Ralf Biedert

(Dipl.-Inf.^*, Researcher, Project Lead Text 2.0)

* equivalent to M.Sc. in computer science in the U.S.

ralf.biedert@dfki.de (PGP Key, x.509)

+1 (510) 705 - 3724 (current U.S. number)
+49 (631) 205 - 75 - 1190 (office)
+49 (1577) 474 - 6607 (mobile)

German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) GmbH
Knowledge Management Department
Trippstadter Str. 122
D-67663 Kaiserslautern
Germany

 

News

• At UC Berkeley (until March 2012)
• If you are interested in Text 2.0, eye tracking, reading research or empathic interfaces, contact me for jobs, internships or a thesis.

 

Research Topics

• eye tracking & reading research
• empathic user interfaces & hci
• human factors in security and privacy
• Text 2.0

 

Supervised Students (Current & Former)

• Mahmoud Sakr
• Christoph Käding
• Robin Arnold¹
• Lucal Lötterle¹
• Florian Pelz¹
• Thomas Litzel
• André Hoffmann
• Arman Vartan
• Farida Ismail
• Mostafa El Hosseiny
• Mohamed Sharaf-El-Deen
• Nikhil Kapur
• Paritosh Aggarwal
• Parth M. Saxena
• Oxana Isaeva
• Thomas Lottermann
• Julian Kallenborn
• Nathaniel Egwu
• Eugen Massini
• Roya Parvizi
• Johannes Korz

1) as part of the Heinrich-Heine high school collaboration for gifted students in research

 

CV

• started PhD (2009)
  • supervised by Andreas Dengel
  • main research question: what benefits can (real time) eye tracking provide to the human-text-interaction

• majored in computer science (2008)
  • final grade 1.1 (see here for details on German system)
  • minors in artificial intelligence and psychology

• student researcher at the DFKI (2003 - 2008)
  • text work recognition
  • web cam based eye tracking
  • gesture detection and classification

• freelancing developer and software consultant (2000 - 2008)
• user interface design (handheld devices, web, desktop)
• driver development for railway vehicles (Win32 and Linux)
• creation of various frameworks and toolkits
• GSM-R communication and message middleware
• mobile maintenance interfaces
• wireless security concepts for mobile devices on the track
• modification of binary code, various stack- and buffer related tasks ...
• web development

• furthermore, research stays at
  • University of California, Berkeley (supervised by Dawn Song, 2011)
  • Interactive Systems Laboratories, Karlsruhe (2008)
  • RICOH, Tokyo (2007)

 

Publications (Peer Reviewed)

2012

• Ralf Biedert, Christoph Käding, Andreas Dengel
  Universal Eye-Tracking Based Text Cursor Warping
  Accepted for publication in the Seventh ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research & Applications (ETRA 2012)
• Ralf Biedert, Georg Buscher, Arman Vartan, Andreas Dengel
  Reading and Estimating Gaze on Smart Phones
  Accepted for publication in the Seventh ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research & Applications (ETRA 2012)
• Ralf Biedert, Mostafa El Hosseiny, Georg Buscher, Andreas Dengel
  Towards Robust Gaze-Based Objective Quality Measures for Text
  Accepted for publication in the Seventh ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research & Applications (ETRA 2012)
• Ralf Biedert, Georg Buscher, Jörn Hees, Andreas Dengel
  A Robust Realtime Reading-Skimming Classifier
  Accepted for publication in the Seventh ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research & Applications (ETRA 2012)

2011

• Georg Buscher, Andreas Dengel, Ralf Biedert, Ludger van Elst
  Attentive Documents: Eye Tracking as Implicit Feedback for Information Retrieval and Beyond.
  Accepted for publication in journal ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems (ACM-TiiS), special issue on Eye Gaze in Intelligent Human Machine Interaction
• Jörn Hees, Thomas Roth-Berghofer, Ralf Biedert, Benjamin Adrian, and Andreas Dengel
  BetterRelations: Detailed Evaluation of a Game to Rate Linked Data Triples
  In First International Workshop on Ordering and Reasoning held in conjunction with ISWC'11, 10th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2011)
• Farida Ismail, Ralf Biedert, Andreas Dengel, Georg Buscher
  Emotional text tagging
  In Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Eye Gaze in Intelligent Human Machine Interaction held in conjunction with IUI 2011.
• Mostafa El Hosseiny, Ralf Biedert, Andreas Dengel, Georg Buscher
  The eyePad - Tom Riddle in the 21st century.
  In Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Eye Gaze in Intelligent Human Machine Interaction held in conjunction with IUI 2011.

