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The Use of Digital Photo Frames asSituated Messaging Appliances
2009-04-09 16:53:11
SMS messaging is an extremely popular messaging technology, used extensively for person-to-person communication. The success of the technology is largely based on the low cost of sending and receiving messages, the technology’s relative ease of use,and the asynchronous nature of SMS messages: messages are sent and delivered quickly, but are picked up at a future time of the recipient’s choosing. As noted in [1], there are also situations where it is advantageous to send such asynchronous messages to specific locations, such as one’s home or office, rather than to an individual person.
As mobile phones gradually reduce households’ reliance on landlines, location-based text messaging provides a replacement person-to-location messaging technology that allows for the best of both phone-based and location-based messaging. However, phone-based SMS messaging does not currently include the capability for this type of
messaging.
Digital photo frames are becoming cheaper and more feature-rich, but are still almost exclusively focused on retrieving, displaying, and working with digital photographs. Newer frames are capable of connecting to wireless networks and retrieving photographs fromcomputers without the use of memory cards, USB cables, or USB flash memory ‘sticks’. Considering they are essentially miniature computer displays, it seems that their capability to display information beyond simple photographs is underutilised.
Studies of situated display technology have traditionally focused on improving efficiency and communication opportunities in offices and other workplaces by placing dedicated, special-purpose computer displays in everyday working environments. Example studies include displays to show information relating to meeting room reservations , and office door plates . This technology has become so readily available and cost-effective that it is now commonplace–for example, the University of Auckland displays lecture theatre booking information on a display situated outside lecture rooms, and similar displays are used to show the hours of operation for undergraduate computer laboratories. Researchers have also started to study the impact that this type of technology can have in the home. Studies of the design and creation of a digital family calendar for family co-ordination , an interactive appliance used to send and receive SMS messages , and a location awareness appliance that displays information about family members’ locations are examples of this trend. Based on research by Beech et al. one can argue that all of these appliances serve a useful and practical purpose. These appliances can also be considered a part of the paradigm of ‘social computing’–the use of computer technology to enable, support, and enhance interpersonal communication.The majority of research that has been conducted on home-based situated awareness appliances has focused on creating interactive devices that are suited for a single purpose, often by adapting technology such as laptops or tablet PCs, or by creating and using specialised technology. While proving useful for researchers, this type of research is limited in its real-world applications, as it does not provide an easy path for users to begin to embed this technology into their everyday lives. Accordingly, relatively little of this technology has actually been commercialised. Digital photo frames, however, are increasingly being used by families to display digital photos, and therefore beginning to embed digital information into their home lives. Despite their prevalence, little research has been conducted on using these
photo frames for purposes beyond displaying photographs. This study attempts to examine the extent to which digital photo frames can be used for one specific function–unidirectional SMS messaging–and, more broadly, the ways in which digital photo frames might be able to be used as cost-effective and highly available
information awareness appliances
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