Showing papers by "Richard Harper published in 2011"

Distributed file system

Abstract: A distributed file system for devices is described. In an embodiment, each data element stored on one of the devices has an associated location and availability attribute. The location attribute is stored co-located with the data element. The availability attribute and a copy of the location attribute are stored by a metadata service. When a client on a device needs to access a data element, it sends a request to the metadata service to find the location of the data element. If the data element is available, this information is provided to the client and this may involve waking a dormant device which holds the data element. Where the data element is not available, read only access may be granted to a cached copy of the data element. Where replication is used and one of the devices holding a replica is unavailable, the system may use write off-loading.

Oh and how things just don't change, the more things stay the same: Reflections on SenseCam images 18 months after capture

Abstract: This paper presents an exploration of how images captured by a wearable camera, SenseCam, might foster reflection on everyday experiences. SenseCams were provided to multiple members of four households who wore them simultaneously and reviewed the images after one week, and then again after a period of 18 months. The findings reveal how images captured by different family members led to new insights around normally unremarkable routines, and provided new perspectives on how children experienced the world, while the 18 month interval prompted some reinterpretation of the past and made participants aware of incremental changes in their everyday lives. Implications for the design of tools to support reflection on personal experience are suggested and remarks about the concept of memory collection devices made.

Making the link-providing mobile media for novice communities in the developing world

Abstract: In this paper we investigate the media needs of low-income mobile users in a South African township. We develop and deploy a system that allows users to download media at no costs to themselves, in order to probe future media requirements for similar user groups. We discover that not only are the community interested in developmental information, but are also just as interested in sharing local music or videos. Furthermore, the community consume the media in ways that we did not expect, which had direct impacts on their lives. Finally, we conclude with some reflections on the value of media and the most appropriate ways to deliver it in developing world communities.

Embodiment in brain-computer interaction

Abstract: With emerging opportunities for using Brain-Computer Interaction (BCI) in gaming applications, there is a need to understand the opportunities and constraints of this interaction paradigm. To complement existing laboratory-based studies, there is also a call for the study of BCI in real world contexts. In this paper we present such a real world study of a simple BCI game called MindFlex®, played as a social activity in the home. In particular, drawing on the philosophical traditions of embodied interaction, we highlight the importance of considering the body in BCI and not simply what is going on in the head. The study shows how people use bodily actions to facilitate control of brain activity but also to make their actions and intentions visible to, and interpretable by, others playing and watching the game. It is the public availability of these bodily actions during BCI that allows action to be socially organised, understood and coordinated with others and through which social relationships can be played out. We discuss the implications of this perspective and findings for BCI.

Nudging towards serendipity: a case with personal digital photos

Abstract: Serendipity is an engaging, deeply personal and even magical experience to some. While serendipity has been noted to arise during people's interactions with digital photos, we have yet to understand how this occurs or how it could be supported during-and-through the use of technology. Inspired by findings about serendipity arising from people's shuffle listening, we designed a digital photo display system to explore how we could support people's encounters with serendipity with digital photos. Through this, we gained a deeper understanding of this technology-mediated serendipity and found ways that can support and even nudge people towards encountering serendipity.

Celebratory health technology

Abstract: There are numerous everyday health technologies (applications designed for people to use in their daily lives) that promote healthy eating habits. From educational games to monitoring applications, these systems often take a corrective approach in that they are designed to fix the problematic aspects of people’s interactions with, and thoughts about, food. We propose a complementary approach, termed celebratory health technology design, in which systems promote healthy eating by highlighting positive food interactions, meanings, and values. We present a case study from our research to show the benefit and feasibility of designing celebratory health applications. Our goal is to encourage a more comprehensive approach to everyday health technology design, one that encompasses not only corrective systems, but celebratory applications as well.

From Smart Home to Connected Home

Abstract: Until quite recently, the development of smart homes as a new form of housing, combining both novel computer applications within and network access without, seemed appealing and imminent. The expectation was that new smart home technologies would alter how families entertain themselves with mum’s and dad’s sharing ‘lean forward’ interaction experiences on the internet enabled TV, for example (See Taylor & Harper, 2003: pp115-126); it was thought too that kids would be provided with revolutionary educational tools that would alter the relationship they had with homework (and with the institution of school) (Randall, 2004: pp227-246). Perhaps most commonplace – and thus hardly worth citing any instances of this view - was the assertion that those individuals who chose to work at home would find all the networked access they required delivered to their door: only old fashioned habit and the occasional face to face meeting would force them to leave and actually go to work. Work would come home; travel would reduce.

Absence and Family Life: Understanding and Supporting Adaption to Change

Abstract: What and who a family is, is continually changing. Family is a place, an ever changing set of social relationships, an evolving archive of precious artefacts and the actions collectively unfolding that bring all of these elements into meaningful cohesion. Over space and time familial structure shifts; it expands, contracts, solidifies and dissolves. As people grow older, family members may grow apart, move away, craft a new family with another spouse, or experience the loss of those that once were core to the family’s foundation. In any circumstances, and perhaps especially these, characterizing and understanding family life is complex. What is certain is significant and diverse work is done by a family to adapt to unfolding changes, and the practices and processes though which this work is achieved is partly constitutive of the evolving idea of family itself. While the ways members of a family personally and collectively work to adapt to unfolding changes are heterogeneous, it is clear that interactive technology is becoming a common part of the fabric of this kind of work.

A Sense of Body

Abstract: Introduction A colleague emails me and my colleagues at 12pm; she will do the same two hours later and then again at 6 am. Why? Is she doing this to imply she is on a night shift? This seems unlikely; our workplace is a research lab, not a manufacturing plant. Our hours tend to be civilised. Nevertheless she is doing so because she has an agenda that is related to hours of work. She wants to give the impression that she works so hard that in effect she works all the time. Being at work, sitting at her desk in her office, her bodily presence at work, won’t convey that impression of course: none of her colleagues would notice. After all, during the times she emails, they will be at home, probably in bed, tucked up nice and warm. She is using one of the properties of email to create this sense of her body, of her body being somehow present in the domain of labour, the ‘office’, all the time, not just at night. She is doing this in a particular way, one might say. But one might also say it is an odd way, odd at least in the sense that it is only something that has been possible recently. To put it in digital argot, she is using electronic messaging to create a sense of her ‘presence’ when the presence is not of her real body, its fleshiness as it were (and all that implies about the mixed things that people are: brains and bones, minds and hearts, rational creatures yet emotional too, and so on). Her presence is her whatever that might be if not flesh and blood.