2010

• Georg Buscher, Ralf Biedert, Daniel Heinesch, Andreas Dengel:
  Eye Tracking Analysis of Preferred Reading Regions on the Screen.
  In CHI '10 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems. Atlanta, USA.
• Georg Buscher, Ralf Biedert:
  Usability testing: affective interfaces.
  In journal "Informatik-Spektrum"
• Manuel Möller, Patrick Ernst, Michael Sintek, Ralf Biedert, Andreas Dengel and Daniel Sonntag:
  Representing the International Classification of Diseases Version 10 in OWL
  In Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development (KEOD), 25 – 28 October 2010, Valencia, Spain.
• Ralf Biedert, Georg Buscher, Sven Schwarz, Manuel Möller, Andreas Dengel, Thomas Lottermann:
  The Text 2.0 Framework - Writing Web-Based Gaze-Controlled Realtime Applications Quickly and Easily
  In proceedings of the International Workshop on Eye Gaze in Intelligent Human Machine Interaction (EGIHMI) held in conjunction with IUI 2010.
• Ralf Biedert, Georg Buscher, Sven Schwarz, Jörn Hees, Andreas Dengel:
  Text 2.0
  In CHI '10 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems. Atlanta, USA.
• Ralf Biedert, Georg Buscher, Andreas Dengel:
  The EyeBook - Using Eye Tracking to Enhance the Reading Experience
  In journal "Informatik-Spektrum"

2008

• Ralf Biedert, Sven Schwarz:
  Designing a Context-Sensitive Dashboard for an Adaptive Knowledge Worker Assistant
  In Fifth International Workshop on Modelling and Reasoning in Context, Delft. Netherlands.

 

Patents

• Verfahren und System zur Datenausgabe (submitted 2009)

 

Professional Activities

• Reviewer for journal TiiS, ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems (2011).
• Reviewer for the International Conference on Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns, CAIP (2009).
• Reviewer for ACM International Conference on Multimedia (2008).

 

Invited Talks / Installations

• Invited talk LEARNTEC "2020 - An Outlook" (19. International Trade Fair and Convention for Vocational Education, Learning and IT, 2011)
• Demo installation Text 2.0 - Augmented Reality. THESEUS Innovation Center Internet of Services (Exhibited at THESEUS demo room 2010-2011 Berlin, Germany)
• 2b.AHEAD Think Tank (Invited Speaker at 9th Congress on Future Technologies - 2020*)
  *The congress was actually held 2010 ;-)
• Invited to VIP program Frankfurt book fair (Frankfurt Book Fair 2010, Germany)
• Invited talk GESIS Mannheim (Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences, 2009)

In addition, I have given over 1000 demos about my work on various big and small events (e.g., CeBIT, ...) since 2009.

 

Projects

A number of (open source) projects I created and I am responsible for. For support, please see the mailing lists on the project pages!

• jCores
  • jQuery for Java ;-)
  • provides many short-cuts to otherwise cumbersome Java operations
  • transparently makes use of all your CPUs

• Text 2.0
  • what if your book really knew where you are gazing at?
  • various videos and prototypes outlining what text & gaze can do

• Processing Easy Eyetracker Plugin (PEEP)
  • made for media and digital artists
  • use eye tracking in Processing to create stunning gaze-responsive demos

• Text 2.0 Framework
  • use eye tracking in your web browser
  • supports handlers like onGazeOver, onFixation, ...
  • enables you to record interaction sessions for later analysis

• Java Simple Plugin Framework
  • open-sourced core of our Text 2.0 framework.

