Recently, the UNH IRES group visited Saarbrücken, Germany to tour two HCI labs at Universität des Saarlandes. We were all quite amazed by research effort at both labs.
The Innovative Retail Lab at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) is conducting multiple studies on innovative shopping solutions and more! The simulated intelligent supermarket (pictured) provides shoppers with virtual assistance through smart shopping carts and sensor-based shelves that provide nutritional feedback. Very cool!
The Embodied Interaction Lab, housed in the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (Cluster of Excellence “Multimodal Computing and Interaction”), studies a range of HCI-related topics. We got to see all sorts of futuristic inventions, from use cases of flexible displays to sensor-based on-body devices. iSkin (pictured) is a flexible, stretchable, ground-breaking technology that detects touch input on skin (it is also the winner of the Best Paper Award at CHI ’15!).
After a day of lab tours, we had the chance to indulge in some German-Mexican fare! A few of us had been missing “American food,” so this was a great opportunity to have some enchiladas while socializing with the Saarbrücken researchers. Of course, some delicious dessert was enjoyed as well (pictured).
And a selfie was taken!
