Human Computer Integration Lab

Computer Science Department, University of Chicago

This page highlights the impact of our lab's research beyond just paper citations and direct impact in the HCI community.

Live (TV/radio/podcasts) press

• Fox32 interview with Pedro about Sloan Fellowship Award 2022
• Interview with Jasmine Lu and Jas Brooks at the Podcast "Haptics Club"
• Interview with Jasmine Lu about Chemical Haptics for ABC, on the Podcast Future Tense with Antony Funnell
• BYU radio interviews Jas on trigeminal stereo-smell!
• Pedro and Jun give a live demo at CNBC of the muscle stimulation wearables (here's a small video snippet (on Twitter) of that demo)
• BBC Click did a live piece about our our Wearable Microphone Jammer
• TV Show, Planète Techno talked about our Wearable Microphone Jammer
• Fox 32 Chicago talked about our Wearable Microphone Jammer
• NHK (Japan) covered our Preemptive Action work live on TV
• TV Show, Voice of America (interview with Jun about HandMorph)
• TV Asahi in Japan covers our preemptive action work (film crew came to lab)
• Peter Joosten interviews Pedro about to the ACM Augmented Humans 2021 conference, on which Pedro was the general co-chair
• Interview with Pedro Lopes on using muscle stimulation for virtual reality by HPI-Digitalblog (filmed at UIST conference)
• Pedro's keynote at NODE'15 on Human Computer Integration

Written interviews with us

• Interview with Jas Brooks about their olfactory interfaces work (by SlowDown TV)
• Article and Interview with lead author Jasmine Lu, by Cassidy Ward for SyFy
• Full article about Smell in VR by Jude Stewart for WIRED magazine, which covers also our stereo smell and trigeminal illusions work, including interview with Jas Brooks
• Interview with Jas Brooks about LGBTQ+ people's struggle in science & technology and their work on chemical interfaces, olfactory research, and more!
• Short interview/blurb for Technical University of Lisbon (Pedro's alma mater) about Sloan Fellowship Award
• Short interview/blurb for Hasso Plattner Institute (Pedro's PhD alma mater) about Sloan Fellowship Award
• Interview by Stephen Gossett for BuiltIn magazine with Jas Brooks on Smell interfaces (their future, how the Smell-o-vision legacy fares today, and our olfactory interfaces)
• Interview with Jun and Pedro for UchicagoCS
• Crain's article on Michael Franklin's plan for UChicago CS, includes interview with Pedro
• Interview with Pedro about his PhD Thesis Award from the University of Potsdam, Germany



World records (apparently we made the Guiness book twice!)

• DextrEMS was considered the most precise bionic hand controller (for output, i.e., moving individual fingers) by experts at the Guiness World Records
• Our Preemptive Action work was considered the "Fastest artificially-assisted reaction times" by experts at the Guiness World Records



Press on our Interactive Devices Integrated with Living Organisms (UIST 2022)

• Full article by Cassidy Ward (includes interview with Jasmine Lu and Pedro Lopes)
• Full article by Nick Bild for HacksterIO
• Full article by Yuki Yamashita for ITMedia / Shiropen
• Full article by Arya Voronova for Hackaday
• Our work was featured in the Newsletter of the Artificial Life journal (Nov 2022 edition)
• Article on Yahoo News



Press on our Harvesting Kinetic Energy to Prolong VR Haptics (UIST 2022)

• Ashley Huffman discusses our work on the "All Tings Haptics"



Press on our Integrating Distractions in VR (UIST 2022)

• Full article on Livewire (By Sascha Brodsky) including quotes from Pedro



Press on our Electrical Head Actuation (CHI 2022)

• Full article by Paul Marks (includes interview with Yudai Tanaka)
• Full article by Cassidy Ward (includes interview with Yudai Tanaka and Pedro Lopes)
• Full article by Bobby Carlton for VRScout (includes interview with Yudai Tanaka)
• Article in Gizmodo by Andrew Liszewski
• Our CHI22 talk is featured on Adafruit
• Article in Tech News Crypt



Press on our Stretchable Sensor (Science Advances 2021, led by Sihong Wang at PME and his wonderful team)

• Full article by Emily Ayshford for UChicago News including quotes from Sihong



Press on our Chemical Haptics (UIST 2021)

