AmbientROOM consists of a display that illustrates the activity of a remote partner by using a small, motorized physical icon. The phicon can be grasped by the user and pointed at the ceiling of the room. This action transfers the vibration to the motion of a solenoid in a shallow water tank. A lamp reflecting off of the water then produces rippling shadows on the ceiling. Another display that has electric field sensors are used to measure the amount of human movement in an atrium. This activity is represented by a pattern of illuminated patches projected onto an inner wall of the ambientROOM. A variant of AmbientROOM is the application Ghostly Presence. Varying levels of activity is expressed in the room by combinations of ambient light, sound, airflow, and water movement.
Phicons in ambient ROOM
the ambient display (light frflection from water onto ceiling)
Reference: Ishii, H., Wisneski, C., Brave, S., et al. 1998. ambientROOM. In Conference Summary on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’98). ACM Press, 173–174.
http://www.sigchi.org/chi97/proceedings/paper/hi.htm
