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Two colleagues engage in a fictitious dialogue about the future of robotics. In the Web extra at https://youtu.be/ecTYYebQpnY, the Miserable Murphy robot interacts with children in the waiting room of a pediatric practice. Using established psychological interventions, Murphy activates the young patients' positive resources, cognitive attitudes, and coping skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the application of peephole metaphor using steerable projector technology to create a mixed-reality room. The peephole metaphor is a virtual layer superimposed on a physical environment. The layer can become visible and audible when an individual opens a peephole from his physical world into the virtual layer. There are three basic properties of the virtual layer, spatial continuity, temporal persistence and consistency across peepholes. There are two types of peepholes, user-initiated peephole and system-initiated peephole. User-initiated peepholes are actively created and manipulated by the user whereas system-initiated peepholes open through a display under the environmental's control. Peepholes are generally suitable for time-multiplexed displays such as steerable projectors as they restrict simultaneous display. The peephole metaphor provides a terminology, a mental model and a proper way to describe different types of interactions in mixed reality environments.

Location awareness is a key ingredient to many applications of mobile devices. Devices with the ability to determine their own position in space can retrieve, filter, or present information depending on this position. There are, however, different ways to look at this situation resulting in different distributions of computational resources. A strongly simplified description model will be introduced and a number of existing systems, from both research and industry, will be analyzed according to this model. With a view to scalability in ubiquitous computing worlds, we will examine the tradeoffs with respect to putting more computational effort and design wits into the environment and infrastructure or into the actual mobile device. Some of the ideas presented here were discussed in a paper at the first workshop on artificial intelligence (AI) in mobile devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on smart houses has mostly been focused on automation and invisible integration of technology, which may lead to a perceived loss of control and a sense of being observed. In our perspective users play an active and creative role, deliberately engaging with visible technology, not for reasons of efficiency, but rather for the fostering of social relations. In particular, we are looking at the kitchen environment, and we present the Living Cookbook. It enables people to share their cooking experiences, to educate others in the cooking practice, and to suggest a sense of presence and sociability. The cooking activity is reinterpreted as an experience, and the use of technology supports intimacy, communication, education, fun and creativity while cooking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public awareness and environmental policies have increased interest in applying non-herbicide weed control methods in conventional farming systems. Even though mechanical weed control has been used for centuries in agricultural practice, continuous developments—both in terms of implements and automation technologies—are continuously improving the potential outcomes. Current mechanical weed control methods were evaluated for their weed control efficacy and effects on yield potential against their equivalent herbicide methods. Furthermore, not much is known about the correlation between weed control efficacy (WCE) of different mechanical methods at varying weed density levels. A total of six experiments in winter wheat (2), peas (2), and soybean (2) were carried out in the years 2018, 2019, and 2020 in southwestern Germany. Harrowing and hoeing treatments at different speeds were carried out and compared to the herbicide treatments and untreated control plots. Regarding the average WCE, the combination of harrowing and hoeing was both the strongest (82%) and the most stable (74–100%) mechanical treatment in the different weed density levels. Whereas, in average, hoeing (72%) and harrowing (71%) were on the same WCE level, but harrowing (49–82%) was more stable than hoeing (40–99%). The grain yields in winter wheat varied between 4.1 Mg∙ha−1 (control) and 6.3 Mg∙ha−1 (harrow), in pea between 2.8 Mg∙ha−1 (hoe slow) and 5.7 Mg∙ha−1 (hoe fast) and in soybean between 1.7 Mg∙ha−1 (control) and 4 Mg∙ha−1 (herbicide). However, there were no significant differences in most cases. The results have shown that it is not possible to pinpoint a specific type of treatment as the most appropriate method for this cultivation, across all of the different circumstances. Different field and weather conditions can heavily affect and impact the expected outcome, giving, each time, an advantage for a specific type of treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drivers' urge to access content on smartphones while driving causes a high number of fatal accidents every year. We explore 3D full-windshield size head-up displays as an opportunity to present such content in a safer manner. In particular, we look into how drivers would personalize such displays and whether it can be considered safe. Firstly, by means of an online survey we identify types of content users access on their smartphones while driving and whether users are interested in the same content on a head-up display. Secondly, we let drivers design personalized 3D layouts and assess how personalization impacts on driving safety. Thirdly, we compare personalized layouts to a one-fits-all layout concept in a 3D driving simulator study regarding safety. We found that drivers' content preferences diverge largely and that most of the personalized layouts do not respect safety sufficiently. The one-fits-all layout led to a better response performance but needs to be modified to consider the drivers' preferences. We discuss the implications of the presented research on road safety and future 3D information placement on head-up displays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drivers' urge to access content on smartphones while driving causes a high number of fatal accidents every year. We explore 3D full-windshield size head-up displays as an opportunity to present such content in a safer manner. In particular, we look into how drivers would personalize such displays and whether it can be considered safe. Firstly, by means of an online survey we identify types of content users access on their smartphones while driving and whether users are interested in the same content on a head-up display. Secondly, we let drivers design personalized 3D layouts and assess how personalization impacts on driving safety. Thirdly, we compare personalized layouts to a one-fits-all layout concept in a 3D driving simulator study regarding safety. We found that drivers' content preferences diverge largely and that most of the personalized layouts do not respect safety sufficiently. The one-fits-all layout led to a better response performance but needs to be modified to consider the drivers' preferences. We discuss the implications of the presented research on road safety and future 3D information placement on head-up displays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]