Master Student Position in Machine Learning for Multitouch Typing

We offer a full-time master thesis worker position, starting right away, with great flexibility in focus. The general topic is Mobile Interaction with the core area Text Entry. There is opportunity to combine this with a paid research assistant job. The project is carried out in HIIT, a collaboration between Aalto University and the University of Helsinki. We can provide working space and equipment in the new Open Innovation House (OIH) building in Otaniemi.

Description
Backside interaction is at the doorstep to enhance mobile computing by easing problems like occluded screens, and inefficient and unergonomic interaction. Text entry, at the same time, is still one of the most aggravating bottlenecks in mobile HCI. Our group has developed a mobile text entry method that is very efficient for touch-typists.

You will deal with "personalized keyboards" on mobile devices, and improve this exciting and already successful technique. Certain problems emerge through the mobile use cases, like users shifting postures while they type and laying aside the device between typing sessions. On-line (i.e. during usage) machine learning is a suitable means to tackle these problems, but must be carefully explored and sensibly integrated into a comprehensive personalization approach.

Based on your interests and the project's needs, you will work at the mobile code base (currently Android JAVA), think up variations of our method or code demos or games for the method, or an Android IME. If you are interested in hardware (e.g. Arduino), you can get your hands wet in prototyping. Our project covers some nice and "en vogue" topics. Especially mobile text entry is highly regarded at top conferences like SIGCHI. We will support publishing ambitions, but we do not require them. There is opportunity to combine this with a paid research assistant job.

Requirements
You are a creative problem solver who knows machine learning and is interested in HCI. You speak English, and you can start right away or very soon as a full-time team member. As a bonus, you could be interested or experienced in one or more of the following: linguistics, statistics, user studies, mobile gaming frameworks (e.g. Unity), networking (e.g. UDP, OSS).

If this is not a direct hit for you, be sure to check out our other master thesis position: (Co-)Developing and Evaluating an Interaction Scheme for Mobile Devices.

How to Apply
If you are interested or have questions, please write an e-mail (in English) to Oliver Schoenleben (oliver.schoenleben@hiit.fi), so that we can arrange a meeting.

The application deadline is the 28.02.2013