This paper was the first one of our new ERC project Viajero summing up our thoughts on the future of passenger AR/VR/MR experiences, from the fundamental technical and physiological challenges, to the new opportunities afforded passengers in terms of productivity and entertainment. Related papers: M. McGill, J. Williamson, A. Ng, F. Pollick, and S. Brewster, […]
Acoustic Transparency and Auditory Mixed Reality (CHI’20)
This paper was published at ACM CHI’20, and explored the potential impact of acoustically transparent auditory headsets – effectively orientation tracked headphones that intermix real and virtual content – on consumer audio usage, and as a potential medium for auditory-only mixed reality augmentations, being a more affordable gateway to augmented reality. See the paper video, […]
Virtual Workspaces (ToCHI’20)
This paper was a collaboration with Logitech Design Lab, Cork IE, looking at the future of virtual workspaces. We built this system in 2017-18, looking at the usability benefits and impediments of purely virtual displays, in terms of being able to physically move your display space, repositioning your cursor to the focused display and so […]
PlaneVR (CHI’19)
Virtual reality (VR) headsets allow wearers to escape their physical surroundings, immersing themselves in a virtual world. Although escape may not be realistic or acceptable in many everyday situations, air travel is one context where early adoption of VR could be very attractive. While travelling, passengers are seated in restricted spaces for long durations, reliant […]
Virtual Augmentations of Physical Keyboards – Less :( More 😊
We’ve been doing some research into a new class of keyboard which we refer to as augmented keyboards, meaning a physical keyboard that can be tracked by a mixed reality headset, such that you can start to render virtual content on, or around, the keyboard – in effect, allowing for virtual augmentations of a peripheral. […]
Violent video games in VR (CHIPLAY’18)
Bespoke Virtual Reality (VR) laboratory experiences can be differently affecting than traditional display experiences. With the proliferation of at-home VR headsets, these effects need to be explored in consumer media, to ensure the public are adequately informed. As yet, the organizations responsible for content descriptions and age-based ratings of consumer content do not rate VR […]
Translational Gain (CHI’18)
Room-scale Virtual Reality (VR) has become an affordable consumer reality, with applications ranging from entertainment to productivity. However, the limited physical space available for room-scale VR in the typical home or office environment poses a significant problem. To solve this, physical spaces can be extended by amplifying the mapping of physical to virtual movement (translational […]
Passenger In-Car VR (CHI’17)
Immersive HMDs are becoming everyday consumer items and, as they offer new possibilities for entertainment and productivity, people will want to use them during travel in, for example, autonomous cars. However, their use is confounded by motion sickness caused in-part by the restricted visual perception of motion conflicting with physically perceived vehicle motion (accelerations/rotations detected […]
TV and VR At-A-Distance (TOCHI’16)
This paper examines synchronous at-a-distance media consumption from two perspectives: how it can be facilitated using existing consumer displays (through TVs combined with smartphones), and imminently available consumer displays (through VR HMDs combined with RGBD sensing). Firstly, we discuss results from an initial evaluation of a synchronous shared at-a-distance smart TV system, CastAway. Through week-long […]
PhD (University of Glasgow, 2016)
Televisions (TVs) and VR Head-Mounted Displays (VR HMDs) are used in shared and social spaces in the home. This thesis posits that these displays do not sufficiently reflect the collocated, social contexts in which they reside, nor do they sufficiently support shared experiences at-a-distance. This thesis explores how the role of TVs and VR HMDs […]