Using Infra-Red Beacons as Unobtrusive Markers for Mobile Augmented Reality

The main two approaches for vision based mobile augmented reality systems are either those employing fiducial markers or those which track natural features in the environment to estimate camera pose information. Whilst marker based systems are relatively simple to implement and are robust they present difficulties for wide scale deployment as they are obtrusive and their size is proportional to the distance from which they need to be used. However, the alternate approaches of marker less systems present significant computational challenges, can be highly problematic in poor light conditions, and are independent of scale. In the paper we present a novel solution using Infra Red LED’s as markers that overcomes many of these limitations in that they are: invisible to the human sight but can tracked by phone camera optics; can be used in varied light conditions; structured to provide scale; and significantly reduce the computational overhead

Delivering 3D advertising to mobile phones.

Directing advertising to mobile phones currently is limited to commercial text messages, short-code text-back messages, two dimensional (2D) images, or wireless access protocol (WAP) clickable push links. All of these traditional methods do not facilitate advertising approach were consumers can interact with prospective purchases. In this paper we introduce a novel and highly interactive location- and permission-based advertising system that allows 3D product adverts to be displayed on users' mobile phones. The paper provides a thorough discussion of the system covering its performance, implementation structure, platform-dependent optimizations and suggestions for future work. With mobile phones and 3D interactive tools, advertising becomes more engaging, rewarding and entertaining and provides marketing executives with new means of directing their campaigns to a more specific target audience

The role of game design in addressing behavioural change

With the increasing promotion of design for behavioural change as a means of addressing the complex societal and environmental challenges the world currently faces, comes the associated challenge of developing appropriate design techniques to achieve such change. Whilst many designers have sought inspiration from game design they have often drawn from the techniques associated with ‘gamification’ which has been heavily criticised as manipulative and only capable of addressing simplistic extrinsic personal motivations. In this paper I discuss an alternative perspective whereby games are considered a rhetorical medium through which players can rehearse plausible alternate presents or speculative futures. The consideration of games in this way is effectively extending the view that ‘all design is rhetoric’ to include interactive systems and in this paper I highlight how by adopting such a perspective enables designers to tackle complex issues without resorting to reductionist approaches

Utilizing sensor fusion in markerless mobile augmented reality

One of the key challenges of markerless Augmented Reality (AR) systems, where no a priori information of the environment is available, is map and scale initialization. In such systems, the scale is unknown as it is impossible to determine the scale from a sequence of images alone. Implementing scale is vital for ensuring that augmented objects are contextually sensitive to the environment they are projected upon. In this paper we demonstrate a sensor and vision fusion approach for robust and user-friendly initialization of map and scale. The map is initialized, using inbuilt accelerometers, whilst scale is initialized by the camera auto-focusing capability. The later is possible by applying the Depth From Focus (DFF) method, which was, till now, limited to high precision camera systems. The demonstrated illustrates benefits of such a system, which is running on a commercially available mobile phone Nokia N900

Reflections on teaching design fiction as world-building

Over the last 3 years I have the pleasure of teaching a final year undergraduate design studio in which students are required to consider the potential futures of emerging technologies. In particular they are expected to approach this as an exercise in design fiction as world-building. The emphasis of the approach is to render the future mundane in that the artefacts produced are not expected to adopt the elaborate, and oft dystopian, exhibition orientated approach of critical design, but rather to subvert the formats and tropes of the technology industry. Further the approach seeks to avoids the polarization of utopian or dystopian but instead embraces the messiness of our lived realities. I not seeking to offer any disambiguation of what design fiction is or how it should be done but merely offering my reflections on research led teaching which might be useful to others

Mobslinger: The Fastest Mobile in the West.

Whilst there is a number of location sensing games emerging for mobile phones, from both commercial and academic sectors, there are few examples of social proximity based games that are effectively position independent. Bluetooth would seem an obvious choice for proximity based games, although the majority of games produced to-date simply uses it to provide a quasi peer to peer connection between users of multiplayer games. This is no-doubt due to the fact that proximity can often be implied from other location sensing technologies and that Bluetooth is often perceived as difficult to employ. In this paper we will show that Bluetooth can provide exciting game scenarios that can enable spontaneous stimulated social interaction using only proximity information. We illustrate this through the design rationale and subsequent implementation of ‘mobslinger’ which is a wild west, quick draw, ‘shoot-em-up’ game using mobile phones

Modelling design fiction:what’s the story?

This paper is intended to be read alongside the design fiction film Heating Britain’s Homes. It uses the film to explore questions relating to the methods employed when creating a design fiction. Design fictions are “deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change” by employing a “conflation of design, science fact, and science fiction”. Design fictions do not aim to present or develop ‘finished’ designs, but rather they use design methods to “create a discursive space within which new forms of cultural artefact might emerge” . As a design fiction piece, the ‘discursive space’ that this film addresses relates to disruptive possibilities associated with cryptographic currencies such as Bitcoin. However, for the purposes of this paper the film and its concern with cryptographic currency are secondary and subservient to a discussion of design fiction practice itself. A three- layered model of design fiction is proposed as a communication device to help contextualise the various ideas used in the film, and as a tool to be applied in the creation, and analysis, of design fiction more generically. The paper concludes by positing questions with a view to taking steps towards formal design fiction methods

Designing information feedback within hybrid physical/digital interactions

Whilst digital and physical interactions were once treated as separate design challenges, there is a growing need for them to be considered together to allow the creation of hybrid digital/physical experiences. For example, digital games can now include physical objects (with digital properties) or digital objects (with physical properties), both of which may be used to provide input, output, or in-game information in various combinations. In this paper we consider how users perceive and understand interactions that include physical/digital objects through the design of a novel game which allows us to consider: i) the character of the space/spaces in which we interact; ii) how users perceive their operation; and iii) how we can design such objects to extend the bandwidth of information we provide to the user/player. The prototype is used as the focus of a participatory design workshop in which players experimented with, and discussed physical ways of representing the virtual in-game information. The results have been used to provide a framing for designers approaching information feedback in this domain, and highlight the requirement for further design research

HealthBand:campaigning for an open and ethical Internet of Things through an applied process of design fiction

This paper discusses the creation of a design fiction that seeks to embody Sterling’s (2005) spimes concept – near future, Internet-connected, manufactured objects. HealthBand is a fictional open-source wearable device born in a future where public healthcare has become increasingly privatised. Social equity and citizen empowerment sit at the forefront of its design – the product is the culmination of crowd-sourced expertise and production capital. We contextualise the fictional device in relation to current proprietary Internet of Things products, democratised and open technological practices like the Maker Movement, and two previously identified design criteria for spimes – synchronicity and wrangling. We assert that the fiction can help to begin to establish spimes as a useful rhetorical lens through which product designers can speculate upon more socially responsible and ethical technological product futures that offer plausible alternatives to the homogenised, unsustainable and profit driven product design cultures of today

Back to the future:10 years of design fiction

The term design fiction was originally coined in 2005 by the Science Fiction author Bruce Sterling. In the 10 years since, design fiction has received considerable interest from a range disciplines most notably HCI which increasingly draws upon generative methods and creative practices. In this paper we consider examples of recent HCI research that refers to design fiction in order to highlight commonalities and ambiguities in how the term is interpreted and used. We argue that design fiction is a compelling and powerful concept but is inherently ambiguous. We therefore suggest strategies to disambiguate communications ‘about design fiction’ in order to strengthen applications ‘of design fiction’