The purpose of this project was to develop a product that can convey and communicate a sense of being together when the users are at different locations.
People’s increasing mobility, and the growing amount of single households combined with Europe’s aging population leads to more people living separated from friends and family. The increased number of people living away from family and friends creates a growing need for connectedness between remote locations
There are currently a great variety of services and tools available that allows users to communicate over geographic distances. However, the currently available communication services, almost exclusively, focus on the transmission of explicit information, neglecting the subtle and emotional communication that is important for close relationships
Tangiball is a system of two intelligent lamps combined with a web application that helps geographically separated users to feel connected. These components form a network in which they all communicate with each other. The system is also capable of communicating externally through Internet connection.
From the app, the users can create and send their own custom light and color messages as well as sending pre made emotional animation. For an increased sense of presence and awareness between remote locations, Tangiball allows the user to capture video from one location and portray it abstractly with light and color at the other location. The abstract visualization of the video data creates ambiguity, which reduces the sense of surveillance and provides an implicit communication that is important for close relationships. Finally, Tangiball can visualize different Internet feeds, which creates many possibilities for shared experiences.
Tangiball provides people that are living apart with a way to feel a sense of presence and awareness of each other. The awareness and feeling of presence provide a sense of comfort for the user. Tangiball gives the user a new way of expressing themselves using light and color animation, which can provide a richer social experience.
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