Two people in love, but separated by distance. He stands at a bus stop and taps his finger on a device strapped to his wrist. His tapping communicates without words: “I want you to know I’m thinking of you. I love you. I wish we were together.”

                                                                                   Miles away from him, she sits in a café and instantly
                                                                                   feels a gentle warmth envelope her left wrist as she
                                                                                   receives the message.

                                                                                   Spanning the miles with an unspoken expression of
                                                                                   her affection, she replies to him by swirling her right
                                                                                   index finger across the top of her wrist-worn device:
                                                                                   “I love you too.”

                                                                                   Back at the bus stop, the device on his wrist
                                                                                   constricts ever so slightly; he feels a tender squeeze.
                                                                                   It’s the pulse of love in a digital age.

                                                                                   It’s also an avant-garde project from Intel Research
                                                                                   Berkeley, an outpost of Intel’s Network of University
                                                                                   Labs.

                                                                                   Eric Paulos, project founder and lead researcher, got
                                                                                   the idea for his project after observing how people
                                                                                   who knew each other interacted in places such as
                                                                                   parks, farmers’ markets, ball games, and shopping
                                                                                   malls.

                                                                                      Today Paulos’ Intimate Computing research and
                                                                                      his project on Evocative Interfaces at Intel
                                                                                      Research in Berkeley is focused on developing new
                                                                                      communication tools to explore methods for
                                                                                      wirelessly transmitting and expressing personal
                                                                                      messages between loved ones and friends who are
                                                                                      separated from each other.

The medium is the message
“We wanted to design a device that would help us explore how people who were separated could communicate without the use of text or speech,” says Paulos.

In essence these devices provide a means for people to reach out and say to one another, “I know you’re there. We have this connection. I know we’ll be together at another time, but for now I’m sending this message to let you know I’m thinking of you.”

Quite often people choose an inappropriate communication medium and end up conveying the wrong message accidentally, explains Paulos. Often the unsuitable medium puts the kibosh on the spontaneity, emotion, and feeling the sender intended to convey. “At its core, this project is about giving people a broader choice of expression,” says Paulos.

As Intel researchers observed the nonverbal interactions of people who had prior established relationships, they noted that these nonverbal communications provided an important level of awareness and exchange of human emotions.

While the researchers initially thought the devices might be used within a group of acquaintances or friends, they soon found otherwise. “We learned repeatedly from focus groups that people were much more interested in using these devices in a more intimate way as paired devices exchanged as friendship bracelets,” Paulos explains.

You can imagine two people who exchange a pair of such devices as a token of friendship. “For example, I might exchange a paired unit with my girlfriend,” explains Paulos. “In this way, when I feel a message arrive on the device, I know it’s from her. It’s a pair of personal
physical devices we share and communicate through. I tap on it or squeeze
it and I get a squeeze back: ‘Thinking of you.’”

“It’s kind of an intimate device,” he says. “Not in terms of a sexual intimacy, but in terms of closeness or a very comforting kind of connection between people.”

“The device is part of an emerging theme called Intimate Computing,” he says. “In fact, this intimacy is vital to the way in which we build and maintain relationships and trust with others.”

It may look like a watch, but…
The wrist-worn band itself provides physical sensations: It warms up, flexes, and vibrates. The overall design of the device is based on research into small wireless Smart Dust systems. In fact, the prototype is built using the mote hardware platform running TinyOS. It’s actually a wireless mote with onboard sensors. It may look like a watch, but that’s as far as the similarity goes.

“The construction and evaluation of an evocative interface device has been an important part of our research,” Paulos says. “The physical system we designed is a small, personal object, worn on the wrist like a watch and augmented with simple sensing, actuation, and wireless networking support.”

Currently, the prototype uses the standard mote wireless protocol with design plans to allow adaptation to Wi-Fi and General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) cellular networks.

Reach out and touch someone or squeeze someone or…
An accelerometer on the wrist-worn device allows rough detection of hand orientation, gesture measurement, and tapping. In the near future researchers will examine simple activity detection as well, such as sitting, walking, and standing.

As in the bus stop example, a person wearing the device can sense simple touching. This sensation is enabled through force-sensing resistors that provide pressure detection over a high-resolution surface array on the top of the device.

A person can also detect rich signals sent from a partner whirling a finger along the surface of his or her device. Researchers provided this effect by time stamping the sensed data.

Motes, such as the one amongst the candy corn above, are at the heart of several Intel research projects.

Not only might a wearer experience the simulated touch of a friend, she might also feel the device grow warm to her skin. Using a Peltier Junction, the device can create a subtle heating or cooling on the wearer’s skin.

“The mapping between the inputs and outputs of paired devices is not literal,” says Paulos. “This is an important part of the design. In the same way people developed a language of numbers around early pagers when they sent messages we believe a similar vocabulary will emerge around physical cues.”

For example, to some wearers a gentle warming on the skin might convey a message of friendship. Others might choose to send good vibes by…well by sending good vibes, literally. Intel researchers used simple flat pancake vibration motors to cause wearers to easily and privately feel vibrations though skin contact. Various vibration patterns and duty cycles provide a number of output possibilities for the device.

And for those times when good vibes just aren’t enough, a wearer of the device can send the equivalent of a wireless handhold, an electronic squeeze.

Through the use of Flexinol, a user can feel a little squeeze that mimics the grasp of a hand as the filament in the wrist-worn device contracts when electrically powered. Flexinol is a simple variant of Nitinol, which is often used in robotic applications and commonly referred to as “muscle wire” for its ability to exert force and return to its original shape.

For all the pleasant thoughts and human analogies there may be a dark side to this device. “Imagine someone incessantly tapping, tapping, tapping. You’d probably feel really annoyed,” says Paulos. “It could be your friend trying to get in touch with you. Or perhaps you’re on the receiving end of a lovers’ quarrel.”

“Yea,” says Paulos, “there is an eerie side to this device. I don’t think anyone want to know what spam feels like.”

Related Links

• Connexus project page

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