An Interview with Stefan Agamanolis,
Director of the human
connectedness research group
at media lab europe in dublin.
Play Video (mp4 format, 6.07"
Min, 45,1 MB)
Excerpts from http://www.medialabeurope.org/hc/projects/icom/
iCom is an MIT-Media Lab project and connects distant sites.
Its normal mode is background, providing continuous ambient awareness
between all stations, but at any time it can be transformed
into a foreground mode for ad-hoc tele-meetings or casual interaction,
without the need to dial telephones or wait for connections
to be established.
The screen projections at each site are synchronized, enhancing
a sense of shared space and reciprocity. In addition, nothing
is recorded or displayed outside of the iCom stations. If you
cannot see yourself on the screen, then you know others cannot see
you either.
iCom also functions as a bulletin board for community messages
or announcements, sent via email. Clicking on a message title
causes its full text to be displayed. The titles are listed
in chronological order with varying size to reflect the age
and popularity of a posting.
The system conserves bandwidth by reducing frame rate where
no activity is detected and by not transmitting audio when nobody
is speaking. Clicking the windows changes their arrangement,
allowing the display to be customized for a particular activity.
Transmitted resolution is adjusted to reflect the size of the window.
Use of connectionless networking protocols enables the system to
operate effectively in congested or problematic networks.
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