So it looks like the face-detection engine has a really short memory. That is, if we turn our heads for a short while (like turn and talk to a team member), the face is removed and the attention level is reset. So I need to re-do my milestone deadlines and try to figure out how to make the program more tolerant of movement…
[edit] Just had to increase FACE_MAX_LIFE
Project Name:
NearBy
Summary:
While online social networks have brought people from distant locations closer together symbolically, people are still dependent on their location to form many of their ties. People often make connections with others who congregate in the same general area (e.g. school, work, etc). These ties are often made regardless of where people actually live.
NearBy is an experiment to see how people react when given information about their friends’ home locations. Privacy will be a concern, so the program may choose to show distance between peoples’ homes within a range, by number of miles, or show locations on a map. Often people who have met by non-local reasons will be surprised to learn that they live very close to one another. This can lead to closer relationships outside of the congregational realm.
It might also be fun to show other information based on the locations of the users, e.g. traveling salesman shortest path between users, popular dining areas near users and reviews, etc.
Technology Used:
Research Goal:
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Project Name:
Public IM Bot Display
Summary:
The public IM bot will be a way for SI students to interact with a centralized display via an instant messaging interface. Many students are unable or unwilling to use the Bluetooth to interact with the display. Because many students have access to an instant messaging client, the probability of interaction is higher.
The project will consist of two parts. The IM bot will be able to take messages and commands from a user. The commands will then be run on the display when a specific trigger has been satisfied. For example, a user might want to send a message to the bot to relay to a friend. The bot will store the message, and when the friend is nearby the display, the message will be shown.
Another possibility is for the IM messages to serve as a way to generally interact with whatever avatar represents the situated display. The students of SI might be charged with the responsibility of “feeding” the avatar daily. If the avatar is not fed, it might act differently or even die. The experiment could determine how people’s participation changes as their responsibilities grow and consequences become more dire.
Technology Used:
There are several IM protocol libraries available for Python for free. The AIM and Jabber protocols would probably be sufficient enough to cover the needs of SI students. In addition, the software might use Bluetooth to detect when certain users are present.
Research Goal:
We would like to determine whether an avatar would increase participation in the SI community. We would also like to see how users interact with the avatar given its mortal nature.
Educational Goal:
The goal here is to learn how to “plug in” various modules into a centralized system using data streams and messages. The IM module will have to interact with the Bluetooth module in some cases and display information onto the screen.
Deliverables:
Summary
YourNews is an attempt to address the question “why is it easier to initiate interaction with strangers online than it is offline?”. Specifically, how do we encourage the development of relationships between two people situated in the same place, but with no reason to interact?
YourNews combines the RSS feeds of registered users and generates a NewsMap. The goal is to produce a common object generated from otherwise latent “attributes” of the people near a display. The hope is that the object (i.e. NewsMap) will highlight areas of common ground on which the individuals can begin to interact with each other.
Technology
Bluetooth, coolApps framework
Research Goal
The main question of interest is looking at whether people can discover and develop relationships with other people with whom they may share interests by presenting them both with an object that originates from their personal interests.
Educational Goal
Learning about the use of public displays and other such shared interfaces for initiating interaction between strangers.
Deliverables:
Summary:
AttentionMeter can be used in conjunction with bluetooth detection modules to control the types and scope of information that is displayed. For example, bluetooth detection can tell the system how many people are in the room/area, but the range of bluetooth is too far us to tell how many people are actually in a position to read text show on the public display. Even if we dampen bluetooth signal strengths to lower the detection radius, mere presence does not convey level of interaction with the display. For example, a person can be standing very close to the device, but with his back towards the display. AttentionMeter along with bluetooth dampening strategies can be combined to identify when it is appropriate for the display to show individually-relevant information.
One possible scenario (with numbers completely made up):
Mouly is within the 3-ft radius of the bluetooth detection device, and AttentionMeter spits out an attention level of 7 (and maybe only 1 detected face), which the system infers to mean that he is also interacting with the display. Then, the system displays ThankYous that have been sent to him recently, or reminders of upcoming deadlines and events. Hung walks up to the display, AttentionMeter detects another face, and Mouly’s notes fade out.
When the two leave the radius, the screen goes back to displaying MichiPoster, or Keepin busting some funky moves.
Technology Used:
Bluetooth, AttentionMeter, whatever other cool modules we make.
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Project Name: Super Thank you & Reminder board
Summary:
I have two project ideas. I want to do one of them first and then implement the second.
Thank you board: The first project is to make the existing Thank you board (at WH and SI North) show messages related to the users near the display. A user profile is created for all users who post Thank you messages. The profile will store user’s unique name and the BT devices associated with the user. While posting a message the user can enter the unique name (or email id) of the recipient of the thank you message.
When a user(s) is detected near the display, the display will append the BT device names to query while requesting the next message to display. The server will find the user corresponding to the BT device and select the message in the order below:
Context aware meeting reminder: A ideal scenario to showcase the application. “Mouly sends an email reminder to Ben and Hung he copies the mail to coolapps@umich.edu. The subject line of the email is Meeting at 405A 7 pm today. This email is parsed and store in the database as an event associated with the Ben, Hung and Mouly’s profiles. When Hung goes to the Student lounge, he sees the a message on the screen: Reminder for Hung - You have a meeting at 7pm at 405A.”
Users email an event invitation/reminder to participants and copy the email to the application’s email id. A rails application will monitor an email inbox. Google Calendar API’s Quick Add function can be used to parse the text and break it into event fields - title, time and place. An entry is made in the events table - which has event title, time, location and participants information.
Users can associated their email id and BT device by sending an email or via the web interface.
The application will have some rudimentary understanding of the location of the meeting room. It will display meetings in west hall only in the West Hall displays.
Technology Used: Drupal, PHP, Ruby, Bluetooth
Research Goal:
Educational Goal: Learn how to select the most relevant message to present to one user or when more than one users are present. Understand the privacy issues involved in public displays.
Deliverables:
