Dr.-Ing. Rainer Wasinger

The School of Information Technologies
SIT Building J12, Room 327
Sydney University, NSW, 2006
Australia

Ph: +61 (2) 9036-9746 | Fax: +61 (2) 9351-3838
Email:

Website: http://sydney.edu.au/engineering/it/~wasinger/

Short Biography and Research Interests:

I work in the Computer Human Adapted Interaction (CHAI) research group at the School of Information Technologies, Sydney University, and in particular, on the Smart Services CRC project titled "Multi-Channel Content Delivery and Mobile Personalisation". My research interests are in mobile and ubiquitous computing and the cloud-based infrastructures required to support native mobile and web-based applications. Common themes to the past computer systems that I have built include context-awareness, user-modelling, personalisation, content repurposing, and multimodal interaction. This work falls under the broader fields of software engineering, human computer interaction, intelligent user interfaces, ubiquitous computing, user experimentation, and systems design. My past work has also had a strong focus on user-centred design and experimentation, which occurs throughout the design, implementation, and evaluation of these systems.

Previous Positions: Graduating with Engineering and Science degrees from the University of Sydney, Australia, in 2001, I worked in the Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI) department at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH), in Saarbrücken, Germany, for 5 years. During this time, I also completed my doctorate titled "Multimodal Interaction with Mobile Devices" at Saarland University, with Prof. Wolfgang Wahlster as my supervisor. Upon returning to Australia at the end of 2006, and after successfully concluding a short 3 month project at Sydney University in the Smart Internet Technology (SIT) CRC, dealing with tabletop interaction, I took up the position of Research Fellow at the Centre for Language Technology (CLT), Macquarie University, Australia. For the following year, I worked on the project "From Talking Heads to Thinking Heads", a joint ARC/NH&MRC Thinking Systems Special Initiative, tasked with building an embodied conversational agent. My role during this time was the implementation of a dialogue manager, based on the information-state-update approach and using the Trindi framework as its basis.

Research Interests: Software engineering; human-computer interaction; intelligent user interfaces; mobile and ubiquitous computing; hyperlocal and location-based services; systems design; interaction design; user experimentation; user modelling; context awareness; personalisation; multimodal interaction; modality fusion; content repurposing.

Research Activities:

Projects:
- Multi-Channel Content Delivery and Mobile Personalisation (2008 onwards), as part of the Smart Services CRC.
  - Neighbourhood Networks: Video (136MB).
  - Client-side User-modelling across multiple applications: Video (66MB).
- From Talking Heads to Thinking Heads (2007-2008): A Research Platform for Human Communication Science.
- Light Table Gestures (2007).
- COLLATE/COLLATE II (2001-2006): Computational Linguistics and Language Technology for Real Life Applications:
  - M3I Mobile ShopAssist.
  - M3I Personal Navigator: Full-length Video (73MB); Short Video (52MB).
- Personal Projects: Just a few of my very own creations ...
  - Home Cooking Assistant (2001): Engineering Thesis Project, Sydney University.
  - MitVerstand-ONLINE (2000): Advanced Software Project, Sydney University.
  - Birthday Calendar (for keeping track of birthdays) (2000): Wasinger Freeware, 2000.
Reviewing and Committees:
- Organising Committee:
  - TSMPAD: Workshop on Tool-Support for Mobile and Pervasive Application Development, at Mobile HCI 2010.
- Program Committee:
  - ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media (Hypertext, 2013, 2012).
  - International Conference on Mobile Services, Resources, and Users (Mobility, 2013, 2012).
  - ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI, 2012).
  - International Workshop on Ubiquitous Personalization (UP) at IUI 2012.
  - PUMP: Pervasive User Modeling and Personalization, at UMAP 2010.
  - KUI: Knowledge-based User Interface, at ICAS 2008.
  - Workshop on the Design of Smart Products, 2007.
- Reviewer:
  - ACM/SIGCHI Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI, 2013, 2012).
  - Elsevier Journal on Pervasive and Mobile Computing (2012).
  - International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp, 2012, 2007).
  - International Conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation (IPIN, 2012).
  - International Workshop on Mobile Multimedia Information Retrieval (MoMIR, 2009).
  - International Journal of Human Computer Studies (IJHCS, 2007, 2006, 2005).
  - International Conference on Pervasive Computing (Pervasive, 2006, 2004).

