Existing Smart Systems:

Naturally with any good idea, there's bound to be somebody else out there thinking along the same lines. My idea was no exception and sure enough, searching the Internet turned up many worryingly similar ideas. Most of them were some portion or variation of my idea, such as operating in a cafe only on laptops, or using devices to create hotspots other where other users could read peoples thoughts on the area. There are a lot of projects out there, most of which are in their infancy, too many to talk about here. I will go over some of the more pertinent ones.

Bluetooth and WAP Push Based Location-Aware Mobile Advertising System
MobiSys’04, June 6–9 , 2004, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Copyright 2004 ACM 1-58113-793-1/04/0006…
Acessed through the libraries e journal gateway

In this trial testers were given a mobile phone and asked to walk around the area following a certain route. Whilst they walked around the users would have advertisements sent to their mobile phones via bluetooth from the shops they passed. The users had no idea which shops were participating in the trial.

This paper published on the trial was useful for two reasons. Firstly it stressed the need for personalisation of the adverts people were receiving. Something I have assumed crucial to any system like this which messages people from the very idea conception. One particular lady involved in the trial in the “in the 50– 64 age did not like being pushed nightclub event advertisements”.

Another important issue, one which I had anticipated but not yet researched fully was also brought up in this paper. This was the issue of distance, detection times, and the likelihood of detecting people in motion past a node.

The next image is Table1 of the document, on page 52 (or page 4 if you download just this article from the journal). This results were taken using two Nokia 3650s, class 2 bluetooth devices. The tests were carried out in the presence of a WLAN, obviously operating in the same frequency band as the bluetooth. The article informs that that drop in the standard deviation at the 14m marker is due to the time the tests were carried out, 14m happened to coincide with 4:30, when a lot of the WLAN activity died down as people finished work, causing less interference and improving the phones ability to connect quicker. 'N' is the number of successful connections, a connection being the acquisition of the BD_ADDR of the device.



As the table shows, the mean time taken to connect is about 25 seconds. For the purposes of my artifact, where the people I'd like to target would be within a 5-8m radius, the mean connection time is just over 20 seconds. Considering these people could be standing next to each other for a while this is acceptable. I do not want my device to message two people walking in the opposite direction about each other, causing confusion. It is possible to measure the signal of a connection

Lastly, this is a simple diagram of how their service worked, it is very similar to how my system would work, but the data being transmitted would be slightly different.



I hope to produce a diagram such as this one for my service. Technologically this trail proves that my idea is viable.

pantopic:
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http://www.pantopic.com/index.php

At first glance pantopic seemed to be another utility which allowed you to talk to those around you who also happened to be running it. But on closer inspection it was reveled to be more than that.

“Pantopic is digital esp for your mobile device”
Sounds startling similar to the following statement I made in the 'Why strangers don't talk to each other' section

“So in essence my multimedia artifact needs to read strangers minds.”
The software, which looks as good as the site (that is to say good) is able to read peoples blogs (online web diaries) through their profiles.

The author of pantopic is working on another interesting project, designed solely for tracking, logging and profiling specific bluetooth devices. This project can be found at http://www.nobodaddy.org/portfolio/bluefish.htm and is almost stalkerlike in it's purpose.

"The broadcasting of a Bluetooth device that we carry, for example, becomes a signature of our presence both visible and invisible to everyone within signal range. The potential for open communication and networking with other devices must be weighed against the very real privacy concerns engendered by these devices. Bluefish is meant to illustrate the ease with which anyone might begin to track your whereabouts and target your device with media”.
Thankfully due to the 'opt in' nature of my system people would only receive the messages they wanted to. But there's absolutely no reason why these nodes couldn't be used to track peoples location and build up a profile. Which leads me nicely into my research on a system designed to do just that.

The familiar stranger project / Jabberwocky
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http://berkeley.intel-research.net/paulos/research/familiarstranger/ http://www.urban-atmospheres.net/Jabberwocky/demo.htm

Originally called the familiar stranger project, and later developing into 'Jabberwocky' this project is more focused on my target audience, stranger. Both projects explore the idea of familiar strangers, a term coined by Stanley Milgram in his 1972 essay on the subject. I attempted to get a hold of the original paper to read from one of his books “Individual in a Social World: Essays and Experiments”, but neither the university, nor town library had it. The paperback retails at £26.99, so I was unable to read the paper first hand.

Nevertheless, the description for the project is more than adequate for my needs:

“Familiar Strangers are individuals that we regularly observe but do not interact with. By definition a Familiar Stranger (1) must be observed, (2) repeatedly, and (3) without any interaction. The claim is that the relationship we have with these Familiar Strangers is indeed a real relationship in which both parties agree to mutually ignore each other, without any implications of hostility. A good example is a person that one sees on the subway every morning. If that person fails to appear, we notice.”

The original project proposed to issue users with a portable device, which was able to communicate with other users portable devices. Every device stored the details of each other, the frequency of communication. Over time a relationship built up between devices, as they encounters some more frequently than others. These frequently encountered devices were the most familiar strangers. The prototype for the device is shown here:



The project was ahead of its time, the site has the date 2002, when bluetooth technology was still relatively new, and no where near as popular as it is today. Jabberwocky, which grew out of the familiar strangers project utilises mobile phones and bluetooth as the inter-device communication channel, as opposed to the original devices which were based on short range radio wave emitters.

