Papers
CHI 2001
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Seattle, Washington, USA
March 31 - April 5 2001
© 2001 ACM

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LumiTouch: An Emotional Communication Device
Angela Chang, Ben Resner, Brad Koerner, XingChen Wang and Hiroshi Ishii
Tangible Media Group
MIT Media Laboratory
20 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
lumitouch@media.mit.edu

ABSTRACT

We present the LumiTouch system consisting of a pair of interactive picture frames. When one user touches her picture frame, the other picture frame lights up. This touch is translated to light over an internet connection. We introduce a semi-ambient display that can transition seamlessly from periphery to foreground in addition to communicating emotional content. In addition to enghancing the communication between loved ones, people can use LumiTouch to develop a personal emotional language.

Based on prior work on telepresence and tangible interfaces, Lumitouch explores emotional communication in tangible form. This paper describes the components, interactions, implementation and design approach of the LumiTouch system.