Theme issue on personal projection

Abstract

Mobile projection interfaces are no longer fiction. Integrated pico projectors in mobile and wearable devices could make mobile projection ubiquitous within the next few years and create commonplace practices where walls, desks, floors, and t-shirts act as projection surfaces for these kinds of new devices. Several projector phones— mobile phones with built-in projectors—are commercially available, have been demonstrated or are announced [5]. It is expected that such projector phones will be integrated in many of the next generation mobile handsets. Furthermore, we have seen the first research toward the integration of pico projectors and cameras into various wearable systems, such as stand-alone personal projectors [4], watches [2], pendants [3], or headsets [6], leading to new form factors, interaction techniques, and applications. These mobile projection units, often equipped with a camera or other additional sensors for tracking input, have a great potential to overcome the limited input and output capabilities of mobile and wearable devices. They can be expected to have a significant impact on the cultural usage habits of content consumption and media sharing. This makes mobile projectors an interesting and important platform for research in the area of Human–Computer Interaction. Current research in this field mainly focuses on the design, development, and evaluation of novel interaction techniques and applications, on the study of how this technology is used in realistic contexts and how it affects the usage of mobile and wearable devices. In addition, new sensing and tracking methods are being investigated in order to support novel ways of interaction and emerging applications. Therefore, we are still at the beginning of understanding and addressing the multifaceted challenges of this emerging research area of Human–Computer Interaction. Of course, mobile projectors have been used in various other research disciplines for a couple of years. As the first paper of this special issue vividly shows, their history even goes back to the seventeenth century, where ‘‘magic lanterns’’ provided early forms of mobile projection. More recently, previous research has focused on technical aspects, such as hardware construction, optics, projection geometry [1], energy consumption, and interaction with projected multi-scale user interfaces [4]. Through continuous miniaturization, these devices have now reached form factors that allow us to focus on HCI research in the context of realistic pervasive environments, such as mobile settings. This theme issue on personal projection is a follow-up of the successful Ubiprojection 2010 workshop being held in conjunction with the Pervasive 2010 conference in E. Rukzio (&) University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany e-mail: Enrico.Rukzio@uni-due.de