| Sponsor |
Gregory Abowd abowd@cc.gatech.edu 380 CRB and 240 CCB |
| Area | HCI, Software Engineering, Future Computing Environments |
Problem
Physical Boundaries such as time and distance have traditionally stood in
the way of successfully building communities which are not catered in one
geographic location. With the advent of fast as gnchronous communication
mechanisms such as e-mail and synchronous devices such as the phone, these
barriers have begun to shrink. In fact, some very complex, virtual
communities have been built using text only communication packages combined
with occasional contact at conferences or other gatherings.
One large difference between these electronic solutions and non-mediated communities is that environment in which communication and other community building activities take place. Virtual communities generally either exist in a completely virtual environment (e.g. mud) or no environment at all solely communication.
We believe that communities are enriched by the complex environment in which they exist, and our research is centered on creating on augmented physical environment (using ubiquitous computing techniques) which can support a virtual community.
What this means is that rather than creating a solely computational environment in which user interact, we want to allow them to interact as if there were no distance/time boundary. By augmenting spaces such as the living room in their home to support distance interacting we are using an environment already optimized for social and community situations, and extending it's capabilities. To extend and environment in this way requires a significant infrastructure.
MUD: a multi-user, text-based virtual environment which
issued to model, control, provide remote access to the
augmented physical environment. Also facilitates
communication between users
java: 1. GUI interface to the MUD dynamically generated
2. Demons and clients so programs can access the MUD to
update their status and etc.
PC controller: hardware and software for directly monitoring
+X10 Boxes monitoring and controlling mechanical devices
interfaces with mud using winsock
fridge door: demo of a mechanical device with a
computational interface