new interaction partners
perspectives on the pervasive media world for pets
nicolas nova / media and design lab (EPFL)
september 2007 - picnic
Good morning, my name is Nicolas Nova, I am a User Experience and Foresight researcher at the
“media and design lab” (Swiss Institute of Technology) also working with Julian Bleecker for the
“near future laboratory”. My talk today about the near future of pervasive media experiences will be
derived from my work at these both operations. Part of my research is about studying people’s
behavior with technology, the other part is about bringing insights and foresights to designers
based on a critical review of weak signals. This talk is about the latter.
(Picture is Tomy “Wonderful Shot dog camera”)

the cute ubiquitous computing dream
(ubiquitous computing as portrayed by W3C)
The picture = ubiquitous computing as portrayed by W3C: http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/10-
ERCIM/BigPicture.jpg IMO, it exemplifies the technological dream of engineers: a seamless and
omnipresent computing system. It’s like fancy pictures from architects: buildings with light but no
real humans. Pervasive gaming actually took the technologies from ubicomp as well as the
assumptions coming from that field: seamlessness, technology that is “pervasive” (everywhere,
every moment)...
BUT, and yes there’s a “but”, the world is not like that.

...but reality is like this: dirty, messy
and with other beings than humans!
The reality is like this: it’s dirty, messy, accidents happened, technology sometimes fails,
interoperability fails, etc. and above all: there are other beings that humans and technological
artifacts.
If we think about with whom we have most of our playful interactions, it’s simple: the environment
(parks, sport areas, etc) and animals. My previous work has focused on the environment, I am now
interested in animals as a way to renew the visions of pervasive gaming. What about having “new
interaction partners”, i.e. including new beings such as pets?

project examples: augmenting animals or devices
3 examples:
\"Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot\" (by Garnet Hertz) is an experimental mechanism that uses a
living Madagascan hissing cockroach atop a modified trackball to control a three-wheeled robot. If
the cockroach moves left, the robot moves left. Infrared sensors also provide navigation feedback to
the cockroach, striving to create a pseudo-intelligent system with the cockroach as the CPU.
(http://www.conceptlab.com/roachbot/)Float-a-pet (http://people.artcenter.edu/~berk/
t_floatapet.html) by Jed Berk is an illuminated inflatable pet collar with smart sensor and locative
technology.
Auger-Loizeau “Augmented Animals” (http://www.auger-loizeau.com/projects/augani/
pro_augani.html) describes some technologies that has been adapted for animals.
Poultry Internet project (http://137.132.165.250/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=60) that allows people to touch/hug their pets
remotely and have a feeling of presence

project examples: playing against animals
Animal-controlled video game: by Wim Van Eck (http://pong.hku.nl/~wim/bugman/
animal_controlled_computer_games.pdf) or the possibilities of replacing behaviour-generating code
in computer games by real-time behaviour of live animals, and the question of whether one can
play computer games against animals.
MICE Arena (Researchers at Emerging Art and Architecture Research Group, or RASTER, and
Singapore's Mixed Reality Lab ): computerized movements in Mice Arena are mapped to and from
the real world, where an actual predator (your hamster) gives chase to a digital avatar (you) by
pursuing a real piece of bait.
See also the Metazoa Ludens project (Chicken Petman, Jellyfishthrone) at http://
www.mixedreality.nus.edu.sg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&Itemid=58

playing MMORPGs with pets
Julian Bleecker and myself are working on this project: we have a dwarf on World of Warcraft that is
played by a dog (sensors track its physical activities). So this little character is running around and it
has a very basic grammar of interactions in the game. What is interesting here is to study the
implications for participants. There will be a new type of characters, which won’t be played by a
human nor by and Artificial Intelligence (Non-Playable Character).

twitter communication with your cat
This is another project that we work on with Julian Bleecker. This toy is meant to be employed by
cats: when the cat touches the raddish, it sends a message on Twitter, when the owner sees it there,
he/she ca reply and the toy would vibrate or glow. A two way relationship of some sort.

provocation but...
this is not the point we don’t want that
not about trivializing our relationship to pets
A provocation... simply to state that other partners (pets, animals, plants, weather) can be a path for
pervasive gaming innovation. What I am describing here is not about trivializing animals, making
fun of them. These “beedog” picture are sad attempts to turn them into partners. What I am
thinking about here is that pets are just pets, so we don’t want them to act like humans or weird
beings. And if they act like pets, they will offer novel types of interactions: not as humans, not as AI.
However, at the same time, the biggest challenge is to design the reward for the animal!

animals, plants, weather as new interaction partners?
different desires, not always technologically mediated
(Picture from http://www.flickr.com/photos/l0z/491124459)
This provocation is just meant to show that other sensations or desire could be mediated in a
pervasive game. It’s not only about pets or even plants but also the weather, the environment, data
feeds extracted from contextual events. The point is that to be rich and playful, pervasive gaming
should benefit from other things than just human or computers actions.

thank you
nicolas.nova@epfl.ch
This is a work-in-progress, feel free to share ideas.
And above all, don’t take that too seriously, the point is to widen the vision of ubiquitous
computing actors.