Over the past few days I have been researching tangible interfaces with particular reference to the different functions they can perform.
What has become apparent is that the majority of work in this area, especially in a commercial areana has been focused in two areas; personal support, which could be location based, i.e. navigation systems or organisational focused eg. personal planners.
However I have found that one of the most exciting (for me at least) areas of research in this area are those systems using “phatic” technologies. Essentially these are products and systems created to enhance phatic communication (which can be classified as any non-essential communication that people use to express friendship, love or affection).
I would very much like to explore this aspect of communication within tangible interfaces as this id definietly something I would like to focus on in the major project. Therefore I have decided to research the major developments within this field for this units research project to give myself a better view of what has already been done in this field and what kind of technologies they have used.
