Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research Pittsburgh have devised a motion tracking technology that could eliminate much of the annoying lag that occurs in existing video game systems that use motion tracking, while also being extremely precise and highly affordable.

Called Lumitrack, the technology has two components — projectors and sensors. A structured pattern, which looks something like a very large barcode, is projected over the area to be tracked. Sensor units, either near the projector or on the person or object being tracked, can then quickly and precisely locate movements anywhere in that area.

“What Lumitrack brings to the table is, first, low latency,” said Robert Xiao, a Ph.D. student in Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII). “Motion tracking has added a compelling dimension to popular game systems, but there’s always a lag between the player’s movements and the movements of the avatar in the game. Lumitrack is substantially faster than these consumer systems, with near real-time response.”

Brad A. Myers, professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, will be honored for the second year in a row as the author of a Most Influential Paper at the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, (VL/HCC). He is the first person to win the award twice since it was established in 2008.

Myers and his co-authors — former students Andrew Ko, the first author, is now an assistant professor at the University of Washington, and Htet Htet Aung, now a principal user experience designer at Harris Healthcare Solutions in the Washington, D.C., area — will receive the Most Influential Paper award at VL/HCC 2013, Sept. 15–19 in San Jose, Calif. The symposium is the premier international forum for research on how computation can be made easier to express, manipulate, and understand.

A new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project and Carnegie Mellon University finds that most Internet users would like to be anonymous online, but many think it is not possible to be completely anonymous online. Some of the key findings:

-86% of Internet users have taken steps online to remove or mask their digital footprints—ranging from clearing cookies to encrypting their email.

-55% of Internet users have taken steps to avoid observation by specific people, organizations, or the government.

The representative survey of 792 Internet users also finds that notable numbers of Internet users say they have experienced problems because others stole their personal information or otherwise took advantage of their visibility online. Specifically:

-21% of Internet users have had an email or social networking account compromised or taken over by someone else without permission.

-12% have been stalked or harassed online.

-10% have had important personal information stolen such as their Social Security Number, credit card, or bank account information.

-6% have been the victim of an online scam and lost money.

-6% have had their reputation damaged because of something that happened online.

-4% have been led into physical danger because of something that happened online.

Jeff Rzeszotarski, a Ph.D. student in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, is among 12 students of U.S. universities who are recipients of 2013 Microsoft Research Ph.D. Fellowships.

Rzeszotarski studies how crowds of people generate content online and how to improve the content that they create. By looking at the behavior of people as they produce content, his research identifies places where people may be going wrong, so interventions can be developed to help them make better contributions.

The two-year fellowship covers all tuition and fees for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 academic years and includes a travel allowance, the offer of a paid internship, and a $28,000 annual stipend.