• Full article by Victoria Woollaston about Chemical Haptics for NewScientist (includes quotes from Jasmine Lu)
• Interview with Jasmine Lu about Chemical Haptics for ABC, on the Podcast Future Tense with Antony Funnell
• Full article by Andrew Liszewski for Gizmodo
• Piece on "A Revolution in Haptics" for the Communications of the ACM, by Paul Marks, featuring Chemical Haptics!
• TechLinked covers Chemical Haptics on their channel (video has >500K views)
• Youtuber Steve Knows covers Chemical Haptics on their channel (video >15k views)
• Article and Interview with lead author Jasmine Lu, by Cassidy Ward for SyFy
• Full article by Rob Thubron for TechSpot
• SIG CHI newslatter highlights chemical haptics!
• Full article by David Matthews for Digital Trends
• Article at Tech News Inc.
• Full article by Cabe Caldwell for HacksterIO
• article by Nadeem Sarwar for Screen Rant
• Article by Matthew Hart for Nerdist's Science and Tech features
• Article from 3Neel
• Article at FleflyNews
• Article at Tech To See
• Article from Feedy News
• Article at Hi Tech Glitz
• Article at GeniusShark
• Article at Nerd Shala
• Article at Greeley Tribune
• Full article about Chemical Haptics from Nicola Dixon at ProGamer
• PC gamer features an article on Chemical Haptics
• Full article about Chemical Haptics from the Hindu Business Tech
• Full article about Chemical Haptics from Mixed Reality website (in German)
• Full article at the Halal Times
• Article about our Chemical Haptics from the UIST Medium Blog
• Chemical Haptics featured in the Haptics Newsletter



Press on our DextrEMS work (UIST 2021, Best Demo Award People's Choice)

• Full article at Hackaday on our DextrEMS exoskeleton
• Full article at QR code Press on our DextrEMS exoskeleton's potential for sign language
• Full article by Nick Bild for HacksterIO on our DextrEMS exoskeleton
• Full article by IT Media News (JP) on our DextrEMS exoskeleton
• Full article on our DextrEMS exoskeleton
• Article on MyScience<
• CS news article about our DextrEMS exoskeleton



Press on our Altering Softness work (UIST 2022, Best Paper Award, Best Demo Award Jury)

• Full article by Nick Bild for HacksterIO on our wearable that alters touch perception
• UChicago CS article on our work

Press on our Touch and Fold work (CHI 2021, Honorable Mention Award)

• Full article about our Touch and Fold device from HacksterIO
• Full article about our Touch and Fold device from ElectronicsLab
• PRNewswire adds our device to the overview of SIGGRAPH21 demos to come
• Computer Graphics World adds our device to the highlights/preview of SIGGRAPH21
• PSD article on Touch and Fold



Press on our Elevate work (CHI 2021, in collaboration with Andrea Bianchi's group at KAIST)

• Full article about our work at the Arduino News Blog
• Article about our work at the ACM Interactions Magazine
• Article about our work at DevStyler



Press on our Electrical Stereo Smell work (CHI 2021)

• Full article about Smell in VR by Jude Stewart for WIRED magazine, which covers also our stereo smell and trigeminal illusions work, including interview with Jas Brooks
• Full article about our stereo smell on IEEE Spektrum
• Interview by Stephen Gossett for BuiltIn magazine with Jas Brooks on Smell interfaces (their future, how the Smell-o-vision legacy fares today, and our olfactory inyterfaces)
• Full article about our stereo smell at Hackster.io
• Honorable mention award in the best experimental design of 2021 of Fast Company’s 2021 Innovation by Design Awards (see article with all winners too!)
• Full article (in japanese) by IT Media
• BYU radio interviews Jas on trigeminal stereo-smell!
• Full article our stereo smell at Digital Trends
• Full article our stereo smell at BoingBoing
• Full article our stereo smell at Tech Thirsty
• Article our stereo smell at HiTech Glitz
• Highlight by NewsPicks (japanese)
• PSD article on Stereo Smell



Press on our Trigeminal Temperature Illusions for VR (CHI Best Paper 2020)

• IEEE Spektrum full article about our Trigeminal Illusions
• Full article about Smell in VR by Jude Stewart for WIRED magazine, which covers also our stereo smell and trigeminal illusions work, including interview with Jas Brooks
• Boing Boing article: Digital synesthesia: Tricking your brain into experiencing smell as temperature in virtual reality
• DigitalTrends article on our hot cold illusion
• Article by UploadVR
• Article by Shiropen / IT media (also known as Seamless, in JP)
• InterestingEngineering covers our device
• Yahoo Finance covers our device
• HackesterIO full article about out device
• LabE's full article about out device
• VRroom's article on our hot cold illusion
• Geekologie article on our hot cold illusion
• Selected by Virtual Reality Pulse (link)
• N-O-D-E discusses our project and Jas CHI2020 talk
• Software Focus covers our work
• Free News article
• MakeMagazine covers open hardware projects, including our smell device
• Lab digital covers our device
• Robert Mcgrath's writes an article on their blog discussing our work
• Future of Smell covers our paper
• XR beat covers our temperature via trigeminal work
• VRuse covers our temperature via trigeminal work
• WhattsNew covers our temperature via trigeminal work (in ES)
• VR Journal covers our temperature via trigeminal work (in RU)



