Performance Apron & Talking Bottle (Chai et al., 2017)

Performance Apron and Talking Bottle are two designed for a joint cooking experience over distance. The Talking Bottle is connected to internet and works as a information display. The Performance Apron is its remote control. The artifacts allows families in different locations to have communication (exchanging messages) during the cooking process. The Talking Bottle has different layers of light that indicate whether a voice message is recording, recorded or received. To send, to play a message or to inform the remote partner about the local situation, users operate the buttons on the apron.


Reference: M.Z. Chai, A. Soro, P. Roe & M. Brereton. 2017. In CHI EA 2017 Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

The Picture Box (Lenz et al. 2016)

The Picture Box is designed for iconic communication between children and career parents. They first made nine sketches on a card which will become the "vocabulary" in their communication. The child has this card in the Picture Box at home and the parent has a picture copy in their smart phone. When the child can push the button on the box to send a signal of missing to the parent. The parent enters an iconic message on her/his smart phone with their iconic vocabulary.




Reference: Eva Lenz, Marc Hassenzahl, Wasili Adamow, Patrick Beedgen, Kirstin Kohler, Thies Schneider. 2016. Four Stories About Feeling Close Over A Distance. In Proceedings of the TEI '16: Tenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction. 494-499.
https://vimeo.com/148892864

Le Fil (Toutain & Le Huérou, 2015)

Le Fil allows communication partners to create a virtual "chatting room." Users can have multiple activities in the room, such as text messaging, drawing and sharing photos and videos. The conversations as well as the shared material stay always available in this chatting room and any user in this room has the access to edit these material. The room is perminant and users can enter and leave this room or use the material any time they want. The room can also be "decorated" by its users so that the room become "theirs."


Reference: F. Toutain & E. Le Huérou, 2015. A case-study in all-web rich interpersonal communication services. In Proceedings of AWeS '15 the 1st Workshop on All-Web Real-Time Systems.

FireFlies (Bakker et al. 2015)

FireFlies is a system designed for school teacher and children's class interaction. The system deals with background information awareness (peripheral interaction) in the class. The lamp device is placed on each child's class desk and the teacher has a central remote control that can change the color of the children's lamp. The meaning of the lamp color is defined by mutual agreement between the teacher and the children. In the class, the teacher can send color information to specific child or all children in the class in a more smooth way without arousing the children's high degree attention.


Resource: Saskia Bakker, Elise van den Hoven and Berry Eggen. 2015. Evaluating Peripheral Interaction Design. Human-Computer Interaction.

KIZUNA (Nawahdah et al 2013)

"For the people who are difficult to have a meal together with their families or close partners because of the time-zone difference or the life-rhythm difference, KIZUNA design is proposed that provides time-shifted co-dining experience. The design includes the dining-speed synchrony by means of dining status recognition and comparison between in the video and on the table. Experimental study was conducted and found that the design improved communication and increased social presence."

Reference: Nawahdah M., Inoue T. 2013 Virtually Dining Together in Time-Shifted Environment: KIZUNA Design. In CSCW '13.
http://inolab.slis.tsukuba.ac.jp/research/team/KIZUNA.php?lang=en

Sandy (by An 2013)

Sandy is a message system including a message board and a mobile device. The system is designed for routine communication of couples in long-distance relationships. They can use the system to send two kinds of messages: verbal text and non-verbal signals. Couples can tap on the blue edge of the mobile device to send vibration signals to their remote partner.

Resource: Chen An. 2013. Design for Long Distance Relationships. Master Thesis.

Ishin-Den-Shin (DisneyResearch, 2013)

 

 

 

The installation consists of a microphone that can record sounds and transmit them through touch. Once recorded, the sound is transformed in an inaudible signal. This signal is transmitted to a person’s body when holding the microphone. The signal can be transmitted by physical contact, from body to body. The recorded sound becomes audible only when touching someones ear. The sound can be heard only by the specific ear which is touched, as if the finger would be whispering the recorded sounds. Secrets, messages and whispers can then be transmitted from person to person in physical contact with each others.

