Social Resonance: Balancing Reputation with Tangible Design

Online data about our everyday activities is available for almost anybody who takes the time to spy on us. Everything that makes us live in the real world through emails, video, photo, blogs, online shopping, calendar, to name a few, is "trackable". We are entirely public, our virtual identity is somewhat the shadow of our physical existence. Not talking about avatars up to anonymous content that gives us a second life on the screen, but wouldn't that be scary to have our anonymous virtual self reflected back to us?

The research of Alyssa Wright at MIT's Ambient Intelligence research group directed by Pattie Maes consists of the ongoing design of a tangible reputation system, Social Resonance, that uses a wearable device to merge face-to-face interaction with online networking.

I love her attempt to bridge a virtual identity with a "real world" one. New forms of tangible systems can be designed to leverage the strengths, and bridge the discrepancies, of reputation systems. Like its virtual counterparts, this system aims to make explicit the perspective of anonymous actors. Yet unlike online reputations, this system is negotiated through real world action and signals.



Reputation data is mapped to an ambient display and used to preserve public readability without creating personal distress. At any state, the device is on and provides readable data. It is the shift between states, visible over time, that allows for introspection. Social Resonance attempts to map the journey, not the destination, between colors.


Mapping resonance to 5-phase color shift


Posted by Cati Vaucelle
♥ Architectradure
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Ambient clock for elders

At Interact 2007, I discovered the work of Yann Riche and Wendy Mackay.
He presented the MarkerClock, an ambient clock for elders.
Pdf of the paper.

Seniors support one another through routines and through shared awareness. The MarkerClock facilitates the sharing and awareness of routines among elders. Built upon seniors’ stories of their daily life, it invites for reciprocal care behaviors.



The clock appears as ambient and non intrusive by giving symbolic graphical information on the user's activity. For instance, if Beatrice goes to the market in the morning, this information is coordinated with the clock and displayed graphically as "absent". Because her friend knows she is at the market, it appears as normal.


Examples of a) users’ codes, b) user’s motion trace

During user observations, an elder explained that she sends a signal by ringing 3 times the phone of her friend so that her friend can assess that she is all right. Users originally invented strategies, such as this code, to be aware of each other's lives. The design rationale integrates these findings into the augmented clock. It embeds active and passive communication and do so by simply detecting the user's motions in front of it, directly measuring the senior's activity.

Mylight lamp by lars spuybroek

"we can now ‘print’ an object directly from digital information – molds will just disappear. people have no idea yet what an incredible change in technology that is. and what that means for design. all design will become meta-design: objects can now be a range-of-objects like in a family or a species. not one is the same, but they are similar enough to be recognised. they can be big on top, big in the middle, or big below. they can have many holes or just a few. but they will always be private, each lamp you buy is different from the other, it’s unique.” – lars spuybroek

more information

This commercial work reminds me the impressive and comprehensive research of my previous professor at the Graduate School of Design, Dr Kostas Terzidis, whose "research work focuses on creative experimentation within the threshold between arts, architecture, and computer science. As a professional computer programmer he is the author of many computer applications on form-making, morphing, virtual reality, and self-organization. (...) His latest book, Algorithmic Architecture, provides an ontological investigation into the terms, concepts, and processes of algorithmic architecture and provides a theoretical framework for design implementations. -GSD"

My past projects for his course on Kinetic Architecture
My first assignment for his course on Advanced Studies in Architectural Computing.

Excerpt 1 and Excerpt 2 from his works.

Gesture recognition to control home appliances

Interaction design through gesture recognition can be a bit tricky when it means interacting with a full set of home appliances. Distinguishing between intentional and unintentional gestures is probably the challenge as well as creating an artificial-gestural language strong enough to rely on.
I read a lot on the fact that using gesture is for "TV potatoes" while actually I find using gestures more "sporty". Indeed, one moves the entire hand and arm to control devices whereas a remote only works by pressing a button. The wii is a good example of semi-sport action while playing video games!

Now, seven simple hand gestures to switch your TV on

(...) The controller's built-in camera can recognize seven simple hand gestures and work with up to eight different gadgets around the home, reports The Daily Mail.

The all-seeing wave controller is the brainchild of Australian engineers Dr Prashan Premaratne and Quang Nguyen, who predict its availability on the market within three years.(...)

Its software recognises simple, deliberate hand gestures and then sends the appropriate signal to a universal remote control, designed to work with most makes of television, video recorder, DVD player, hi-fi and digital set-top box.
(...)

A clenched fist means "start", an outstretched hand with closed fingers means "power on", a thumbs-up sign means "up" and a sideways victory sign means "channel".

Crucially for anyone with small children, pets or gesticulating family members, the software can distinguish between real commands and unintentional gestures.

Excerpt of article by International reporter, July 2007.


Image from the Daily Mail

The Viscous Display

The Viscous Display created by Lily Shirvanee and Glorianna Davenport is a transient adaptive interface for collective play in public space.

Grounded on Henri Lefevre analysis of production of space as a social phenomenon, the viscous display proposes a space with transient meanings by exhanging social information through adaptive public interfaces.

Abstract: The Viscous Display explores the exchange of social information through transient public interfaces. Shaped by principles of ‘underground public art’, the Viscous Display is conceived as a novel mobile communication medium, where messages can be shared in public spaces. Inspired by biological learning systems; the Viscous Display learns sensorial information that form along traces of a participant’s touch and maps this information onto a flexible display.
Because it is made up of inexpensive materials, the Viscous Display is also a disposable artifact that may be collected in public spaces. It combines multi-modal sensing, learning algorithms, and a pliable silicone display.

Paper

Viscous display's web site

Les Nabaztag sont trop forts!

So not only they are super cool to have, my friend Matthieu had one when I came visit him in Paris this winter, but now they do operas:




Petit commentaire au passage: If you type Nabaztag on Flickr, you get 594 pictures of the rabbit (including mine!)

So I found on Etienne Minneur's blog (who happens to be my graphic design professor from 1997-1999 while I studied at Paris VIII -- I am very proud of this fact, because I adore what he does)-- that Jean-Jacques Birgé is currently working with Antoine Schmitt on an opera for 100 Nabztags! This is for the ceremony of the Flash Festival 2006. Too bad I cannot attend, it is the 27th of May au Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), but if you happen to be there, check if there are still tickets available. Tickets are free, yes this is France!

In personal addiction