• Context Sensitive Dashboard (230mb video!)
  • finds and manages links, files, folder and persons and notes related to the current context and anticipates future resources by monitoring current resources, provdes a visual backtrack upon the continuation of interrupted tasks
  • available upon request
  • (the video above is from an early version, the final one has some different widgets, see the thesis above. Especially the context switching part is not done on the console anymore, but by a dedicated context provider)
  
  

Media I Created

Selection of some media I created as part or results of my work. Open the videos on youtube for the best experience!

Media about Me & My Work

Selected media reports about my projects:

Emotional Text Tagging

• Emotionen beim Lesen von Texten erfasst (heise.de)

Misc

• Tigerenten Club (Sendung vom 11.6.2011, SWR)
• DFKI Präsentiert sich auf 'Zeitgeist 2010' (Rheinpfalz)
• Was kommt nach Maus und Tastatur? (SWR.de)

Text 2.0

• Tobii Eye Tracking Tech Watches What You Watch (Fox News, 15.12.2011)
• Lesen revisited (iX 10/2010, pp. 88-92)
• 6 Ways Eye Tracking Is Changing the Web (ReadWriteWeb)
• Text 2.0 Uses Eye Tracking to Customize Reader Experience (Eye Tracking Update)
• Snart är musen ett minne blott (idg.se)
• Future of eReading: Following your eyes? (eSchool News)
• Text 2.0 (Spark on CBC Radio One)
• Eye Tracking Interface Look for Killer App (Communications of the ACM)
• Wissenschaftler arbeiten an Text 2.0 (CHIP)
• Eye Tracking Technology May Revolutionize The Written Word (PSFK.com)
• 読者の“目”が制御するeブックリーダーText 2.0, 狂気かそれとも天才の作品か？ (TechCrunch Japan)
• TEXT 2.0 MAAKT TEKST INTERACTIEF (eReaders)
• Text 2.0: Eye-Tracking Tablets See Where You're Looking (The Huffington Post)
• TEXT 2.0 (CeBIT WEBCIETY)
• Text 2.0: Augentracking aktualisiert Text in Realtime (engadget)
• Hardware: Does This Headline Know You're Reading It? (Slashdot)
• Does This Headline Know You’re Reading It? (h+ magazine)
• Eye-Tracking Tablets and the Promise of Text 2.0 (Wired.com)
• “Text 2.0″ eye-tracking reading companion: crazy or crazy awesome? (CrunchGear)
• Das Buch liest mit auf der CeBIT in Hannover (SWR Rheinland-Pfalz aktuell)
• Das intelligente Buch (RPR1)
• Text 2.0: the book that knows it's being read (PC Pro)
• iX CeBIT Special 2010 (iX)
• Text 2.0 im Mittagsmagazin (ARD Mittagsmagazin, more text here)
• Wenn das Auge die Seite umblättert (ZDF HEUTE)
• Text 2.0 - Er weiß, was du liest (pflichtlektüre)
• Der Computer, der Gedanken liest (Die Welt)
• Mitlesender Text - Lesegerät liefert Zusatzinformationen und Töne (Deutschlandfunk)
• Buchmesse-Tagebuch: Der Text schaut zurück, eine Entwicklung aus der Westpfalz (Rheinpfalz)
• Digitales Logbuch: Hermann Hesse 2.0 (Deutschlandfunk)
• Text 2.0 – der Text, der mitdenkt und reagiert (netzlogbuch.de)
• Deutsche entwickeln Text 2.0 (n-tv)
• Wenn der Text den Leser beobachtet (zeit.de)
• Buchmesse: Wenn der Text weiß, dass er gelesen wird (Wissenschaft Aktuell)

The eyeBook (one of my early works when still being a student)

• Diplom mit Dracula (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
• Lesen mit den dazugehörenden Geräuschen (Bayerischer Rundfunk, a radio interview from the CeBIT 2009; unfortunately, the corresponding audio stream appears to have been removed)

 

Awards & Notable Events

• invited to Google Zeitgeist ('Nobel Zeitgeist', 2010)
• winner of the COGAIN Student Competition: Creative Gaze (2007)