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How do we go about creating the
truly personal computer?
An Awareable Computer is a wearable computer
that is aware of its surroundings, or provides support
for the user's awareness of others, thus
augmenting human communication and information processing.
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Have you ever been at a meeting that has been
constantly interrupted by ringing mobile phones,
beeping PDA:s, and so on? We certainly have!
We are investigating new ways of conveying event
notifications from mobile devices to their users.
The Reminder Bracelet is connected to a PDA
and notifies users of scheduled events in a subtle
and silent manner using light, color and patterns.
Publications:
1. Hansson, R. and Ljungstrand, P. The Reminder Bracelet: Subtle
Notification Cues for Mobile Devices. To appear in: Extended Abstracts
of CHI 2000 (Student Poster),
ACM Press, 2000.
[Abtract]
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To examine how inter-personal awareness devices such as the
Hummingbird
affect group collaboration, we have performed a number of
evaluations in a variety of different settings,
including skiing trips and blue-collar work.
Publications:
1. Weilenmann, A. and Holmquist, L.E.
Hummingbirds Go Skiing:
Using Wearable Computers to Support Social
Interaction.
Proc.
IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computing
(ISWC) '99,
IEEE Press, 1999.
M.Sc. theses:
1. Arvidsson, D. and Johansson, T.
The Hummingbird as Support
for Mobile Group Awareness - An Evaluation.
Informatics; supervised by L.E. Holmquist.
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To explore the possibilities of public computers
such as the BubbleBadge and the ActiveJewel, we
developed the WearBoy as
a low-cost platform for wearable public devices.
It is based on a Nintendo Color GameBoy,
which has been modified and provided with custom
software.
Publications:
1. Ljungstrand, P., Björk S. and Falk, J.
The WearBoy: A Platform
for Low-cost Public Wearable Devices.
Proc.
IEEE International
Symposium on Wearable Computing (ISWC) '99,
IEEE Press, 1999.
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Wearable computers are traditionally highly private devices, since
both input and output is controlled by the single user. With the
BubbleBadge we are exploring the design space of wearable computers
by designing a "public" wearable computer display. The BubbleBadge
proposes an interaction shift: from the wearer of the device, and to
the viewer.
Publications:
1. Falk, J. and Björk, S.
The BubbleBadge: A Wearable Public Display.
Extended Abstracts of
ACM Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) '99,
ACM Press, 1999.
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The Hummingbird is an inter-personal awareness device,
a class of awareable computers that support awareness
of other users' acitvities. When a user wears a Hummingbird,
she can instantly know what other people are in the
vicinity, even if she can not directly hear or see them -
perfect for when you arrive late at a party!
Publications:
1. Holmquist, L.E., Wigström, J. and Falk, J.
The Hummingbird: Mobile Support for Group Awareness.
Demonstration, ACM CSCW '98, Seattle, USA.
[PDF]
2. Holmquist, L.E.
Supporting Group Awareness with IPAD:s - Inter-Personal
Awareness Devices.
Workshop paper, Workshop on Handheld CSCW, ACM CSCW '98
Seattle, USA.
[HTML]
3. Falk, J. Mobile Awareness. Master of Science Thesis, Department
of Informatics, Göteborg University, 1999. [PDF]
4. Holmquist, L.E., Falk, J. and Wigström, J.
Supporting Group Awareness with Inter-Personal
Awareness Devices.
Journal of Personal Technologies,
3(1-2), Springer Verlag, 1999.
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In the ActiveJewel project, we have experimented with merging jewelry
design, graphical art and wearable technology. It is is an application
for wearable public devices with the aim to explore new kinds of
adornments, similar to traditional jewelry, but with a visual appearance
that changes over time. The ActiveJewel was implemented on the WearBoy
platform.
More information:
1. Falk, J. and Björk, S.
ActiveJewel: A Wearable Computer Graphics Gallery.
[PDF]
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If a device such as an awareable computer is to be worn and
used at all times, it has to be pleasing aestethically and
ergonomically. We are working together with an industrial
designer and a jewellery designer to find new design for
awareable computers.
Image:
Design prototypes for awareable computing
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