Living Memory Box is a system composed of three pieces: a central storage/display device (‘the box’), one or more portable personal recording device(s) and the interface & network. The Living Memory Box appliance can be seen as both an archival and narration device, allowing families to bring together artefacts and then tell stories about those particular items. The box acts as a gateway between the physical and electronic worlds, with artefacts as transitional objects, placed in the box only for the moment of recording. The space within the box creates a transition between the concept of storing physical artefacts and storing within the digital realm.
The Living Memory Box has at least one dedicated external, removable, capture device that is synchronized to the box for the recording of stills, video and audio. The box also has an internal imaging device on the back of the screen that will create an image of physical objects placed inside the box.
The interface is a fluid space, allowing any activity to be completed at any time. The transparency of the boundary of the physical and virtual domains is emphasised through the use of computing that leverages the parent’s ‘natural’ interactions. Natural language will be the most efficient and comfortable for a wide variety of users. All audio input will be translated into text for indexing and retrieval within the system.
Source: Stevens, M. M., Abowd, G. D., Truong K. N., Vollmer F. 2003. Getting into the Living Memory Box: Family archieves & holistic design. In Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Vol. &, Issue 3-4, July 2003. 210-216
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