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January 26, 2011

Speaker: Dr. Ravin Balakrishnan, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto

Title: Facile Interaction with Displays All Over the Place

Abstract: As computing increasingly veers away from the desktop to more mobile and "everywhere" usage scenarios, the user interface must evolve to better support such activities. In this talk, I will provide a broad overview of some of the more promising research being undertaken in the area of next-generation user interfaces for future computing environments, illustrated with examples from the work being undertaken at the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto. This will include interaction using handheld projectors, sketch and gesture based interfaces, interfaces for very large scale but expensive displays, interfaces for very cheap "displays" all over the place, and supporting infrastructure.

Biography: Ravin Balakrishnan is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Canada Research Chair in Human-Centred Interfaces at the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto where he co-directs the Dynamic Graphics Project (DGP) laboratory. His research interests are in Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Information and Communications Technology for Development, and Interactive Computer Graphics. He earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Toronto, working with Bill Buxton, while concurrently a part-time researcher at Alias|wavefront (now part of Autodesk). He is the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2007), an Ontario Premier's Research Excellence Award (2003), the Bell University Laboratories Associate Chair in HCI at the University of Toronto (2002-2006), and best paper awards, nominations and honourable mentions at the CHI 2010CSCW 2010CHI 2009CHI 2008, CSCW 2006UIST 2006CHI 2005Graphics Interface 2005 and UIST 2004 conferences. In addition to working with students and colleagues at Toronto, he collaborates with researchers at leading industrial laboratories and universities worldwide, including stints as a visiting researcher at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL)(2005-2007), a visiting professor at the University of Paris & INRIA (2006), and a visiting researcher at Microsoft Research's RedmondBeijingBangalore and Cambridge labs while on sabbatical from the University of Toronto during the 2007-2008 academic year. He was a co-founder of Bump Technologies Inc., which was acquired by Google in 2010, and is involved in another startup that is commercializing research conducted in his lab: Arcestra.