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Providing Lightweight Telepresence in Mobile Communication to Enhance Collaborative Living Providing Lightweight Telepresence in Mobile Communication to Enhance Collaborative Living by Natalia Marmasse Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences, School of Architecture and Planning, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN MEDIA ARTS AND SCIENCES at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE of TECHNOLOGY September 2004 © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004. All Rights Reserved. Author: Program in Media Arts and Science August 23, 2004 Certified by: Christopher M. Schmandt Principal Research Scientist, MIT Media Laboratory Thesis Advisor Accepted by: Andrew B. Lippman Chair, Departmental Committee on Graduate Students Program in Media Arts and Sciences Providing Lightweight Telepresence in Mobile Communication to Enhance Collaborative Living by Natalia Marmasse Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences, School of Architecture and Planning in August 2004 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN MEDIA ARTS AND SCIENCES Abstract Two decades of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) research has addressed how people work in groups and the role technology plays in the workplace. This body of work has resulted in a myriad of deployed technologies with underlying theories and evaluations. It is our hypothesis that similar technologies, and lessons learned from this domain, can also be employed outside the workplace to help people get on with life. The group in this environment is a special set of people with whom we have day-to-day relationships, people who are willing to share intimate personal information. Therefore we call this computer- supported collaborative living. This thesis describes a personal communicator in the form of a watch, intended to provide a link between family members or intimate friends, providing social awareness and helping them infer what is happening in another space and the remote person’s availability for communication. The watch enables the wearers to be always connected via awareness cues, text and voice instant message, or synchronous voice connectivity. Sensors worn with the watch track location (via GPS), acceleration, and speech activity; these are classified and conveyed to the other party, where they appear in iconic form on the watch face, providing a lightweight form of telepresence. When a remote person with whom this information is shared examines it, their face appears on the watch of the person being checked on. A number of design criteria defined for collaborative living systems are illustrated through this device. Thesis Advisor: Christopher M. Schmandt Title: Principal Research Scientist, MIT Media Laboratory Providing Lightweight Telepresence in Mobile Communication to Enhance Collaborative Living by Natalia Marmasse Thesis Committee Thesis Advisor: Christopher M. Schmandt Principal Research Scientist MIT Media Laboratory Thesis Reader: Deb K. Roy, Ph.D. Assistant Professor MIT Media Laboratory Thesis Reader: Joseph L. Dvorak, Ph.D. Distinguished Member of Technical Staff Motorola Dedication To Isabelle and Rapi for your unconditional love and support, for the moon in the right dose, proteins, for not choosing the jungle option, and for much more than any words could express. You have been my fortitude in the last few years. Acknowledgements First I thank my advisor Chris Schmandt who provided me with the opportunity and the environment in which to carry out my research. I also wish to thank my committee members: Deb Roy, with whom I have taken several classes and especially benefited from his Pattern Recognition class, and Joe Dvorak, without whom this project would not have been possible. Joe was enthusiastic from the moment I scratched out some drawings on my whiteboard and has provided hardware and support for the project ever since. I am also grateful to Motorola for their help and support, and for awarding me a fellowship. MIT and the Media Lab are a unique environment in which to learn. In my years here I have met many people. Some have inspired me, others have challenged me, some have helped me along the way, and others have made the journey more pleasant and enjoyable. I have been inspired by professors such as Marvin Minsky, Patrick Winston and Whitman Richards. I feel indebted to Michael Hawley for enabling me to participate in the Everest 1998 project; the weeks spent in Nepal and on Mt. Everest were an unforgettable experience, and since then GPS and other sensors have found their way into almost all my projects. Many thanks also to Linda Peterson for all her support, and to my peers and colleagues for making the lab the uncommon place that it is. I would like to acknowledge all members, and honorary members, of the Speech Group, in particular: Stefan, who started this long journey at the same time; Sean, my officemate and friend of many years; both Kwan and Jang, whom I would have liked to know better; Vidya and Nigel, for great conversations that hopefully will continue in the years to come; Assaf and Joseph, newer officemates but together we made a good team, and last but not least, Sunil, an honorary member of the group and friend. Special thanks to: Emmanuel Munguia and Gerardo Vallejo for long nights of hardware hacking and deep conversations; David Spectre without whom the watch would have looked very different and for the numerous 3 am breaks to watch the Simpsons; Assaf Feldman for help with the speech detector and his excellent cooking; Joseph Corral who worked as an undergrad on the project, and Anna Pandolfo for help with the questionnaires. I am very fortunate to have such good and solid friends, on different continents. I am grateful to Tanzeem and Raj for more than years of delicious food and a warm home, and to numerous friends in Israel, both on and off the kibbutz, who after so many years still have the feeling that they do not see me much just because I am having another long day at the office but could walk in at any moment. And finally, I am especially thankful to Isabelle and Rapi, Lucienne and Sead. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................17 1.1 Collaborative living............................................................................................... 17 1.2 System overview ................................................................................................... 20 1.3 Social presence, awareness and connectedness .................................................... 23 1.4 Context-awareness ................................................................................................ 25 1.5 Document overview .............................................................................................. 26 2. Design criteria.............................................................................................................27 2.1 Human-centric....................................................................................................... 30 2.2 Anywhere, anytime ............................................................................................... 30 2.3 Awareness ............................................................................................................. 31 2.4 Multiple modalities ............................................................................................... 31 2.5 Attentional demands.............................................................................................. 32 2.6 Alerting mechanisms............................................................................................. 33 2.7 Emotionally engaging ........................................................................................... 33 2.8 Privacy...................................................................................................................34 3. WatchMe .....................................................................................................................35 3.1 Watch – form and function.................................................................................... 39 3.1.1 Why a watch?.............................................................................................. 39 3.1.2 Watch User Interface................................................................................... 39 3.1.3 Thinking of you........................................................................................... 43 3.1.4 Communication modes................................................................................ 45 3.1.5 Design.......................................................................................................... 48 3.1.6 Privacy......................................................................................................... 51 3.1.7 Summary ..................................................................................................... 53 3.2 Architecture........................................................................................................... 55 3.3 Hardware ............................................................................................................... 56 3.3.1 Watch / phone.............................................................................................. 56 3.3.2 Mini sound-card .......................................................................................... 58 3.3.3 Accelerometers...........................................................................................
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