ShoddyPop (by Lindley et al, 2009)

ShoddyPop is an email server that is rather unreliable. Ease of sending is preserved, and senders can be sure that their message will be delivered, but the delivery time is subject to variation. This means that recipients and senders cannot rely on the time of delivery to drive the tempo of a response, allowing the recipient to take their time before replying, or even to craft their reply over a number of days.

Source: Lindley, S. E., Harper, R., and Sellen, A. 2009. Desiring to be in touch in a changing communications landscape. In Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’09). ACM Press, 1693–1702.

PersonCards (by Lindley et al, 2009)

PersonCards allows for lightweight information such as picture messages to be sent to a frame and displayed within another’s home. Content can be sent to a PersonCard from any channel (e.g., SMS, MMS, Twitter). Recipients can then scribble on the screen, so as to send back handwritten messages. The device could even incorporate a small camera, so that pictures could be taken and delivered instantly to the sender without the need to incorporate other technologies.

Source: Lindley, S. E., Harper, R., and Sellen, A. 2009. Desiring to be in touch in a changing communications landscape. In Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’09). ACM Press, 1693–1702.

Globetoddler (by Yarosh et al, 2009)

The Blobetoddler is a communication system for child and travelling parents. On the child's end, a sensor-equipped doll, in combination with a virtual interface , functions as the main user interface — a “ portal ” that leads straight to the parent. The traveling parent can use his or her mobile phone to record audio comments, capture photos and video, and send them to the child. The next time the child plays with the doll, he or she
is notified of the new content and is encouraged by the system to take a look at it on a nearby computer or TV screen. If the child chooses to do so, the parent is discretely notifi ed of the activity and is able to see the content the child is currently looking at. This approach enables the parent to (1) if available, join in to chat with the child and comment on the content in real time (synchronous interaction), (2) if busy, leave a comment later (asynchronous communication), and (3) dynamically learn what the child is interested in and possibly adapt future interactions to those interests.

Source: Yarosh, S., Davis, H., Modlitba, P., Skov, M. Vetere, F. Mobile Technologis for Parent/Child Relationships. In Mobile Technology for Children, Druin, A. edt. 2009, pp. 285-306

Tangible MissU & Virtual MissU (by Lottridge et al, 2009)

Tangible MissU (Mini interactive shared sound Unit) consists of a tangible ambient sound device and a shared music playlist. Users can listen to the current song, add songs to the playlist, reorder songs in the playlist, and browse the playlist history.

Additionally, they can listen to the background sounds of the remote partner’s environment. Each partner has one MissU device in their home, to share sounds in a certain area such as the bedroom.

Each partner is represented by a color. On one partner’s device moving the green slider controls the volume of his outgoing sounds and moving the blue slider controls the other partner’s incoming sounds. One partner’s own ambient sounds are captured via a microphone and shown as the luminosity of a green LED. Both partners can move the green slider to the edge of the device to restrict his outgoing sounds, thus dimming the LED. Moving it towards the center maximizes the outgoing signal. If one partner needs quiet, he can lower sounds from the remote partner’s environment by moving the blue slider to the edge of MissU. However, the blue LED still shows the absolute volume of the sounds in the other partner’s environment.

Virtual MissU is a flash application that streams ambient sounds and music from a joint music playlist. Partners navigate to the MissU URLs using a regular browser. Each partner’s sounds are represented by a colored sphere, which can be manipulated directly in the same way as the tangible sliders. Virtual MissU was designed for the home. Another variant Simulated MissU is designed for mobile situations.

Source: Lottridge, D., Masson, N., and Mackay, W. 2009. Sharing empty moments. In Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’09). ACM Press, 2329–2338.

Emotional Environments (by Li et al, 2009)

The concept of a coupled ambient environment network can sense people’s physical movement in space and interpret their movement as emotions based on Faberg’s emotion-movement framework. The perceived emotion is then used as communication input from the sender’s environment to that of his/her loved one by affecting the receiver’s physical environment through change of lighting, colors, music, and projected images.

Source: Li, M. and Jianting, H. 2009. Ambient environments for emotional physical communication. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference NZ Chapter of the ACM’s Special Interest Group on Human-Computer Interaction (CHINZ’09). ACM Press, 81–84.

FriendSense (by Sundström et al 2009)

 

FriendSense is a technic probe. It is a communication tool that allows for physical and emotional closeness between friends. Its esign focus on friends who know each other well and therefore are acquainted with each other's ways of expressing themselves. To them, small nuances in expressions may reveal important underlying messages about their friends' emotional status, needs or problems. Even when they have not met for a while, such a group of friends will try to maintain the strong ties between them through spreading information and tokens of friendship in the circle of friends.

Reference: Sundström, P., Jaensson, T., Höök, K., Pommeranz, A. 2009 Probing the Potential of Non-Verbal Group Communication. In GROUP'09.
http://friendsense.sics.se/

Epigraph (by Harper 2009)

An Epigraph is a multiuser social network site, which displays the status updates and content of an Epigraph group. Each member of a group has their own space on the site, like a tile on a wall, and this shows their content. Content is created by sending messages to the Epigraph address. Messages can be sent via any channel - email, MMS, SMS or voice.

Reference:
Lindley, S. E., Harper, R., Sellen, A. 2009. Desiring to be in Touch in a Changing Communications Landscape: Attitudes of Older Adults. In CHI'09
http://plei-plei.info/epigraph/

ambiPhone (by Philips 2009)

 

The ambiPhone is an ambient distributed telephony system for the home that enhances the social experience of phone conversations. Its solution proposed consisted of a set of ambient telephony (ambiPhone) table-top units distributed in a household. While a user would move around the home, the call would follow him, jumping from one unit to another. Each unit was able to set, capture and render the call, as well as render the contact’s representation. This representation was made by means of a colored light aura in the call rendering unit. Ideally, the light would glow in different patterns according to immediacy and intimacy behaviors like turn-taking, mood, or distance from the unit.

The use of an abstract visual representation enhances the feeling of being together, creating engagement and emotional response, affording a more affective mediated communication and further eliciting the feeling of a visit, without creating obligations or putting a big cognitive load on users.

 

Reference: Emparanza, J. P. et al. Ambient Telephony: Designing a Communication System for Enhancing Social Presence in Home Mediated Communication. 2009.

http://www.jorgeperegrin.com/?projects=ambiphone