Full Family

Discussion around real-time data on live television is clumsy.

Problem

Obstruction

With wall-mounted displays, newscasters are extremely likely to obscure the screen as they attempt to write and draw on the surface.

Collaboration

With only one horizontal degree of motion, the current system can only handle up to one or two simultaneous participants without running out of physical space.

Camera Angles

Few camera angles provide a desirable view due to difficulties with obstruction, acceptable maximum viewing angles of the displays, and maneuverability of the cameras.

Tangible Anchoring explores potential practices for public opinion gathering, analysis, and news reporting afforded by the convergence of tabletop computing, mobile user-generated content, the Web, and broadcast media channels. It combines tabletop presentation with an experimental survey method coupling close-ended survey questions with video viewpoints.

The Setup

Our current implementation for the tabletop features multiple viewpoints (e.g. affliation by political party) presented using a tangible tabletop broadcast anchor desk, assuming multiple camera angles, two or more discussants, multiple displays, and issues-based polling/reporting using mobile phones.

Rich Platform

On the tabletop, we are able to provide a framework that allows interactions to to take advantage of changes in size, shape, color, movement, location, and touch.

Cubes

We are exploring how these technologies could be used to increase the sense of participation in the viewer's experience of public opinion viewpoints and current events through 1) co-discovery with on-air discussants re: how opinions differ and ) real-time contributions to the on-air debate.

One task was to design and build the tangibles that are used on the table. Currently, there are two led's inside controlled by a pair of xbee controllers. We are currently developing the tangibles into a more interactive piece that can display more complex and rich data by having a matrix of about 25 rgb leds per face.

Tangible Anchoring, and its companion project, SayWhyPoll, are products of a multi-year collaborative project, with over 18 graduate and undergraduate students contributing their talents. We welcome inquiries! Read the published papers on the Synaesthetic Media Lab's website.

This Web page and tangibles design and deployment by Basheer Tome, lead designer for the tangible objects.