Interactions - January/February 2009

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.