Source:
Disney Research http://www.disneyresearch.com/project/ishin-den-shin/  (2013.11.12)
Creative Appications Network http://www.creativeapplications.net/sound/ishin-denshin-physicality-and-intimacy-through-sound-and-touch/ (2013.11.12)

http://www.ivanpoupyrev.com/projects/ishindenshin.php

The Whisper Pillow (by Chien et al, 2013)

The Whisper Pillow allows couples to leave messages for each other. It is designed for couples living together or at least close by, but not seeing each other due to mismatches in daily routines (e.g., because of shift work). The pillow is, thus, more about asynchronous messaging than messaging over a distance. The pillow features a message pocket. If the pocket is empty and opened by a user, a voice recording starts. It records a messages whispered into the pocket. Simultaneously, the end of the pillow inflates and creates an impression of being "filled" with the message. The recording ends with closing the pocket. If a full pocket is opened, the message is played back, deleted, and the pillow deflates. To ensure that user do not play back their own messages, the pillow features a color-coded pocket on each side of the pillow (although both pockets activate the same mechanism). Thus, after leaving a message, the user is asked to turn the pillow to the partner's side to signify that a new message is waiting.

Source: Chien, W., Diefenbach, S., Hassenzahl, M. 2013. The whisper pillow: a study of technology-mediated emotional expression in close relationships. In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces (DPPI '13), 51-59.

Family Circles (by Schatorjé et al. 2013)

Family Circles, is a flexible and portable voice messagin solution that enables people to record messages and leave them at any desirable place in the home. Multiple, portable messaging tokens are able to store and play a single voice message and communicate secondary information utilising various properties of the light that is integrated in the tokens. Tokens containing a message that is already properly received, can be collected and stored together at a docking station.
The light in the tokens can vary in colour and brightness. The colour of the light can be altered at the docking station, in order to communicate meta-information about the sender. When someone encounters a messaging token, the stored message can be played by pushing down on the top of the token.

Reference: Schatorjé R., Markopoulos, P., Intra-Family Messaging with Family Circles. 2013. In Neustaedter et al. (eds.) Connecting Families. Springer-Verlag 2013
http://www.ruudschatorje.nl/portfolio_project_fc.html

TapTap (by Woodenshark et al., 2013)

 

TapTap is a design project created by Woodenshark et al. on KickStarter. TapTap has a form of wristband and transfer touch between two people. When touching its surface, the remote device vibrates synchronously. It can also be used as detector for hand's movement to create secret joint action for remote couples.

Source: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/woodenshark/taptap-wristband-a-new-way-to-say-i-love-you  (2013/10/25)
http://www.taptap.me/ (2014/05/05)

Knock-Knock (Rasmussen et al 2012)

"Initially designed for open-spaces communications, the system is created of two devices wirelessly connected. Two persons can communicate to each other by knocking on the devices. Their knocks on a device are transformed in form changing movements and are transmitted to the other device. "

Reference:
Rasmussen, M. K. et al 2012 I'll Knock You When I'm Ready... Reflecting on Media Richness Beyond Bandwidth and Imitation. In DIS '12
http://cargocollective.com/ioanao/Knock-Knock

SleepyWhispers (by Gooch et al 2012)

SleepyWhispers is a way of sending recorded sound messages to your partner. The system consists of a pillow and a photo frame. Messages are listened to through a
speaker, hidden inside the pillow. Messages are played when the listener presses the button embedded into the photo frame. The intended use case is that people record and send messages during the day to be listened to just before their partner goes to sleep.
However, there is no technical barrier in the implementation preventing participants from developing their own usage pattern.

Reference: Gooch, D., Watts, L. 2012 sleepyWhispers: sharing goodnights within distant relationships. In UIST Adjunct Proceedings '12 Adjunct proceedings of the 25th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology Pages 61-62.
http://danielgooch.synology.me/lddr.html

Anchor (Farny et al 2012)

Anchor is a message application that focus on the sailors' working situation and their long-distance relationships. The application wurde be using before sailors' employments. The message and media data are stored and locked in the device. During the sailors' employments, in which internet connection is not always available, Anchor synthesizes "new" messages from the locked storage to imitate the synchronous communication. Users' real messages and media data are synchronized when the internet is available (in the haven).

Reference: Farny et al. 2012 Anchor: Connecting Sailors to Home. In CHI 2012 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
http://www.jfarny.com/anchor.php

Food Media | Food Teleportation (Wei et al 2011)

"The Food Teleportation system enables users to share their emotions and feelings by designing, and teleporting different food messages globally through the proposed network. Furthermore, the communication architecture is designed as an interoperable platform to attach any system which uses food as the medium by designing standardized protocol. The food messages can either be designed layer by layer to convey a story to the recipient or the properties of designed food message like taste, facilitate recipients to experience the meaning by consuming it. Thus this research may further fertilize several domains such as digital storytelling, communication, as well as social networking."


