Featured in Five is a monthly section where we pose five questions to a Computing Reviews featured reviewer. Here are the responses from our June featured reviewer, Symeon (Simos) Retalis.
Q: What is the most important thing that's happened in computing in the past 10 years?
A: With the rise of social web, users have become co-producers and co-distributors of content rather than passive information consumers. Social applications allow users to interact with each other synchronously or asynchronously, to create and share new forms of audiovisual content (sometimes “homemade”) as well as to label and recommend existing forms of information. Spontaneous self-expression is so easy nowadays. Before booking a hotel or dining at a restaurant, one can read reviews and make a better-informed decision. Of course, with the expansion of social media, it is important to focus on students’ media and information literacy education about the safe use of social media, the disciplines of media analysis, media (co)production and sharing, as well as the opportunities for taking part in civil issues through social media campaigns.
Q: By the end of your career, where do you think computer science will have taken us? What are you working on that might contribute to that?
A: With high-level speculation, I feel that there is a bright future for virtual and augmented reality (V&AR). New pieces of innovative V&AR technology are coming that will provide astonishing realism, detail and immersion thus changing the way we do things. I sincerely hope that applications that will offer full immersion will become effective and efficient in healthcare, especially for children with disorders, which is an area about which I am highly sensitive.
Currently, I am not doing any significant R&D in this field. Nevertheless, I feel that since I have been working intensively on embodied cognition and learning tools for the benefit of children with learning disabilities, I believe that in few years I will make a transition towards the use of V&AR technology thus trying to help children improve their skills to reach their full potential.
Q: Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?
A: Due to my Greek roots and classical studies, my favorite figure is Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, one of the greatest intellectual figures whose concepts influenced Western thinking. Also, was the founder of formal logic. I often use in my courses on interaction design one of his famous quotes: “The whole is something besides the parts.”
Q: If you weren't working in the computer science field, what would you be doing instead?
A: I would have become a speech-language pathologist who could deal with speech, language, social communication and cognitive-communication disorders mainly in children. I would have liked to work in a clinical and educational setting, e.g. a children’s hospital, as part of a collaborative, interdisciplinary team, that could include pathologists, special educators, physicians, physical and occupational therapists, etc.
Q: What is your favorite type of music?
A: I like lounge easy listening music. I do not prefer pure instrumental pieces but rather smooth jazz.
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Click here to learn more about him, and here to read one of his recent reviews.