Lecturing:
- COMP5047 "Pervasive Computing" (2012, 2011, 2010, 2009), Sydney University: This is an advanced course in Human Computer Interaction, with a focus on Pervasive Computing. It introduces key aspects of HCI and explores these in terms of the new research towards creating user interfaces that disappear into the environment and are available pervasively, for example in homes, workplaces, cars, and carried or work.
- "Multimodal and Natural Language Dialogue Systems" (WS2002/2003), Saarland University: This is a course on multimodal and natural language dialogue systems and their implementation in real situations. Topics covered include the theories of dialogue, multilingual and robust speech processing, prosodic analysis, parsing, semantic analysis, discourse understanding, translation, speech synthesis, and the tools for building, testing, and validating dialogue engines.
Student Supervision:
- Vacation Scholars (Summer 2012/2013; Sydney University):
  - Tom Ryan: "Voice-controlled Personal Concierge"
  - Chong Gao: "Multi-channel Curator"
- Honours Students (2012/2013; Sydney University):
  - Joshua Inatey: "Mobile Hyperlocal Services"
- Vacation Scholars (Summer 2011/2012; Sydney University):
  - Haoqi Bai: "Extending the Reach of Neighbourhood Services"
  - Hai He: "Towards a Field Study of the Neighbourhood Networks Platform"
- Honours Students (2011; Sydney University):
  - Hai He: "A Framework for Personalised Proximal Neighbourhood Networks"
  - James Wallbank: "Enhancing Restaurant Menus through Personalised Meal Recommendations"
  - Stephen Phan: "Core Functionalities for User-modelling Ecosystems"
- Vacation Scholars (Summer 2010/2011; Sydney University):
  - Adam Gawronski: "Client-side Mobile Personalisation: Learning to Rank Job Advertisements"
  - Hai He: "A Social Networking Platform and Toolkit for Configuring Online Neighbourhoods"
  - Olli Iivonen: "Core Functions for an Extensible Mobile Client-side User Modelling Framework"
- Honours Students (2010; Sydney University):
  - Kurt Gubi: RoughMaps: Indoor Positioning using Existing Infrastructure and Symbolic Maps"
- COMP3615 Software Development Project (2010; Sydney University):
  - Jacqueline Chan, Hai He, Sun Kim, Hwani Park, Meng Qiui, James Wallbank:
    Casual Employment Platform and Mobile App Client
  - Mark Aragon, Xue Chen, Haotian Guan, Eui Kim, Stephen Phan, Gayatri Singh, Xiangrui Yang:
    SMARTboard application for Interaction with Dangerous Australian Animals
- COMP5703 Information Technology Project (2010; Sydney University):
  - Olli Iivonen: "Life-long User-modelling in an Android Career Management Application"
  - Haibin Xiao: "Indoor Positioning for iOS"
- Vacation Scholars (Summer 2009/2010; Sydney University):
  - Kurt Gubi: "Indoor Localisation in Semi-unprepared Environments"
  - Matthew Wardrop: "Dangerous Australians iPhone Application"
- Vacation Scholars (Summer 2008/2009; Sydney University):
  - Ben Taylor: "Property Organiser - A Property Market Application for the OHA Android Operating System"
  - Lynden Shields: "Content Repurposing for Mobile and Tethered Devices"
  - Sam Thorogood: "Shop Alerts - A Shopping Application for the Apple iPhone Operating System"
- Bachelor thesis (2007; Uni Saarland):
  - Gerrit Kahl: "Ausgabeplanung für einen mobilen multimodalen Einkaufsassistenten" (transl.: Presentation planning for a mobile multimodal shopping assistant)
- Bachelor thesis (2005; Uni Saarland):
  - Andreas Maier: "Umgebungsbeschreibung anhand auditiver Perzeption zur Unterstützung mobiler Navigation" (transl.: Environment modelling based on auditory perception to aid in mobile navigation)

[1] Rainer Wasinger,
"Multimodal Interaction with Mobile Devices: Fusing a Broad Spectrum of Modality Combinations", [BibTeX] [Link]
Berlin: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Aka GmbH (ISBN: 3-89838-305-9 and ISBN: 1-58603-712-9), 2006.

