The most recent piece they point to is an article on the social effects of wearable computing (given that most of these technologies place one firmly in the pocket protector/pda holster/"Got Root?" t-shirt demographic) (again, neither necessarily good nor bad, yadda yadda yadda).
[The researchers] have built an e-suit which uses several method of communicating with the person wearing it including LEDs, sewn in buttons, shoulder vibrators and LCD watches. They have identified 'social weight' as a variable which is defined as "the attenuation of social interaction that an item causes between its user and others." The authors have developed a way to estimate the social impact different devices have and are using this data to choose socially acceptable ways of interacting with the users. Of particular interest is their desire to mimic the appearance and interaction techniques of other commonly worn devices (e.g. a watch) in order to draw less attention to usage.Much more besides: abstract visualization of social info, usability of mobile handsets, etc. [via confectious] Posted by johndan at March 29, 2004 08:03 PM | TrackBack