mopix: A Mobile Photo Sharing System

Students: Judy Chen, UC Irvine/ISR, Silvia Lindtner, UC Irvine/ISR

Advisor: Paul Dourish, UC Irvine/ISR

Abstract:

mopix is a location-aware photo sharing system through which people can share photos they've taken with their mobile phones and display them on public displays. We are interested in developing a system that preserves the spatial and locative context of a photo. With this research, we ask: how can we design a photo-sharing system to better support spontaneous, reflective and explorative interactions with one's immediate social and spatial context within everyday urban and suburban settings? By providing people with a public forum to not only share photos but also to annotate them with comments, we hope to support a new genre of communication in which the mobile phone photos serve as catalysts for playful interactions in public, as well as artifacts for socialization around which communication and explorative engagement can take place.

Bio:

Judy Chen is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine and also holds a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests are a bit disconnected but are generally in the realm of human computer interaction and ubiquitous computing, particularly in public displays and the representation of presence in shared spaces through ambient information visualization. Last fall, Judy interned at Microsoft Research Cambridge, working on a lightweight photo display that playfully captures the comings and goings in a home.

Silvia is a Ph.D. student in the department of Informatics in the school of Information and Computer Sciences in Irvine. Her research interests lie at the intersection of online gaming, ubiquitous computing, human-computer interaction, playful interactions in and between physical and digital spaces, as well as urban (and suburban) computing. Last summer, Silvia spent 6 weeks in Beijing and Shanghai to conduct ethnographic research on online gaming in Internet cafes and other public spaces. She is particularly interested in the multi-dimensional interplay that emerges between digital and physical spaces as part of everyday practice.