Back to Wearables

We're now back to talking about wearable technologies, with a focus on embedded devices. Kelly Dobson from MIT makes the start. Some interesting work on human/machine feedback - e.g. a blender whose speed responds to the intensity of how a human operator growls at it. Some anthropomorphising of machines, or mechanomorphising of humans? She's also developed body extensions like a wearable bag called ScreamBody which a user can scream into (without being audible to anyone), thus recording their scream, and the later release the scream elsewhere, as well as HugBody (recording and recalling hugs).

Astrid Vicas is next. She notes the EU-based Disappearing Computer Initiative as well as some other key topics: e.g. the idea of a TUI (tangible user interface) in analogy to GUIs (graphical user interfaces). Examples: a PDA which bends when activated, or devices which make everyday items (e.g. plants, hats) vibrate or otherwise play up as a way of notifying users of events (new email, messages, etc.) - so rather than your phone vibrating it might be your coffee cup!

Now she's back to some better-known ideas - wearables that help vision-impaired people orient in the streets, that keep track of tools used in aeroplane maintenance environments, smart shopping trolleys, fridges, and home appliances etc.

More on TUIs and GUIs: while GUIs are 'click-through', TUIs are 'be-through', which means that different forms of agency can arise. Actions may be non-deliberative, by which I guess she means that users of ubiquitous computing control it through actions which are usually 'merely pathological behaviour' - everyday, not consciously thought-through movements.

Tom Donaldson is last in the session. He speaks of our roboticisation through ubicomp - we become random access devices and input sources. In the process, we're distanced through technology from our direct, live experience (cf. tourists perceiving the places they visit through their cameras' viewfinders).

Instead Tom is interested in devices which 'enhance the social performance of self' - e.g. ubicomp jewellery which provides a talking point by displaying video images on a small screen.