Nonvisual, distal tracking of mobile remote agents in geosocial interaction

Abstract

With the recent introduction of mass-market mobile phones with location, bearing and acceleration sensing, we are on the cusp of significant progress in location-based interaction, and highly interactive mobile social networking. We propose that such systems must work when subject to typical uncertainties in the sensed or inferred context, such as user location, bearing and motion. In order to examine the feasibility of such a system we describe an experiment with an eyes-free, mobile implementation which allows users to find a target user, engage with them by pointing and tilting actions, then have their attention directed to a specific target. Although weaknesses in the design of the tilt-distance mapping were indicated, encouragingly, users were able to track the target, and engage with the other agent. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009.