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CFP: Special issue on Design for Social Interaction through Physical Play

in Personal and Ubiquitous Computing Journal

Advancements in technology influence several trends in today's society that pose serious threats to social interaction. Increasing number of people interact through media and less in a face-to-face manner. Elderly tend to get lonely when socializing becomes more difficult because of their age. Children spend an increasing amount of time behind their computer playing games on their own and adults also tend to live a less active life. Due to various reasons the number of people with social impairments (autism spectrum disorders) has noticeably grown during the last decades. Another related trend is that people lead less active lifestyles. At the same time, new technologies provide novel entertainment and interaction opportunities.

Paper should explore the opportunities that technology-driven physical play offers for enhancing and stimulating face-to-face social interaction (as opposed to virtual interaction through a computer). This can be beneficial for diverse reasons: For children to counter the trend of playing computer games and watching television on their own, for elderly to socialize more when making new contacts becomes more difficult and for autistic children because they particularly like technological toys. The main goal of the special issue is to share information and experiences among researchers in the area of social interaction through physical play. We invite papers addressing social and physical issues including (but not restricted to) the following fields:

- Social robotics - Design for diverse user groups, such as children and elderly - Social games - Creative toolkits - Exertion interfaces - Pervasive and head-up games - Embodied facilitation - Spatial and tangible interaction

It is expected that the special issue will include some articles extended from papers that were presented at the 2008 Fun and Games workshop on Design for social interaction through physical play (http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/m.m.bekker/WorkshopSPG.htm), but other original articles are also welcome.

Complete articles should be submitted by the deadline of 15th February, 2009. Papers will be subject to a full review process with notification of acceptance by 30th March, 2009. Deadline for the submission of final papers is 30th April 2009.

Please check the journal's website for information about the word template. http://www.springer.com/computer/user+interfaces/journal/779?detailsPage=des....

Paper length should be between 6000 and 8000 words. Editors: Tilde Bekker, Janienke Sturm and Emilia Barakova Eindhoven University of Technology, Department of Industrial Design Email: m.m.bekker@tue.nlmailto:m.m.bekker@tue.nl, j.sturm@tue.nlmailto:j.sturm@tue.nl, e.i.barakova@tue.nlmailto:e.i.barakova@tue.nl

Emilia I. Barakova, Ph.D. Book review editor, JIN, Faculty of ID, Eindhoven University of Technology P.O.Box 513 5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlands

and

Lab. for Dynamics of Emergent Intelligence RIKEN Brain Science Institute (BSI) 2-1, Hirosawa, Wako-shi, Saitama, 351-0198 Japan

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