EnhancedTouchX (Hachisu, Bourreau, & Suzuki, 2019)

EnhancedTouchX is a couple of bracelet devices that can detect interpersonal touch and identify the types of touch in four categories, no touch, handshake, four fingers, and one finger tip, and with the attribution of active or passive touch. The device is implicated in different ways. EnhancedTouchLog is a documentation application recording the user's hand touching events. EnhancedTouchGo is a game with augmented reality displayed on smartphone. One player touches the hand of another player to trigger event in the game. EnhancedTouchPlay is a setting in which the bracelets vibrate differently according to two wearers' hand touching types. EnhancedTouchCare is an application of the device for patients and their care-givers. The device can then record the social interactivity between the patients and the care-givers.

EnhancedTouchGo

EnhancedTouchPlay

Reference: Hachisu, T., Bourreau, B., & Suzuki, K. (2019) EnhancedTouchX: Smart bracelets for augmenting interpersonal touch interactions. Proceedings of CHI 2019.

SwitchU (Chien et al. 2017)

SwitchU is designed for couples in long-distance relationships. The device is a pair of robot arms. One guides the arm to operate a home appliance once and the arm will be able to repeat the task. When each one of the couple have set up their SwitchU, the device will always be activated synchronously - although different tasks are assigned. For example, couples may both set up SwitchU for operating water cattle. When one cooks water for her-/himself, she/he also activates the remote robot arm to cook water for the partner.

Reference: W.-C. Chien & M. Hassenzahl. 2017. Technology-Mediated Relationship
Maintenance in Romantic Long-Distance Relationships: An Autoethnographical Research through
Design. Human–Computer Interaction.

Touchomatic Arcade Game (Marshall & Tennent, 2017)

Touchomatic is a arcade game station played by two players and controlled through electric capacity generated by the players' bodies. Players have to touch each other to generate capacitive data for the game and, in the game, they are flying an airship to collect coins located close above the ground. The more players are having physical contact with each other, the more gas is given to the airship.

Reference: Marshall, J. & Tennent, P. (2017) Touchomatic: Interpersonal touch gaming in the wild. DIS 2017.

http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~pszjm2/games/Touch_o_matic_at_National_Videogame_Arcade.html

RemoteFeeder (Chien et al. 2017)

RemoteFeeder was designed for the author's relational practice with his girl friend in long-distance relationship. The device consists of two parts: an automatic food dispenser to serve food to May and a “feeding bowl”, which is an awareness system and a remote control. The dispenser is installed in Claire’s flat and, of course, needs to be loaded with food by her. The feeding bowl is kept by me. A sensor registers when May hungrily claws the food dispenser and transmits this to the feeding bowl. The bowl then vibrates and makes noises, as if May is scratching the bowl in my place. Taking the bowl up and holding it in a sloping position sends a signal to dispense food into May’s bowl.


Reference: W.-C. Chien & M. Hassenzahl. 2017. Technology-Mediated Relationship
Maintenance in Romantic Long-Distance Relationships: An Autoethnographical Research through
Design. Human–Computer Interaction.

Puzzle Space (Pan et al., 2017)

Puzzle Space is designed for couples in long-distance relationships to have playful interaction and also to have the possibilities of solving problems together. Each one of the couple has 10 pieces of the 20-piece jigsaw puzzle. These physical puzzle pieces are placed on a box in which a camera captures the puzzle pieces' positions. A display on each side shows all 20 pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that represent exact positions of all puzzle pieces on the two boxes. Couples have to move their own pieces and work together to finish the puzzle game.


Reference: R. Pan, C. Neustaedter, A.N. Antle & B. Matkin. 2017. Puzzle Space: A distributed tangible puzzle for long distance couples. In CSCW '17 Companion Companion of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

Sensation (Canat et al 2016)

Sensation is a game device that can detect several different touch patterns between players. According to the game task, players have to complete collaborative physical tasks and experience physical closeness together with each other.

Reference: Mert Canat, Mustafa Ozan Tezcan, Eran Tiza, Bugra Can Sefercik, Idil Bostan, Oguz Turan Buruk, Tilbe Goksun, Oguzhan Ozcan. 2016. Sensation: Measuring the Effects of a Human-to-Human Social Touch Based Controller on the Player Experience. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'16) 3944-3955.

http://socialtouchingames.tumblr.com/

Ritual Machine II - coutdown timer in anticipation of a future event (Kirk et al. 2016)

The countdown timer is an application running on smartphones with a countdown machine. Couples put their smartphone together and each smartphone shows a half of a "knob." Couples rotate the knob together to set up the countdown time for their next important joint events in the future. The countdown machine than starts the countdown and displays a sand timer that flows slowly. The machine imitates the sound of flowing sand. It starts with imperceptible volume and becomes louder when the end point is coming.

Reference: Kirk et al. 2016. Ritual Machines I & II: Making Technology at Home. CHI' 2016.

