small set of users. With the
Hummingbird, we built the first
device for mobile awareness that
required no infrastructure, in a
time when mobile phones were
still not widely used [ 5]. To get
around the critical mass issue,
we used it to enhance the interactions of a group of friends,
rather than act as an icebreaker
for strangers. It turned out to be
particularly interesting to use
the Hummingbird in situations
that spanned work and social
life, pointing toward current use
of mobile phones. However, we
also found that battery life (as
always!) and the burden of carrying an extra device prevented
people from taking it up for
extended use. A startup company that was formed to commercialize the concept crashed
and burned, mainly because of
the costs of developing dedicated
hardware.
When handheld computers
with Wi-Fi became available,
my group constructed a number
of games in collaboration with
students to explore new forms of
wireless play [ 6]. All the games
were constructed so that to win,
players had to communicate
with one another directly, rather
than through the technology.
For instance, in a racing game,
each player had a unique view
on their device. One player was
the driver who controlled the
car, and the other was the map
reader who continuously fed
information on upcoming turns.
To succeed, they had to share
information through speech
rather than the device interface. Here we learned that the
physical context is a powerful
resource for mobile applications,
one that is still not used in any
products I know of, even though
technically, Nintendo DS and
other mobile gaming platforms
could easily handle it.
Media sharing is another
interesting domain for mobile
software. With Push!Music, we
tried to create an application
in which music would spread
among users almost virally,
both through automatic and
manual recommendations [ 7].
Similar commercial products,
e.g., Microsoft’s Zune, paint a
picture of how music sharing
would open up new avenues
for social contact. However, we
found that even through an
extended period of use, during
which hundreds of songs were
shared, not a single person initiated real-world contact with
someone they didn’t already
know! It turned out that even
though the study participants
were very curious about who
they were sharing music with,
they never crossed over from
the technologically mediated
communication into actual conversation. This showed that the
barriers between electronic and
real connections are harder to
cross than many seem to think,
which could spell trouble for the
more naïve social applications
that will flood Apple’s Appstore
in the coming months.
What this teaches us is that
while the mechanics of our
journeys may be automated
almost completely, the connections along the way will be
a much tougher nut to crack.
Although brushing by someone
in virtual spaces like MySpace
and Facebook does not carry a
lot of weight, most of us are a
lot more particular about whom
we socialize with on the subway.
Even when it comes to people
we know, we might not always
be in the mood to see them. A
new system under development
in my group, meant to be used
for keeping track of the position
of friends on public transport,
turned out to be just as useful
for avoiding people as for meeting them!
But perhaps a new generation, reared on FriendFeed and
Twitter, will move more fluidly
between modalities. It is possible that soon we will not even
notice the transitions from
digital media to real-world conversations and back again. And
maybe that guy on the subway
will turn out to be not so scary
after all, but your new best
friend. Until then, I am happy
with a system like the SUICA,
which simply makes my travels
and noodle purchases a little
simpler—no human contact
required.
[ 5] Holmquist, L.E., J.
Falk, and J. Wigström.
“Supporting Group
Collaboration with InterPersonal Awareness
Devices.” Journal of
Personal Technologies
3, no. 1-2 (March 1999).
For more thoughts on Automated
Journeys, see the workshop of the
same name at UbiComp 2008:
http://www.inbetweeness.org/auto-mated-journeys.
[ 6] Sanneblad, J. and
L.E. Holmquist. “’Why
is Everyone Inside
Me?!’ Using Shared
Displays in Mobile
Computer Games.” In
the Proceedings of ICEC
2004. Eindhoven, The
Netherlands, 2004
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lars Erik Holmquist is a
research leader at the
Mobile Life Centre at
Stockholm University and
the Swedish Institute of
Computer Science. The Centre collaborates
with the telecom industry to develop and
study future mobile services that span all
areas of life, from entertainment and socialization to work and society. His group, the
Future Applications Lab, has developed
and published work on many novel interactive technologies, including mobile media,
visualization, and robotics.
[ 7] Håkansson, M.,
M. Rost, and L.E.
Holmquist. “Gifts from
friends and strangers: A study of mobile
music sharing.” In the
Proceedings of ECSC W
2007, edited by L. J.
Bannon, I. Wagner,
C. Gutwin, R.H.R.
Harper, and K.Schmidt.
311-330, New York:
Springer, 2007.
January + February 2009
DOI: 10.1145/1456202.1456207
© 2009 ACM 1072-5220/09/0100 $5.00