From augmented reality to augmented human

Traditionally, the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) was primarily concerned with designing and investigating interfaces between humans and machines. However, with recent technological advances the concept of “enhancing”, “augmenting” or even “redesigning” humans themselves is becoming not only interesting and intriguing but also very feasible and serious topic of scientific research and development. “Augmented Human” is term that I use today to refer to this overall research direction. Although the term “augmentation” has long been used in HCI and AR communities since Douglas Engelbert´s landmark research on augmenting intelligence, I think the possibility of human augmentation is not limited to intellectual abilities and can be expound to physical abilities. I believe Augmented Human introduces a fundamental paradigm shift in HCI: from human-computer-interaction to human-computer-integration. In this talk, I will discuss rich possibilities and distinct challenges in enhancing human abilities with technology. I will introduce recent projects conducted by our research group including design and applications if wearable eye sensing for augmenting our perception and memory abilities, design of flying cameras as our external eyes, a home appliance that can increase your happiness, an organic physical wall/window that dynamically mediates the environment, and a human hand control system based on functional electrical stimulation.