.g., silent speech & microphones as sensors). This class is heavy on writing and paper reading and has a final project that involves coding/hardware.

Expected workload

In this class you will: (1) learn about these new HCI developments during the lectures, (2) do essays/assignments that allow you explore some of these technologies, (3) read HCI papers and summarize these in short weekly assignments, and lastly, (4) start inventing the future of computing interfaces by proposing a new idea in the form of a paper abstract and/or prototype, which you will present as a demo the end of the semester and have it peer-reviewed in class by your classmates.

Prerequisites

Please see UChicago's official registrar page.

Copyright

This course was developed by Pedro Lopes. Parts of this course are derived (with permission) from a course taught by Patrick Baudisch (in which Pedro co-taught a few segments) at Hasso Plattner Institute. All teaching materials in this class, including course slides, homeworks, assignments, practice exams and quizzes, are copyrighted. Reproduction, redistribution and other rights solely belong to the instructor. In particular, it is not permissible to upload any or part of these materials to public or private websites without the instructor's explicit consent. Violating this copyright policy will be considered an academic integrity violation.

Policies

The University of Chicago has formal policies related to academic honesty and plagiarism. We abide by these standards in this course. Depending on the severity of the offense, you risk being dismissed altogether from the course. All cases will be referred to the Dean of Students office, which may impose further penalties, including suspension and expulsion. In addition, we expect that everyone handles their fellow students and staff members with respect, following the norms of proper behavior by members of the University of Chicago community.