Networked Objects, Week 2 Readings
By Alice Planas February 1st, 2006
Using Digital but Physical Surrogates to Mediate Awareness, Communication and Privacy in Media Spaces
By Saul Greenberg and Hideaki Kuzouka
Basic Points on Digital but Physical Devices:
- Physical representations of ‘real people’
- Surrogates
- Create a ‘media space’
- Concept is not new – 30 years of research : artist and technologist have been playing with this idea.
- Their purpose is not breakthrough—but replication, structuring and applying these ideas for practical means
Their Goals for Physical Surrogates:
- Support smooth transition from awareness, causal encounters, conversation, work
- Mitigate privacy and distraction
Why is casual interaction important?
- The ‘backbone’ of teamwork and sharing of new ideas
- This is a problem in distributed communities.
- Drops exponentially with distance
- Measure of who is around and how available a person is for conversation.
Existing approaches to distributed communication:
- Media spaces – offices and common spaces – continuous always on video.
- Video glances – video only two way momentary connection – the glance
- Periodic video snapshot—low fi images on computer screens that are updated live.
- Iconic indicators – like the IM screen
Points for Consideration of Success:
- Needs to take little effort to interpret
- Support transitions to conversation
- Not too much information to distract
- Awareness but maintain privacy
Drawing from a few readily existing models:
- Art Installations have been good at doing this—providing information that is abstracted enough to provide awareness with out distraction and intrusion. (Presence)
- Ishii’s notion of tangible interfaces (Touch)
- Buxton’s use of video surrogates (Sight,Sound, Real Time)
- Reactive spaces—spaces capable of transmitting the user’s intentions/expressions (Meaning/Communication)
Moving from awareness to interaction
- Surrogates that indicate activity and availability of remote people
- Used to indicate interest
- Embody communication channel and manage media space
Projects/Prototypes:
- Dragonfly – changes of states in activity in a room
- Peek-a-boo – turns around –‘makes contact’ depending on interest and availability (sustained activity) – not just activity but current state.
- Light surrogate – ambient – background information
Activity and state:
- In the physical environment so person can notice when not on the computer
- Positioned anywhere in the environment
- Able to blend into architecture
- Alone – if there is no easy challenge for communication once serendipitous chance meetings happen, these devices will be no stronger than screen based ones.
Thoughts on the readings:
The writers/researchers talk about creating prototypes out of toys. They seem to imply that the choice of these toys were for their ease of prototyping and availability – with almost an apologetic tone for the choices.
“We should mention that our devices are prototypes, constructed using toys, hobby models and simple sensor technologies. These give them a somewhat whimsical appearance. The form factor of these surrogates would, of course, change significantly if they went out to product.”
Actually I think that though in all earnest I can relate to a researcher’s desire to ‘be taken seriously’ , I would hope that the significance of play and whimsy is not entirely overlooked and underplayed in the process of the development cycle.
Research acknowledges that chance encounters and casual meeting are crucial to facilitation of communications between people working on teams. However, even more important are the quality of these encounters. Fun and play is serious stuff. Without the spark of chemistry there is really no incentive for the encouragement of future interactions. I think it is not a trivial point to consider the power of toys – and of a shared experience of play in significantly increasing ones development of great team relationships.
There needs to be adaptability – and learning of groups – true tailoring – generic solutions create generic experiences –which are rarely satisfying.
The trick is to think broadly and creatively about the question of play and how does that show up for various peoples and various groups. Discover what people mutually find engaging within a group, and you have the beginnings of chemistry.
Really pay attention to people and to not generalize – look for commonality in specifics.
The Coming Age of Calm Technology
“What matters is not technology itself, but its relationship to us.”
Thoughts on the Readings:
The interesting idea that I got from this reading was the importance of establishing boundaries, once we have reached a situation of potential infinity. The internet and networked existence has brought the possibility of eroded territories once grounded and established in our not too distant traditions. Entering into and existing in times where many of the limits have been reworked, has left many of us with uncertainty and anxiety – information overload and possibility conundrum. In this case, grounding or to use the author’s words ‘localizing’ is crucial to our movements. No longer can we rely on arbitrary borders, we must now consciously create the sense of internal space via our ability to transverse easily between center and periferal. The argument of a need for calm technology, I think is another way to express our desires for establishing personal boundaries.
The ISO/OSI Network Model
Basic Concepts:
Provides seven abstract and interdependent, but distinct and self-contained layers to structure the networking protocols:
The Seven Layers:
- Physical – the cables or the physical medium itself in the physical space/locations
- Data Link – how the data is formatted on each of the local machines
- Network –Internetwork Protocol how hosts communicate with one another
- Transport – the rules of how transmission happens
- Session –how the data is formatted while being sent over the connection
- Presentation –conversion of the data received to the local
- Application –end user services
The Equator Project
Projects of note to me:
Ambient Wood and the Macintosh Project
Thoughts on the Projects:
The thing I find problematic is that the attention is completely overshadowed from the activity at hand and the environment and the focus is brought back into the computer/device. I have no problems with the ideals of the ‘augmented experience’ as long as the interface recedes – we need to be careful in our attempts to augment, that we not overshadow and distract the context for which the original experience is looking to offer. My question is what are we implicitly saying is ‘difficient’ about an experience that it requires ‘augmentation’? Our we simply extending the reach of an industries technological imperialism when we are too liberal in our application of UB, without first considering if augmentation is appropriate and enhancing in a given situation.
For things that demand heavy visual interaction, perhaps a more appropriate form of augmentation is to supplement and provide in ways that enhance without competing… audio, etc. Not more screens and visuals.
The Disappearing Computer Initiative