[1] Wolfgang Wahlster, Michael Feld, Patrick Gebhard, Dominikus Heckmann, Ralf Jung, Michael Kruppa, Michael Schmitz, Lübomira Spassova, Rainer Wasinger,
"The Shopping Experience of Tomorrow: Human-Centered and Resource-Adaptive", [BibTeX] [Link]
Chapter in: Crocker, M. W.; Siekmann, J. (Eds.): Resource-Adaptive Cognitive Processes.
Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer (ISBN: 978-3-540-89407-0), 2010, pp. 205-237.

[2] Ilhan Aslan, Karin Leichtenstern, Paul Holleis, Rainer Wasinger, Christoph Stahl (Eds.),
Proc. of the Workshop on Tool-support for Mobile and Pervasive Application Development - Issues and Challenges", at Mobile HCI, Lisboa, Spain, 2010.

[3] Antonio Krüger, Jörg Baus, Dominik Heckmann, Michael Kruppa, Rainer Wasinger,
"Adaptive Mobile Guides", [BibTeX] [Link]
Chapter in: Brusilovsky, P., Kobsa, A., Nejdl, W. (eds.): The Adaptive Web: Methods and Strategies of Web Personalization.
Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer (ISBN: 978-3540720782), 2007, pp. 521-549.

[4] Rainer Wasinger, Wolfgang Wahlster,
"Multi-modal Human-Environment Interaction", [BibTeX] [Link]
Chapter in: E. Aarts and J. L. Encarnação (eds.): True Visions: The Emergence of Ambient Intelligence.
Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer (ISBN: 3-540-28972-0), 2006, pp. 291-306.

[5] Rainer Wasinger, Antonio Krüger,
"Multi-modal Interaction with Mobile Navigation Systems", [BibTeX] [Link]
In: W. Wahlster (ed.): Special Journal Issue "Conversational User Interfaces", it - Information Technology 46 (2004) 6,
München: Oldenbourg (ISSN 1611-2776), 2004, pp. 322-331.

[1] Kazjon Grace, Rainer Wasinger, Christopher Ackad, Anthony Collins, Oliver Dawson, Richard Gluga, Judy Kay, Martin Tomitsch,
"Enhancing Interactivity at an Interactive Public Information Display", [BibTeX]
Proc. of the International Symposium on Pervasive Displays (PerDis), ACM, 2013, to appear.

[2] Rainer Wasinger, James Wallbank, Luiz Pizzato, Judy Kay, Bob Kummerfeld, Matthias Böhmer, Antonio Krüger,
"Scrutable User Models and Personalised Item Recommendation in Mobile Lifestyle Applications" , [BibTeX]
Proc. of the International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP), Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2013, to appear.

[4] Rainer Wasinger, Michael Fry, Judy Kay, Bob Kummerfeld,
"User Modelling Ecosystems: A User-centred Approach", [BibTeX]
Proc. of the International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP), Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2012, pp. 334-339.

[5] Glen Pink, Simon Gerber, Michael Fry, Judy Kay, Bob Kummerfeld, Rainer Wasinger,
"Safe Execution of Dynamically Loaded Code on Mobile Phones", [BibTeX]
Proc. of Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking, and Services (MobiQuitous 2010), Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2012, pp. 1-12.

[7] Simon Gerber, Michael Fry, Judy Kay, Bob Kummerfeld, Glen Pink, Rainer Wasinger,
"PersonisJ: Mobile, Client-side User Modelling", [BibTeX]
Proc. of the International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP), Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2010, pp. 111-122.

[10] Jörg Baus, Rainer Wasinger, Ilhan Aslan, Antonio Krüger, Andreas Maier, Tim Schwartz,
"Auditory Perceptible Landmarks in Mobile Navigation", [BibTeX]
Proc. of the 12th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI), New York: ACM, 2007, pp. 302-304.

[13] Lübomira Spassova, Rainer Wasinger, Jörg Baus, Antonio Krüger,
"Product Associated Displays in a Shopping Scenario", [BibTeX]
Proc. of the 4th IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR), IEEE Computer Society, 2005, pp. 210-211.

[15] Antonio Krüger, Andreas Butz, Christian Müller, Christoph Stahl, Rainer Wasinger, Karl-Ernst Steinberg, Andreas Dirschl,
"The Connected User Interface: Realizing a Personal Situated Navigation Service", [BibTeX]
Proc. of the 9th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI), New York: ACM, 2004, pp. 161-168.

