This paper presents our vision of Human Computer Interaction (HCI): "Tangible Bits." Tangible Bits allows users to "grasp & manipulate" bits in the center of users' attention by coupling the bits with everyday physical objects and architectural surfaces. Tangible Bits also enables users to be aware of background bits at the periphery of human perception using ambient display media such as light, sound, airflow, and water movement in an augmented space. The goal of Tangible Bits is to bridge the gaps between both cyberspace and the physical environment, as well as the foreground and background of human activities. This paper describes three key concepts of Tangible Bits: interactive surfaces; the coupling of bits with graspable physical objects; and ambient media for background awareness. We illustrate these concepts with three prototype systems -- the metaDESK, transBOARD and ambientROOM -- to identify underlying research issues. Keywords tangible user interface, ambient media, gras...

We present a tangible user interface based upon mediaBlocks: small, electronically tagged wooden blocks that serve as physical icons (“phicons”) for the containment, transport, and manipulation of online media. MediaBlocks interface with media input and output devices such as video cameras and projectors, allowing digital media to be rapidly “copied ” from a media source and “pasted ” into a media display. MediaBlocks are also compatible with traditional GUIs, providing seamless gateways between tangible and graphical interfaces. Finally, mediaBlocks act as physical “controls ” in tangible interfaces for tasks such as sequencing collections of media elements. CR Categories and Subject Descriptors: H.5.2 [User Interfaces] Input devices and strategies; H.5.1 [Multimedia Information Systems] Artificial, augmented, and virtual realities

MediaBlocks is a tangible interface for physically capturing, transporting, and retrieving online digital media, as well as for physically and digitally manipulating this media. We present a description and video demonstration of mediaBlocks' function, and consider the work as a beginning towards alleviating the abstraction and complexity endemic to traditional computational interfaces. Keywords: tangible interfaces, phicons, interface complexity INTRODUCTION The mediaBlocks project developed from an interest in the user interface issues surrounding networked devices and online media. Current conventional wisdom holds that all manners of devices will be connected to the Internet, and transformed into "information appliances" which might ease our work and play. However, there are currently very few ways to bridge the interface gap between physical devices and online content, outside of the traditional computer interface of graphical widgets, URLs, and hyperlinks. In their current fo...

Current human-computer interface design is dominated by the graphical user interface approach, where users interact with graphical abstractions of virtual interface devices through a few general-purpose input "peripherals." The thesis develops models and mechanisms for "tangible user interfaces" -- user interfaces which use physical objects, instruments, surfaces, and spaces as physical interfaces to digital information. Prototype applications on three platforms -- the metaDESK, transBOARD, and ambientROOM -- are introduced as examples of this approach. These instances are used to generalize the "GUI widgetry," "optical," and "containers and conduits" interface metaphors. The thesis also develops engineering mechanisms called proxy-distributed or "proxdist" computation, which provide a layered approach for integrating physical objects with diverse sensing, display, communication, and computation capabilities into coherent interface implementations. The combined research provides a vehi...

Abstract. Human Pacman is an interactive role-playing game that envisions to bring the computer gaming experience to a new level of emotional and sensory gratification by setting the real world as a playground. This is a physical fantasy game integrated with human-social and mobile-gaming that emphasizes on collaboration and competition between players. By setting the game in a wide outdoor area, natural human-physical movements have become an integral part of the game. Pacmen and Ghosts are now human players in the real world experiencing mixed reality visualization from the wearable computers on them. Virtual cookies and actual physical objects are incorporated to provide novel experiences of seamless transitions between real and virtual worlds and tangible human computer interface respectively. We believe Human Pacman is pioneering a new form of gaming that anchors on physicality, mobility, social interaction, and ubiquitous computing. 1

The decisions we make when designing computational things cannot all be reduced to questions about functionality, usability testing, user requirements, etc. In HCI-related research and design, other fundamental aspects of design, such as the basic aesthetical choices involved, have a tendency to be hidden and seemingly forgotten. To support awareness and understanding of such basic aesthetical choices, we propose two methodological exercises that take the expressions of computational things in use as their starting points: i) to discover functionality in given expressions; and ii) to rediscover “expressionals ” in given appliances. The aim with i) is to encourage reflection on the way in which functionality explains the expressions of things. With ii), the aim is to expose the more or less hidden aesthetical choices by means of re-interpreting them in given appliances. We present examples of the exercises and discuss more general issues, such as the central role of temporal gestalts and the art of using computational things.

Smell is an underused sense in human-computer interaction (HCI). In our daily lives, smell tells us whether food is safe to eat, if a fire is breaking out in the next room, and, as evidence increasingly shows, if we find a potential mate attractive [8]. In HCI, however, smell is an almost entirely unexplored medium. There are reasons for this: technical difficulties in emitting scent on demand, chemical difficulties in creating accurate and pleasant scents, and issues of research focus and direction. However, it is now possible to purchase off-theshelf, easily controllable hardware for aroma output, and incorporating scent into HCI is now comparatively simple. The vast majority of work in HCI involves our senses of sight and hearing, with occasional forays into touch. Much of HCI has assumed a single user at his desk with a single screen, controlled by a single keyboard and mouse. The vision of ubiquitous computational power has led to a corresponding emergence of ambient and calm media: efforts exploring distributed input and output for distributed computing. Scent is an excellent medium for ambient or calm display; a scent can “move easily from the periphery of our attention, to the center, and back ” [18]. Users rapidly acclimate to an ambient scent, but a change in aroma calls attention to itself. Although inappropriate for rapidly changing information, and limited in bandwidth, our sense of smell is well evolved, accurate, and valuable as an interface. Why Smell Is Difficult To understand the problems and opportunities of scent

In this paper we look at some general approaches to modelling ubiquitous computing systems, and identify some key concepts and design issues dealt with by these approaches. Since the advent of these new systems raises a vast array of issues, we concentrate on models which help us to choose between design alternatives. We consider in turn models whose focus is on services provided, information manipulated, and the physical distribution of an application. As a standard design notation, we make reference to the Unified Modelling Language (UML) when considering construction of concrete models. 1.

This paper compares the disciplines of Enactive Interfaces and Tangible User Interface design with the aim of showing that by considering the design knowledge of Tangible User Interfaces with the cognitive depth of the theories of enaction, a new type of “enactive tangibleuser-interface” can be designed. Introductions to both disciplines are given, before a method of gauging the enactive potential of particular TUI’s is described. Finally a discussion of the two disciplines ’ combination is given with such questions as, “are all tangible-userinterface’s

The metaDESK is a user interface platform demonstrating new interaction techniques we call "tangible user interfaces. " We explore the physical instantiation of interface elements from the graphical user interface paradigm, giving physical form to windows, icons, handles, menus, and controls. The design and implementation of the metaDESK display, sensor, and software architectures is discussed. A prototype application driving an interaction with geographical space, Tangible Geospace, is presented to demonstrate these concepts. Keywords: tangible user interfaces, input devices, haptic input, augmented reality, ubiquitous computing INTRODUCTION The graphical user interface (GUI) has proven both a successful and durable model for human-computer interaction which has dominated the last decade of interface design. At the same time, the GUI approach falls short in many respects, particularly in embracing the rich interface modalities between people and the physical environments they inhab...