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

Dating Box (Chien et al. 2015)

Dating Box is designed for couples in long-distance Relationships to collect activity ideas when they next time meet each other. In its prototype version, each one of the couple has a box. When they are separated, they can write down ideas on small cards and collect them in the box. When they meet each other again, they can open the box and the idea cards can inspire their treasurable joint time.

Reference: Wei-Chi Chien, Marc Hassenzahl, Eva Lenz. 2015. Fürsorge, Gemeinsamkeiten, Pläne - Technik für Fernbeziehungen gestalten. (trans. Caring, Togetherness, Planning - Designing Technology for Long-Distance Relationships.) Mensch und Computer 2015 - Proceedings. 83-92.

cubble (by Kowalski et al, 2013)

cubble’s hybrid approach establishes a continuous, bidirectional, exclusive and private channel for couples via light, vibration and heat. Depending on client activity logs, the
messages are received on either the home or mobile client. cubble provides three message types. (1) “Nudge” is a short emotional ping from a partner. It consists of a color, which is selected by touching the sides of the hardware or according buttons of the mobile interface. It is sent by a single tap on the hardware’s front or mobile device’s screen and received as a single color flash (matching the color previously
determined by the sender) and a simple vibration. (2) “Tap patterns” offer a more diverse exchange and the creation of private languages. They are presented as repeated light bursts and vibrations in the rhythm as entered. (3) “Holding hands” creates a live connection as both partners touch cubble at the same time, resulting in a yellow pulsation and a warming-up of the clients.

Source: Kowalski, R., Loehmann, S., Hausen, D. 2013 cubble: A Multi-Device Hybrid Approach Supporting Communication in Long-Distance Relationships. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, ACM Press, 201-204
http://mediainformatics.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/cubble-multi-device-assistance-for-emotional-closeness-and-communication-in-relationships-over-a-distance/

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

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

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

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

linked (by Laschke, 2010)

 

Linked. is a device for long distance communication for teenage boys. Its form of pillow is situated in each boy's room, especially on the bed. When one hugs or punches the device, the other pillow immediately represents the movement and power of the action. This creates a physical communication when the other one feels his friend's intention of "squabble" and puch back with his device.

Source: Laschke, M., Hassenzahl, M. Mehnert, K. 2010. linked. - a relatedness experience for boys. In Proceedings of the 6th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Extending Boundaries, 839-844
http://folkwangid.com/2011/11/01/linked-what-the-hell-are-these-boys-doing/

Family Story Play (by Nokia Research Center 2010)

"Family Story Play is a system that supports grandparents to read books together with their grandchildren over the Internet. The Story Play project is designed to improve communication across generations and over a distance, and to support parents and grandparents in fostering the literacy development of young children."


Reference:
http://research.nokia.com/page/9341
Raffle, H. et al. 2010 Family Story Play: Reading with Young Children (and Elmo) Over a Distance. In CHI 2010

TACT (by Hoffmann et al, 2007)

TACT is a set of small, portable, wireless communicant objects with a low-resolution tactile surface. In the surface of each device two differently-colored points move around randomly. The points have the property of leaving a trace of light behind them when they advance. Each point represents one member of the couple, and two connected TACTs always display the synchronized images of the two colored points. By touching the point that represents him/her, a member of the couple can take control of it and trace simple figures with his/her fingertip, but doesn’t have access to the other one’s point, which is simultaneously represented on both surfaces.

Source: Hoffmann, C., Jumpertz, S., and Marquet, B. 2007. On nurturing strong-tie distant relationships. In Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’07). ACM Press, 2411–2416.

Tug n’Talk (by Harry, 2007)

The device consists of a belt-buckle form factor with an attached pair of chains. One chain connects to the user’s shirt and one dangles below the device. Tugs on the bottom chain are transmitted to a paired belt and represented as tugs on the chain connected to the shirt itself. Each belt also has a button on it to interrupt a tug in process.

Source: Harry, D. 2007. Tug n'Talk: A Belt Buckle for Tangible Tugging Communication Abstract. Presented at alt.chi 2007.
http://web.media.mit.edu/~dharry/tugandtalk/

Hello There (concept | by King et al, 2007)

Allows people to send audio messages associated with a particular location and time. Their partner receives the message when physically in particular place.

Source: King, S. and Forlizzi, J. 2007. Slow messaging. In Proceedings of the Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces (DPPI’07). ACM Press, 451–454.

Virtual Box (Davis et al 2007)

 

Virtual Box is desined for interactive play between children and (grand) parents in cross residential situation. The (grand) parents create a virtual box and put a message, picture or videoclip inside the box. They than hide the box virtually on a floor plan the child's house. When the child opens the system (a PDA), he begins a treasure hunting game and searches the virtual box in the physical house.

Reference: Davis, H. et al 2007 Virtual Box: Supporting Mediated Family Intimacy through Virtual and Physical Play. In OzCHI 2007 Proceedings.