Radio Messenger is a new audio interface that attempts to address the problem of information overload. It builds on the
"commercial radio" metaphor that presents ads between songs. However, in this case we present the user with audio alerts
between songs in their playlist. Information sources are modelled as channels and are presented in lieu of commercials.
A user could thus subscribe to different digital channels that he would like to listen to e.g, email, calendar events, twitter updates, bus alerts, weather alerts etc.
Whenever the system find a new event it is converted into an audio alert via Text-To-Speech. Associated with each
update is a time period and life time. To ensure that a user doesn't miss an audio alert each alert is repeated a certain number
of times (dictated by its life time) and after a certain number of songs (dictated by time period). The system has a
"Bother Me" value that allows a user to choose if he would like to listen to all alerts as they come in or if only a
certain proportion of them should be played at a time.
Here is a video showing a typical use-case of Radio Messenger.
It also has a feature to provide bus alerts based on gps location of the user and proximity to a bus stop. In this
video gps based arrival time of a bus is picked up via next-bus alerts.
Radio Messenger is a new audio interface that attempts to address the problem of information overload. It builds on the
"commercial radio" metaphor that presents ads between songs. However, in this case we present the user with audio alerts
between songs in their playlist. Information sources are modelled as channels and are presented in lieu of commercials.
A user could thus subscribe to different digital channels that he would like to listen to e.g, email, calendar events, twitter updates, bus alerts, weather alerts etc.
Whenever the system find a new event it is converted into an audio alert via Text-To-Speech. Associated with each
update is a time period and life time. To ensure that a user doesn't miss an audio alert each alert is repeated a certain number
of times (dictated by its life time) and after a certain number of songs (dictated by time period). The system has a
"Bother Me" value that allows a user to choose if he would like to listen to all alerts as they come in or if only a
certain proportion of them should be played at a time.