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Timothy Sohn

Senior Research Scientist
Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto

Tim is a senior research scientist at Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto on the IDEA team. He is currently focused on building ubiquitous computing systems that help create a better mobile experience for users. Tim has been working in the mobile space since 2003. During his graduate school career he helped create Place Lab, one of the first GSM-based positioning systems. He completed his B.S. at the University of California, Berkeley in EECS and his M.S. and Ph.D in Computer Science at the University of California, San Diego. Contact Tim at tim dot sohn at nokia dot com.

 

Please see my website for more information.

Professional Activities

Program Committee

  • Ubicomp 2010
  • MobiCASE 2009
  • HotMobile 2009
  • LOCA 2007


Organizing Committee

  • Posters Co-Chair, Ubicomp 2011
  • Doctoral Consortium Chair, HotMobile 2010
  • Publications Co-Chair, Ubicomp 2008
  • Publicity Co-Chair, Ubicomp 2006

Research Projects

Myngle

Lenses

Other Information

Press:

MIT Technology Review (11/24/2010): Out of Many, One In-box

 San Jose Mercury News (4/27/2008): What's the next big thing for the wireless industry?

Publications

  • Dearman, D., Sohn, T., Truong, K.N. Opportunities Exist: Supporting the Development of Spatial Knowledge with Continuous Place Discovery for Activities. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2011), Vancouver, Canada, 2011. (to appear)
  • Bales, E., Sohn, T., Setlur, V. Planning, Apps, and the High-end Smartphone: Exploring the landscape of modern cross-device reaccess. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Pervasive Computing, San Francisco, USA, 2011. (to appear)
  • Sohn, T., Battestini, A., Horii, H., Bales, E., Setlur, V., Mori, K. Supporting Unplanned Activities Through Cross-Device Interaction. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutomotiveUI), Pittsburgh, PA, 2010, pp. 146-147. (pdf)
  • Truong, K.N., Kientz, J., Sohn, T., Rosenzweig, A.C., Fonville, A., Smith, T. TCBI: The Design and Evaluation of a Task-Centered Battery Interface. In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing(Ubicomp), Copenhagen, Denmark, 2010, pp. 341-350. (pdf)
  • Sohn, T., Setlur, V., Mori, K., Kaye, J., Horii, H., Battestini, A., Ballagas, R., Paretti, C., Spasojevic, M. Addressing Mobile Information Overload in the Universal Inbox through Lenses. In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI), Lisbon, Portugal, 2010, pp. 361-364. (pdf)
  • Battestini, A., Setlur, V., Sohn, T. A Large Scale Study of Text Messaging Use. In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI), Lisbon, Portugal, 2010, pp. 229-238. (pdf)
  • Sohn, T., Mori, K., Setlur, V. Enabling cross-device interaction with web history. In Extended Abstracts of CHI 2010, pp. 3883-3888. (pdf)
  • Setlur, V., Battestini, A., Sohn, T., Horii, H. Using Gestures on Mobile Phones to Create SMS Comics, International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI), 2010. (pdf)
  • Sohn, T., Ballagas, R., Takayama, L. At your service: using butlers as a model to overcome the mobile attention deficit. CHI Extended Abstracts 2009: 4219-4224. (pdf)
  • Sohn, T., Takayama, L., Eckles, D., Ballagas, R. Auditory priming for upcoming events. CHI Extended Abstracts 2009: 4225-4230. (pdf)
  • Li, K.A., Sohn, T., Huang, S., Griswold, W.G. PeopleTones: A System for Delivering Buddy Proximity Cues on Mobile Phones. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services (Mobisys). Breckenridge, Colorado, 2008. (pdf)
  • Sohn, T., Li, K.A., Hollan, J., Griswold, W.G. A Diary Study of Mobile Information Needs. In Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Conference on Human Factors in Computing (CHI). Florence, Italy, 2008. (pdf)
  • Tsai, C.C., Lee, G., Raab, F, Norman, G.J., Sohn, T., Griswold, W.G., Patrick, K. Usability and Feasibility of PmEB: A Mobile Phone Application for Monitoring Real Time Caloric Balance. In Proceedings International Conference Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare. Innsbruck, Austria, 2006. (pdf)
  • Sohn, T., Varshavsky, A., LaMarca, A., Chen, M.Y., Choudhury, T., Smith, I., Consolvo, S., Hightower, J., Griswold, W.G., de Lara, E. Mobility Detection Using Everyday GSM Traces. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp). Irvine, California, pp. 212-224, 2006. (pdf)
  • Chen, M.Y., Sohn, T., Chmelev, D., Haehnel, D., Hightower, J., Hughes, J., LaMarca, A., Potter, F., Smith, I., Varshavsky, A.  Practical Metropolitan-Scale Positioning for GSM Phones. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp). Irvine, California, 2006. (pdf)
  • Sohn, T., Griswold, W.G., Scott, J., LaMarca, A., Chawathe, Y., Smith, I., Chen, M.Y. Experiences with Place Lab: an Open Source Toolkit for Location-Aware Computing. In Proceedings of ICSE 2006, Experience Track. (pdf)
  • Dey, A.K., Sohn, T., Streng, S., Kodama, J. iCAP: Interactive Prototyping of Context-Aware Applications. In Proceedings of Fourth International Conference on Pervasive Computing, Dublin, Ireland, 2006. (pdf)
  • Varshavsky, A., Chen, M., de Lara, E., Froehlich, J., Haehnal, D., Hightower, J., LaMarca, A., Potter, F., Sohn, T., Tang, K., Smith, I.  Are GSM phones THE solution for Localization? In Proceedings of WMCSA 2006. (pdf)
  • Sohn, T., Li, K.A., Lee, G., Smith, I., Scott, J., Griswold, W.G.  Place-Its: A Study of Location-Based Reminders on Mobile Phones. In Proceedings of Seventh International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp 2005). Tokyo, Japan, pp. 232-250 2005. (pdf)
  • Iachello, G., Smith, I., Consolvo, S., Abowd, G.D., Hughes, J., Howard, J., Potter, F., Scott, J., Sohn, T., Hightower, J., LaMarca, A.  Control, Deception, and Communication: Evaluating the Deployment of a Location-Enhanced Messaging Service. In Proceedings of Seventh International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp). Tokyo, Japan, pp. 213-231 2005. (pdf)
  • Smith, I., Consolvo, S., LaMarca, A., Hightower, J., Scott, J., Sohn, T., Hughes, J., Iachello, G., Abowd, G.D. Social Disclosure of Place: From Location Technology to Communication Practice. In Proceedings of Third International Conference on Pervasive Computing (Pervasive). Munich, Germany, pp. 134-151 2005. (pdf)
  • LaMarca, A., Chawathe, Y., Consolvo, S., Hightower, J., Smith, I., Scott, J., Sohn, T., Howard, J., Hughes, J., Potter, F., Tabert, J., Powledg, P., Boriello, G., Schilit, B. Place Lab: Device Positioning Using Radio Beacons in the Wild. In Proceedings of Third International Conference on Pervasive Computing (Pervasive). Munich, Germany, pp. 116-133 2005. (pdf)
  • Waterson, S.J., Hong, J.I., Sohn, T., Heer, J., Matthews, T., Landay, J.A. What Did They Do? Understanding Clickstreams with the Webquilt Visualization System. In the Proceedings of Advanced Visual Interfaces: AVI 2002. Trento, Italy. pp. 94-102, 2002. (pdf)