Press on our HandMorph exoskeleton (UIST Best Paper 2020)

• Full article about Handmorph at Hackster.io
• Full article about Handmorph (Shiropen/ITMedia, japan)
• Interview with Jun and Pedro (UchicagoCS)
• Article by Futurity
• Article about Handmorph by CoolWearable.com
• Article about Handmorph by RobotEnthusiast Website
• Medium Article by Jun about HandMorph and his other projects
• Article about Handmorph by Robotic Gizmos



Press on our EMS-based authentication (work with Heather Zheng and Ben Zhao)

• Full article about our EMS-based authentication (Shiropen/ITMedia, japan)
• Article by University of Chicago PSD News
• Article by Biometric Update



Press on our privacy bracelet (CHI Honorable Mention 2020; work with Heather Zheng and Ben Zhao)

• New York Times piece about our jammer
• The Atlantic's interview with Mike Pondsmith (creator of Cyberpunk) mentions our wearable jammer
• Our jammer is a finalist in the 2020 Innovation By Design Awards, given out by Fast Company magazine. The project was one of the 8 finalists chosen in the Experimental category.
• Chicago Tribune's article
• Mashable article
• Engadget article
• The Times article
• Full article about our wearable jammer (Shiropen/ITMedia, japan)
• Slashdot article
• Hackaday article about our jammer
• Adafruit features our work on their blog
• Freethink article about our jammer
• hartford courant's article
• Futurism article
• Techgenyz article
• Ycombinator discussion
• Daily Mail's article
• Reddit discussion
• Slashdot article
• Times of India article
• Input mag article
• Ulyces article (In french)
• Ubergizmo article
• Newsbreak article
• Todo Noticias Article (in Argentinian Spanish)
• Web Razzi Article (in Turkish)
• Yanko Design Article
• IoT Report article
• Seattle TimesActivate This 'Bracelet of Silence,' and Alexa Can't Eavesdrop
• The Mirror UK: Alexa owners can stop her eavesdropping using this 'bracelet of silence'
• Yahoo Finance: Ultrasonic bracelet jams the microphones around you
• National Law Review: Privacy Fashion: Profit from the Surveillance State
• Yahoo News: Activate This 'Bracelet of Silence,' and Alexa Can't Eavesdrop
• Business Insider Spain: Crean una pulsera con ultrasonidos que anula los microfonos e impide que las tecnologicas te espien
• CNet France: Ce bracelet brouilleur empeche les enceintes connectees de vous ecouter
• Paris Match: Un <> pour empecher Siri et Alexa de vous ecouter
• CTV News: Tech with Todd, start at 6:10
• RFI Podcast (France): Bracelet of Silence
• Independent (Ireland): Listen up: Your life is too boring for Alexa to spy on you
• Techtudo (Brazil): Pulseira digital bloqueia microfones proximos e evita espionagem
• TJournal (Russia): Bracelet of silence: how a pair of scientists came up with a device for suppressing microphones of "smart" speakers
• Baltijas Balss (Latvia): As a couple of scientists came up with a device for suppressing microphones of "smart" speakers, "Anti-clocks" emit ultrasound that interferes with speech recognition
• UberGizmo: This Ultrasonic Bracelet Jams Microphones Around You
• Jezebel: I Thought Dystopic Fashion Would Be Cuter
• UChicago Magazine: A computer science expert on the data privacy crisis
• Termometro (Mexico): Crean pulsera con ultrasonidos que impide que las tecnologicas te espien
• TechGenyz: 'Bracelet of Silence': A device to jam smart speakers' ability to spy on conversations
• Uncrate: ALEXA & SIRI MICROPHONE JAMMING BRACELET
• Le Numeriques (France): Ce bracelet empeche les objets connectes et smartphones de vous ecouter
• Muy Interesante (Spain): Este 'brazalete del silencio' impide que Alexa te espie
• Welt (Germany): Dieses Armband verhindert, dass Alexa und Siri dich belauschen
• Sina Tech (China): Scientists Invent "Bracelet of Silence" that can disable surrounding microphones
• TechOrange (China): American University Invents "Anti-surveillance" Bracelet, Uses Ultrasonic Signals to Block Smart Speakers and Smartphones
• Unwire (Hong Kong): American Researchers Invent Anti-surveillance Bracelet; Uses Ultrasonic Signals to Disrupt Nearby Microphones
• Technews (Taiwan): American Researchers Invent Anti-surveillance Bracelet; Uses Ultrasonic Signals to Disrupt Nearby Microphones
• Tech Insane Youtube Channel (Hindi): Tech Insane Youtube Channel (Hindi)
• Week in Rap Youtube Channel: Week in Rap Youtube Channel
• Guardian piece on IoT security mentions our device
• Featured on UChicago News: Monday, February 17, 2020
• Featured on PSD Academics Newsletter (by PSD Dean Angela Olinto): February 28, 2020



Press on our haptic learning via muscle stimulation work

• Full article at Chicago Magazine on our work.



