Mobile Spatial Interaction, What?!?

In recent times, there has been emerging trends and progress made in the field of Mobile Spatial Interaction (MSI).  Technological advances in this arena is a culmination of successful research in topics such as, spatial sensing, geo-referenced digital content, 3D environment modeling, and more importantly human-computer interaction.  MSI allows users to interact with their physical, natural, and urban surroundings via the use of sensor-rich mobile devices. Even though there have been significant progress made in enabling MSI through improvements in gesture interface, remote sensing expertise, and enhancements in empirical knowledge on this topic, obstacles still remain on the path to mass commercial usage of this concept.  Mobile Spatial Interaction (MSI) has been evolving relatively faster than any other cutting edge technology that impacts human-computer interaction.  MSI in all its avatars possess certain strengths, weaknesses, and provide endless opportunities to push the innovation barrier further out.  MSI and the various mobile applications/devices that facilitate this concept/technology have endless possibilities.

Developers and mobile device manufacturers alike have recognized that the portability and web connectivity features on a mobile device provide MSI enablers (i.e. geo-referenced digital content, spatial sensing etc.) the means to function.  Currently, the various interaction paradigms that are available for functional use can be exemplified through technologies known as 1) Magic Wand, 2) Smart Lens, 3) Virtual Peephole, and 4) Sixth Sense (Peter Frohlich, 2011).  These technologies allow users to interact with the physical object they are curious about and the swaths of data about it, which are embedded in linked databases and wikis through their web-enabled mobile devices.  These technologies afford users the convenience of instant access to information about physical objects they are interested in without having to type a word or, a query prompt.  For example, one can click a picture of a historical monument, such as the Leaning tower of Pisa and without any further exertion; rely on an MSI technology, such as the Magic Wand to point a mobile device at a historical building and obtain information about it.  Ideally, MSI can reduce the need for any computing equipment that is bigger than the size of ones palm, but, still provide the same level of access to information a regular desk top with a fast CPU and internet connection can.

There are of course challenges to implementing these MSI enabled technologies and maintaining the back-end database that supports the front-end interface.  The information to be stored in a backend databases need to be continuously updated to provide accurate and detailed information about a target object.  In addition, the task of linking objects to pertinent information can be overwhelming due to the sheer number of physical objects that might draw a general user’s interest.  Storing information about the leaning tower of Pisa is one thing, and it is totally something else to research, gather and store information about one of the many gargoyles perched up on a steeple in Prague, Czech Republic!  A whole different set of challenges are around the mobile devices that are manufactured.  Not all mobile phones are created equal; the technology to swipe through the GUI on a device can enable an MSI technology better (think iPhone) than one that only offers a keypad (think Blackberry).

More importantly, as the concept and technology around mobile spatial interaction is further developed, advances in various aspects of human-computer interaction can be combined to enable mobile devices to accomplish far more tasks in terms of managing our tasks, email, and calendars.  We have already seen examples of applications in the market today that can assist us in typing documents using voice recognition software (e.g. Dragon Diction), and we have also seen applications that can extract information from pictures taken by our phone-cameras and convert to text.  These are all examples of interactions we have with our computers and the physical world every day.  If these technologies were combined, synthesized, and/or further developed into a standard method of interacting with both computer processors and physical objects around us, there would be less and less dependence on other resources within our organizations.  We could all then be an “army of one”; in the corporate jungle, of course!