[16] Rainer Wasinger, Christoph Stahl, Antonio Krüger,
"M3I in a Pedestrian Navigation & Exploration System", [BibTeX]
Proc. of the Fifth International Symposium on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices (Mobile HCI), Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2003, pp. 481-485.

Workshop Papers (peer reviewed):
[1] Rainer Wasinger, Matthew Wardrop, Anthony Collins, Michael Fry, Judy Kay, Bob Kummerfeld,
"Multi-channel Coverage for a Dangerous Australian Animals Museum Exhibit", [BibTex]
PATCH Workshop at UMAP 2012, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, ISSN 1613-0073, Vol-872, Montreal, Canada, 2012.

[5] Daniel Brem, Kurt Gubi, Judy Kay, Bob Kummerfeld, Tsvi Kuflik, Joseph Michaels, Rainer Wasinger,
"Personalized Cultural Heritage GeoNotes", [BibTeX]
Pervasive Personalisation Workshop at Pervasive, Helsinki, Finland, 2010, pp. 1-9.

[6] Rainer Wasinger, Antonio Krüger,
"Modality Preference - Learning from Users", [BibTeX]
Workshop on User Experience Design for Pervasive Computing (Experience) at Pervasive, Munich, Germany, 2005.

[7] Rainer Wasinger, Michael Schneider, Jörg Baus, Antonio Krüger,
"Multimodal Interactions with an Instrumented Shelf", [BibTeX]
Workshop on Artificial Intelligence in Mobile Systems (AIMS) at UbiComp, Nottingham, UK, 2004, pp. 36-43.

[8] Christoph Stahl, Jörg Baus, Antonio Krüger, Dominik Heckmann, Rainer Wasinger, Michael Schneider,
"REAL: Situated Dialogues in Instrumented Environments", [BibTeX]
Workshop on Invisible and Transparent Interfaces (ITI) at AVI, Gallipoli, Italy, 2004, pp. 10-15.

[11] Rainer Wasinger, Christian Kray, Christoph Endres,
"Controlling multiple devices", [BibTeX]
Physical Interaction (PI03) Workshop on Real World User Interfaces at MobileHCI, Udine, Italy, 2003, pp. 60-63.

[12] Christian Müller, Rainer Wasinger,
"Adapting Multimodal Dialog for the Elderly", [BibTeX]
ABIS Workshop on Personalization for the Mobile World, Hannover, Germany, 2002, pp. 31-34.

Technical Reports:
[1] Rainer Wasinger, Michael Fry, Simon Gerber, Olli Iivonen, Judy Kay, Bob Kummerfeld,
"Client-side User Modelling across Multiple Mobile Applications", [BibTeX].
TR682, School of Information Technologies, University of Sydney, 2011.

[2] Kurt Gubi, Rainer Wasinger, Michael Fry, Judy Kay, Tsvi Kuflik, Bob Kummerfeld,
"RoughMaps: A Generic Platform to support Symbolic Map Use in Indoor Environments", [BibTeX],
TR683, School of Information Technologies, University of Sydney, 2011.

[3] Simon Gerber, Glen Pink, Michael Fry, Judy Kay, Bob Kummerfeld, Rainer Wasinger,
"PersonisJ: mobile, client-side user modelling", [BibTeX]
TR648, School of Information Technologies, University of Sydney, 2010.

Developer Conferences:
[1] Apple World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC 2010), San Francisco, CA, USA, 07-11 June 2010.

[3] Newspaper, Computer Zeitung, 35.Jahrgang Nr.10, 07.March.2005, Brennpunkt: Cebit - Leben und Arbeiten in der digitalen Welt, pg. 12.

[2] Will the Web Win?,
University of Sydney IT Alumni Association Presentation, Wed.14.July.2010 (45 slides).

[3] WWDC 2010 Trip Report,
Apple World-Wide Developer's Conference 2010, 07-11.June.2010 (75 slides).

Rainer Wasinger

B.Sc., B.Eng. (Electrical) Hons., Dr.-Ing., Postdoctoral Researcher

Short Biography and Research Interests:

Research Activities:

B.Sc., B.Eng. (Electrical) Hons., Dr.-Ing.,
Postdoctoral Researcher