ABOUT | CONCEPT | BACKGROUND | PROJECTS | PEOPLE | SPONSORS | CONTACT

BACKGROUND

Related Work Related work associated with Connectivity Probes includes a wide range of projects. For instance, "InTouch" [3], developed by the Tangible Media Group at the MIT Media Lab, focuses on synchronous connection through touch over distance where wooden rods, connected through force-feedback actuators lets you "feel" someone else's presence. Similarly, the groups "ComTouch" [4] looks at creating new "mobile languages" to mobile devices like cellphones by adding haptic feedback to typical conversations. Also within the home space, Tobi Schneidler's [5] (Interactive Institute - Sweden) "Remote Home" looks at connected furniture, accessories, and networked ambient media and how these background models can create a sense of one shared space among two separated locations. In personal connected devices, projects like IDEO's "Kiss Communicator" [6] which transmits a kiss between couples remotely, and Neil Grimmer's "Heart2Heart" [7] which enables a hug to be transmitted remotely through actuators, demonstrate alternative forms of communication by highlighting very specific modes of contact. Connectivity Probes expands this type of work in that it assumes no specific outcome for connections established or outcomes gained by users. Since our intent is to allow for playfulness through interaction, the result of each experiment might lead to new directions in design or implementation of the probes. References: 1. Gaver, W., Dunne, A., & Pacenti, E. (1999) "Cultural Probes", interactions magazine 6:1, pp. 21-29. 2. Hutchinson et. al. (2003) "Technology Probes: Inspiring Design for and with Families", in CHI2003, (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida USA April 5-10, 2003), ACM Press, pp. 17. 3. Brave, S., Dahley, A., Frei, P., Su, V., and Ishii, H., "inTouch" , in Conference Abstracts and Applications of SIGGRAPH '98 , Enhanced Realities, (Orlando, Florida USA, July 19-24, 1998), ACM Press, pp. 115. 4. Chang, A., O'Modhrain, S., Gunther, Jacob, R., Gunther, E., Ishii, H., "ComTouch: Design of a Vibrotactile Communication Device", in Design of Interactive Systems (DIS '02), (London, United Kingdom, June 25 - 28, 2002) 5. Schneidler, T., Remote Home - www.remotehome.org. 6. Kiss Communicator, IDEO, 1999. 7. Grimmer, N., "Heart2Heart", winner of Intel Student Design Competition 2001. Link.