Both projects are about getting to know the people around us, while not getting to know them. All statistics are anonymous, and there is no attempt to encourage communication. Whilst the project is similar to mine in terms of exploring the relationships between us and people we don't know in our immediate area, it is unlike my project in that it does not want to break the 'familiar stranger' boundary.

Urban tapestries:
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http://research.urbantapestries.net/prototype.html

This was a public authoring project whereby participants in the trail would go about their lives and post 'threads' about their location. In these threads the user could write, or even photograph anything they wanted to share with the community about the area they were in. Restaurant reviews, scenic views, upcoming events and so on. The threads were then sent to the urban tapestries server. Other users of the system could then view these entries by location, author or date and read what they had to say.

So far two trails have been run of the system over a 3km square area of Central London. The setup for version 1.1, the most recent June 2004 trial is shown here:



Fifteen participants were loaned Sony Ericsson P800s for a period of 4 weeks each, posting threads as they went. Despite only using Sony Ericsson P800s and HP iPAQ 5450s for the trial the creators are well aware of the fact that in order to be successful the network would have to appeal to as many devices as possible and they state this:

“As a platform and framework Urban Tapestries prototype is intended to be network and device agnostic, i.e. not a product or service designed for a specific brand, technology or service. Ideally it should be able to run on a number of different types of mobile pervasive device (PDAs, smartphones, tablets etc) and to connect to the internet across different networks (GSM, GPRS, UMTS/3G, 802.11x etc). For the public trial we have narrowed the devices down to two: the SonyEricsson P800 and the HP iPAQ 5450, connecting via GPRS and 802.11b respectively.”
Similarly to the “Location-Aware Mobile Advertising System” I explored earlier this project is similar to my idea in some ways. The technologies used are different (GPRS and WLAN in the place of bluetooth), but the idea of using the internet to store content which will be retrieved once users are in the real world is the same.

The project is still very much under development with version 2.0 promising a web interface for remote authoring/browsing from laptops and desktops. Something which my system would require from the start.

Something which I hadn't considered for my system however is the nodes being aware of their own geographical location. I'm still debating whether or not this is necessary. For diagnosis problems of course a technician will need to know each nodes physical whereabouts. But as for the nodes themselves it doesn't matter where they are, so long as they deliver the right message to the users as soon as they know a message should be delivered. Whilst I don't think it matters too much, they nodes may as well know their own geographical location as it would be a relatively simple thing to code in, and might be useful for an application of the network I have yet to imagine.

Project PlaceSite:
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http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~savage/ps/index.html The Project PlaceSite is once again, similar to my idea, but this time geared towards the more stationary laptop wifi users. The project debuted and trialed in 'A'Cuppa Tea café' in Berkeley, California. Laptop users in a café who access the cafés wireless access point in order to browse the Internet were presented with a new homepage, that of the PlaceSite system.



The homepage shows the other wifi users in the café who have created profiles, and offers you the chance to do the same.

The site for the project lists a lot of their motives and ethics behind their project, many of which I should take on board, or at least consider for my system:

“Everything is optional -- you can fully use the system without filling out any personal information fields (beyond a username and password)”

My system is optional too, users would be required to grant their permission for messages to be sent. Whilst technically it make no difference as the system could message any bluetooth device in detectable range, it would be courteous to only have it send messages after approval has been granted. Fully using the system without entering any personal information however is something i had not considered. Thus far only registered users can use the system, but in order to reach as many people as possible I should certainly think of a way to open it up to everyone.

“Why can't people just get up, walk over and say hi to one another? Do you expect software to replace face-to-face conversation?

Not at all! To the contrary. We think new forms of communication through software can augment and even encourage face-to-face conversation”

This bodes well for my artifact, other people are thinking along the same lines as me in encouraging communication.

“BUILD FROM WHAT ALREADY EXISTS - We're trying to help ubiquitous computing evolve from today’s places, communities and technological infrastructure. Wherever possible we avoid imposing new behaviors, tasks, hassles, and expenses on the people who use the system, the café staff and the surrounding neighborhoods as well. Of course, development of any new technology involves some change. But we strive to provide core benefits using what's already in place where possible, respecting the context of the local community we're serving and enhancing that context. An important example: we don't ask café patrons to install any new software in order to use the system -- once PlaceSite is in place in a café, a café patron can immediately enjoy all benefits of the system via the Web browser that she already uses.”

Another point which I have already considered, which is why I am using the vCard function to transmit messages between users and the nodes.

The project designers are clearly very competent and considerate towards peoples privacy. A lot of their morals for their system should be implemented in mine.

Mini evaluation:
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These existing projects, designed to create links between people, their locations, or both all have some aspect of my idea involved. There are a lot of good ideas within them which I should let influence the specifics of my artifact design. The existence and results of these projects proves that my idea is viable, and that people are exploring similar avenues. This is certainly a good idea worth developing into a final artifact of some kind. Researching, planning and speculating are all well and good, but it's time to communicate my idea in a form of multimedia.