Perceptual Technologies website goes live

The Perceptual Technologies website is now live: http://perceptual-technologies.com/ on it you can also find about the Experiential Research Atelier (ERA), a new group that Steve is involved in with John Jupe, Prof. Rob Pepperell and others: http://perceptual-technologies.com/era/index.php

Steve contributes to the development of Vision-Space

Vision Space is based on a completely new way of modelling perception and how we represent visual experience. By studying the work of artists such as Van Gogh and Cézanne, John Jupe, a UWIC Academic Associate, has developed a range of insights into how we see in three dimensions. This involves a new range of monocular proximity cues and then the incorporation of binocular information within that spatial scenario. Jupe has demonstrated that it is possible to radically improve our spatial perception of still and moving images by exploiting the distinction between the relatively ordered information available to central vision and a 3D field of disordered information in peripheral vision.

Steve joins John and Prof. Rob Pepperell, who has undertaken extensive research in human perception and cognition, particularly in the field of visual indeterminacy. Together they will develop further insights into how we perceive the world around us and how we might develop and exploit it in practical ways through computer embedded product design and development. The team plans to develop the core of a series of world class research and enterprise collaborations. Steve’s particular role in the team will be the development of real world product applications. In the last six months Jupe, Pepperell and Gill have won a Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarship (KESS) PhD Scholarship, two Strategic Insight Partnerships (SIPs) and a KESS Access to Masters Scheme studentship. UWIC have already recognised the commercial potential of the work through the purchase of a 10% stake in the IP holding company.

Ariana Mihoc joins PAIPR

PAIPR is delighted to welcome Ariana Mihoc to the group. Ariana, shortly to complete her MSc with the Cardiff School of Art & Design,  is the recently appointed scholarship holder for a Vice Chancellor’s Doctoral Award. The award was won by Steve and Andy with Dominic Eggbeer, head of PDR’s Medical Applications Group. It will fund research into the uses of PAIPR’s rapid, low fidelity, prototype led ethnography for the development of  patient specific medical devices.

Gareth Runs Workshop for Public Sector Managers

Gareth Loudon will run a product and service innovation workshop for public sector managers in Wales next week. Managers will come from organisations including the NHS and the Welsh Assembly Government to the workshop on the 12th of January.

Gareth Runs International Symposium Workshop

Gareth Loudon will be running a workshop session next week on how technology, communications and networking can play a role for international artists based in Wales. The workshop on 26th November, is part of the Wales Arts International Symposium in Cardigan.

 

 

Funded PhD Opportunity

The PAIPR team at PDR, in collaboration with PDR’s Medical Applications Group, have secured funding for a 3 year Design Research PhD Bursary. We’re looking for a PhD student to investigate new techniques for product deployment using rapid prototype based ethnographic appraisal techniques. The focus of the work will be medical product development. The project will utilise PDR’s new user experience observation laboratory in combination with end‐users, scenarios, props and appropriate prototypes, to explore the possibilities of increased development speed and reduced development cost, whilst simultaneously producing better, safer products aimed at the specific and bespoke needs of users.

For more details, and to apply for this position, click here: http://www3.uwic.ac.uk/English/uwicresearch/researchdegrees/Pages/VCDA%27s.aspx

PAIPR welcomes Claire Andrews

Claire has recently joined PAIPR through the Prince of Wales Innovation Scholarships (POWIS). Claire is working on developing a GPS navigation device for the blind called Peepo, more information can on Peepo can be found here.

Claire’s biography will be added soon.

Gareth Wins Teaching Fellowship

Gareth Loudon’s experience and knowledge in the creativity process has been recognised in the form of  a UWIC Teaching Fellowship award to look at how to embed the concept of Deliberate Play into the Product Design curriculum and beyond.

 

Steve to give lecture at TU Berlin

“What will future interactive products be like?”

Product design is a discipline in a state of such rapid change that it is in a constant state of reassessment. One of the ways in which this is most apparent is the field of computer embedded product where the blurred and overlapping discipline boundaries between product designers, HCI experts, usability professionals, ethnographers, computer programmers, electronic engineers and others continue to cause problems for us humans on the receiving end of their efforts. Arguing for a more coherent interdisciplinary approach and drawing on his experience in the field of information appliance development and his research into possible future interaction methods, Steve will review trends, fads, cultures and theories and, by looking both forward and backward, make some educated guesses as to where they may lead us.

 

Gareth runs Innovation Workshop for Business Leaders

Gareth Loudon will be running a product innovation workshop for business leaders in South Wales today. The workshop is part of the Twenty 20 Leadership programme run by UWIC’s School of Management.