Press on our agency in haptics work

• CNBC full feature on our work
• Gizmodo (full press article about Preemptive Action)
• IEEE Spectrum (full press article about Preemptive Action)
• Boing Boing (article about Preemptive Action)
• Tech Xplore (full press article about Preemptive Action)
• Business Today article about our EMS work with agency
• Spektrum (German) article about our agency work
• SIGCHI Medium (article by Pedro Lopes about the research questions behind our two 2019 CHI papers)
• HiTecher (press article about Preemptive Action)
• Medical Gadget (press article about Preemptive Action)
• My24 online newspaper (article about Preemptive Action)
• MobiGeek (article about Preemptive Action)
• UChicago News (full article about agency in EMS, including our Cerebral Cortex and two 2019 CHI papers)
• UChicago CS (full article about agency in EMS, including our Cerebral Cortex and two 2019 CHI papers)
• Reddit Thread (no research can be complete without people on reddit discussing it!)



Press on our agency in haptics work

• UChicago PSD article about our EMS as authentication work (with Ben Zhao and Heather Zheng)



News articles about the lab as a whole

• We got the ACM CAREER award in 2021! (UChicago CS news article)
• We have 7 papers at CHI 2021! (UChicago CS news article)
• UChicago Magazine wrote a long feature about our lab, vision and research projects of the first few months
• UChicago Short list (alumni, parents, families, and friends) features a story about our lab
• UChicagoCS 5 awards at CHI 2020! (includes our best paper award and our honorable mention)
• UChicago PSD article about Ada Lovelace Week 2020



Press on our new lab or Pedro joining UChicago or individual awards

• Pedro receives the Sloan Fellowship 2022
• Crain's article on Michael Franklin's plan for UChicago CS, includes interview with Pedro
• UChicago news article about CS Department, includes news about our new lab (and images of our Graduate class)
• UChicago CS article about Pedro joining
• Scientia Article about Lopes' lab



Academic classes, books, etc that show our work

• The book Perspectives on Wearable Enhanced Learning (WELL) by Buchem et al. (published by Springer Nature 2019), mentions our work on EMS!
• The book The Ultimate Guide to Informed Wearable Technology by Christine Farion (Packt Publishing, 2022) mentions our work on EMS as well as the Wearable Jammer!



DIY/Maker Community using our projects

• These folks have made their own openEMSstim and use it in their research



Other assorted press articles

• Pedro interviewed by New York Times regarding Kseniia Palin's work on the astonishing typing speed seen on today's phone users
• Pedro represents UChicago at CNBC Evolve event in Chicago 2019
• Uchicago News (26th Sep 2019) on our demo at CNBC
• Uchicago News (26th July 2019) on our EMS for VR work
• Uchicago News (12th April 2019) on our workshops at MADD and lab space
• UChicago Admissions Tumblr video about our artwork



Press on older projects (during Pedro's PhD)

• Science et Vie Junior Magazine discusses VR Walls on article about "City of the future on 2050"
• TechXplore article on VR walls
• VR Fittness article about EMS in AR
• PC Mag article about EMS in VR
• BGR article about Impacto
• Microsoft Power User article about EMS in AR
• Road to VR article about Impacto
• Core77 Article about Metamaterial Mechanisms (led by Alexandra Ion, co-authored also by Pedro)
• Techspot article about VR walls
• The register article about haptic illusions, featuring Pedro on VR walls, Margaret Koehler, Jake Rubin (from HaptX), Sriram Subramanian and Jan Gugenheimer
• H+ magazine article about Pedro's CHI15 papers
• 3Dprint magazine article about Trussformer (led by Rob Kovacs, co-authored also by Pedro)
• El Diario article about Impacto
• Japanese Gizmodo article about VR Walls
• VICE article abotu VR walls
• realovirtual article about VR walls
• Inverse article about our VR walls
• Hindu Business discusses developments in VR using our work
• TweakTown article about Impacto
• Dezeen article about Metamaterial Mechanisms (led by Alexandra Ion, co-authored also by Pedro)
• Article by Creative Applications about Muscle Plotter
• Article by Creative Applications about Constructable (led by Stefanie Mueller, co-authored also by Pedro)
• PhysOrg article on Muscle Propelled Force Feedback
• Wired Magazine's article on Constructable (led by Stefanie Mueller, co-authored also y Pedro Lopes)
• Pedro demonstrates Ad Infinitum at Science Gallery in Dublin
• Digital Trends article about Ad Infinitum
• Article by the Irish Times about our artwork
• Post by Ars electronica about our work
• Article by Creative Applications about Ad Infinitum
• Article by Mental floss abotu our artwork