Reference: Jun Wei, Roshan Lalintha Peiris, Jeffrey Tzu Kwan Valino Koh et al. (2011) Food Media: exploring interactive entertainment over telepresent dinner
26:1--26:8. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology.
http://137.132.145.178/page/food-media

Callo Robot (Yim et al 2011)

Callo Robot on Youtube:
#1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEPLJPRARY8
#2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCkm2LGrULY
#3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h05f6nWmo8
#4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuU_HB4_Uck

Callo is a telepresence robot combined with mobile phone. It makes user defined dancing motion when receiving a phone call, or other expressive facial animation and body motion to express emoticons in a text message. It can also recognize caller's hands motion and represent it to the remote receiver.

Reference:
Yim, J., Shaw, C. D. 2011 Design Considerations of Expressive Bidirectional Telepresence Robots. In CHI 2011
http://www.gizmag.com/cellphone-robots-relay-users-movements/15078/

Touch Trace Mirror (by Schmeer et al 2011)

"Touch Trace Mirror" is a mirror which enables leaving a message on a steamy bethroom mirror over a distance. It is a set of two bethroom mirrors, one to be placed in each partners apartment. Writing a message on one mirror will result in the message being sent to the partners mirror, where a light will emerge on the mirrors surface. If the partner places a finger on the light, it will move, letting the partner trace the message that his or her loved one wrote.

Reference: Schmeer, J., Baffi, T. 2011. Touch Trace Mirrir: Asynchronous, Collaborative Messaging as a Concept for Creating a Relatedness Experience. In TEI'11

VideoPal (by Du et al & Microsoft Research 2011)

 

VideoPal is a novel video based asynchronous communication system. Like Pen Pal, VideoPal is designed for children using multi-media video to extend their international friendships.

Reference: Du, H. et al. 2011. VideoPal: An Asynchronous Video Based Communication System to Connect Children from US and Greece. In CSCW 2011.
Inkpen, K., Du, H., Roseway, A., Hoff, A., Johns, P. 2012. Video Kids: Augmenting Close Friendships with Asynchronous Video Conversations in VideoPal.
http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=141717

Magic Sock Drawer (by Gooch and Watts 2011)

The Magic Sock Drawer allws close friends to send drawn or typed digital notes one another which are then automatically printed at the other end. The note can then be hidden to create a pleasant surprise for the author’s partner when the note is discovered. The MSD consists of two devices where each device is made up of a tablet PC and a mini printer. Installed on each PC is some custom software which allows participants to create either free hand, typed or combined notes. The free-form interface allows notes to be created using the tablet-pen meaning that people can write and draw whatever they like on the note. The note will be printed out on credit-card sized glossy paper which are also stickers.

Reference: Gooch, D., Watts, L. 2011. The Magic Sock Drawer Project. In CHI 2011
http://danielgooch.synology.me/lddr.html

Lover's Box (by Thieme et al, 2011)

 

Lover's box is a digital artefact designed to engage romantic couples in reflections on their relationship. It enables couples to record romantic messages (video message) for each other. Each Lover's Box contains two halves, connect by brass hinges, that open like a story book to reveal an integrated RFID reader and display screen hidden inside the box. This box can only be opened with an RFID tagged key. Once unlocked, the RFID tag triggers a pre-recorded video message stored thin the box.

 

Source: Thieme, A., Wallace, J., Thomas, J., Chen, K. L., Krämer, N., Olivier, P. 2011 Lover's box: Designing for reflection within romantic relationships. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Volume 69 Issue 5, Academic Press, 283-297

http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/anja.thieme/lovers.html

CU-Later (Tsujita et al 2010)

"CU-Later is a system which allows synchronizing activities across time zones by displaying recorded video of a remote activity after a time shift. As one example of its use, the system connects two remote dining tables and lets users see and hear each other having dinner despite actually having done so at different times. We discuss the design of this system and a preliminary field test of time-shifted video."

Reference:
Hitomi Tsujita, Svetlana Yarosh, Gregory D. Abowd, CU-Later: A Communication System Considering Time Difference, In Proceedings of the 12th ACM international Conference Adjunct Papers on Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp2010), pp.435–436, Copenhagen, Denmark, September 26 – 29, 2010.
http://tsujita.org/projects/cu-later/