CE 2.0 and the Community PVR

Henry HoltzmanMIT Media Lab

CFP Bi-Annual Meeting, January 23, 2008

CE 2.0 OpportunityConsumer electronics devices are increasingly complex, are poorly connected, don’t work together, or are blind to their environment and users’ needs.

CE 2.0 InitiativeA group of Media Lab sponsors working together to research and promote the development of new consumer electronics device designs that are situation aware, seamlessly interoperable, highly connected, and radically simple.

PC vs. CE PlatformPC CE

Service Google, Yahoo, AOL, Windows Live, YouTube

Browser Web browser, Flash media

No SolutionGUI Common “desktop” paradigm

PUI Generic: usually keyboard, mouse, and monitorSpecialized: keypad, remote control, knobs, etc, and inconsistent (and often limited) screen space

H/W Intel x86 A variety of platforms

CE 1.0 Approach

Imitation

Hyok S. Choi, Samsung Electronics

2 organize 3 time 4 learn

6 context 7 emotion 8 trust

10 laws of simplicity

2006+ the laws help to frame the simplicity movement

1 reduce

John Maeda, Laws of Simplicity

John Maeda, Laws of Simplicity

John Maeda, Laws of Simplicity

John Maeda, Laws of Simplicity

ReduceOrganizeLearnEmotionTrust

CollaborativeProgrammableEvolvingParticipatoryTrusting

KnowledgeReasoningContext

AffordableSpecializedEvocativePersonal

CE 2.0CE 2.0

SimplicitySimplicity

CECE

Web 2.0Web 2.0

IntelligenceIntelligence

Exemplars

CE 2.0 Initiative Roadmap

CE 2.0 Initiative Members

SamsungMedia Lab

MotorolaToshiba

CorningBT

IntelTarget

QUALCOMM

France TelecomNokia

Time, Inc.

Marvell

LG

Seagate

TelmexAug ‘06 Oct ‘06

Logitech

May ‘07 Oct ‘07

VIA

Subtopics

Simplicity

Awareness

Security and Privacy

Connectivity and Interoperability

SimplicityFocus on design principles for ‘radically simple’ CE devices

12 design principles divided into 3 areas

Presentation

How content should be rendered to the user

Structure

Physical structure of a device including its affordances for control and manipulation.

Information

Type or amount of information conveyed to the user

Single, core principle which provides context in which the other design principles operate

Example: Presentation

Don't rely on specific external conditions for easy operation of a control.

Example: TV remote control that distinguishes buttons by shape, size, and location so that reading the labels on the buttons is not necessary.

Example: StructureWhen the task is at

odds with the limitations of the device, leverage the capabilities of associated devices and services.

Example: iPod uses iTunes application on Mac/PC to manage music collection.

Example: Information

Minimize user focus on non-primary tasks.

Example: push to talk calling feature of Nextel phones.

Formulating Consumer Electronic (CE) design principles for ‘situation awareness’

Cataloging design principles into Awareness Themes:

CE as Citizen

CE as Contributor

CE as Discoverer

CE as Learner

CE as Self-Preserving

Scope: Spans simple sharing of CE internal state <-> complex applying common sense reasoning to rich contextual information

Status: Crafting 7 principles applied to a range of usage scenarios:

e.g. How might a clothes washer or stove elegantly convey its internal state with its family?

e.g. How might stationary and mobile situation-aware CE devices facilitate the dinner planning task?

Awareness

Security & Privacy Subgroup

Simplicity is the bedrock of CE 2.0 privacy and security:

Default permissions should provide for privacy and security without requiring user configuration.

Overriding or changing security policies (e.g. granting or revoking permissions) should be simple and reversible, and the consequences easy for the user to understand.

Minimize security interactions with user, particularly interactions not initiated by the user.

Possibly different set of security and privacy rules for access via the physical interface then via network.

CE 2.0 devices will exercise discretion -- not give out information to a service beyond that which is necessary for the service to complete the request.

CE 2.0 devices will leave their owners in control -- devices are ultimately under control of their owner and security can be easily monitored and disabled.

CE 2.0 security protocols will be publicly available and preferably be implemented in open source.

Connectivity and Interoperability

For CE 2.0, this means sharing content readily with other devices, users, and services

which implies being able to discover what other CE2.0 devices, users, and services exist, and

being able to communicate with those devices, users, and services in a common format, protocol, and/or language.

Devices and services will describe their capabilities and how to access those capabilities to other devices and services using a common format.

CE 2.0 content should be described in a way that CE 2.0 devices and services have as much semantic knowledge as needed to decide what content to exchange without necessarily understanding the content itself.

Next Step: Prototyping

Television meets Facebook:Social Networking via Consumer Electronics

Mariana Baca

Physical Language Workshop

Department of Media Arts and Sciences

Overview

Problem Statement

Incorporating a web-based social component into consumer electronics and measuring its impact

Evaluation & Results

Two iterations of evaluation

Quantitative and Qualitative

What will be accomplished?

Implementation

A framework for a DVR to communicate with Facebook and mine data from this social network

Previous Work

Television and interconnected consumer electronics

Social Media Sharing

Problem Statement

To connect consumer electronics with social networking applications

Find new ways to incorporate the information gathered by a social networking site into the user’s everyday life

Increase the interconnectivity of pervasive electronics with the internet

Speed up the spread of information from a social networking site into the user’s consumption pattern

Application Overview

Facebook Application

DVR UI & Functionality

EvaluationIteration 1: Focus Group

Identify strengths and weaknesses of the proposed system for second iteration

UI Focus: Is the UI easy to use and enjoyable

System Focus: Do users feel that the interaction is valuable, problems they foresee in the system

Scope: 20 users for one day

Iteration 2: In depth User Study

Install the system in actual homes: use existing Facebook users

Quantitative Evaluation: did the users watch shows in the system, did the show selection improve

Qualitative Evaluation: was the system helpful and valuable to the user

Scope: 5-10 users for 3 weeks

What we hope to learn

Did the System work as specified?

Was the UI intuitive and simple to use and install?

How was the user affected by the device

Privacy concerns

Social Benefit

Frequency of use

User enjoyment

Thank You!