May 3-7, 2005
Thesis Presentations
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| Pantopic | ||
|---|---|---|
| Author(s): | Ian Curry | |
| Instructor: | Barton, Jake | |
| Class: | Final Project Seminar | |
| URL: | http://www.pantopic.com | |
| Keywords: | mobile, personal area network, social software, locative media | |
| Pantopic is digital ESP for your mobile device. | ||
| Pantopic turns your mobile device into a personal digital broadcast bubble. With Pantopic, you can get realtime information about the people around you delivered to your mobile device. With Pantopic groups, you can zoom out and see who your friends are interacting with, and where they are. Pantopic is a software suite comprised of a website and a J2ME application for bluetooth-enabled mobile phones. | ||
| Personal Statement: | Ian Curry is interested in the border areas between people and the technology with which they interact. | |
| Context: | In any web-connected social goup, part of the cohesiveness is driven by the exchange of social capital, and another part feeds off an economy of personal data. As exhibited by the runaway popularity of blogs, people are willing to invest some personal data if the return appears to be of greater value. Because one\'s personal presence is, in a sense, the highest-value piece of personal data one has, connecting disclosure on the web to one\'s real life presence provides for both enormous challenges and a potential wealth of reward.
Pantopic enters in as a mediating tool between online and offline presence. | |
| Audience: | Mobile communities. | |
| User Scenario: | a) You\'re at a social event where you don\'t know anyone. You\'d like to talk with someone, but it would be easier if you had a point of conenction. You pull out your phone and do a Pantopic scan fo the room. The scan finds three registered users. You click through to read one of the found users\' blogs. As it turns out, they\'ve just returned from Belize, where you went on vacation last year, and even visited one of the same small towns. You download their image and realize it\'s someone nearby. The rest is up to you.
b) You leave work late and decide to get a drink. Pulling out your phone, you click into your groups and do a friend scan. Earlier in the night, Jane did a Pantopic scan on the bar where she was hanging out with Joe and Karen. Joe and Karen\'s presence is registered in the system. As such, your friend scan lets you know that these three friends are together, and where. Looks like you know where you\'re going. | |
| Methodology: | Pantopic is a system comprised of a website and mobile software package written in J2ME. The mobile software uses Bluetooth to locate nearby individuals, and syncs with a web database to provide profile and group location information. | |
| Sources: | Pantopic was influenced heavily by the work of Geerd Kortuem, whose work in studying economies of trust in wirelessly enabled communities provided a starting point for my own investigation.
The project was also inspired by Intel Research\'s \'Familiar Strangers\' project which allows user so visualize encounters with people they may often see but have never met. | |
| Conclusions: | Check back on the website for a conclusion! Pantopic was born only moments ago and we\'re still waiting to hear its first words. | |