Paper Reading #15

Comments:
Reference:
Title: Jogging over a Distance between Europe and Australia
Author: Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller, Frank Vetere, Martin R. Gibbs, Darren Edge, Stefan Agamanolis, Jennifer G. SheridanVenue: UIST 2010
Summary:
Exertion activities have become a good social medium. Some people enjoy working out together, with the main aim at "catching up" with each other. The system presented, Jogging over a Distance, is designed for those runners who enjoy jogging with others mainly for socializing, with exercise as an added bonus. Jogging over a Distance requires a pouch around the runner's waist containing a mobile phone and a mini computer, and the runner must wear a headset and a heart rate monitor. The mobile phone helps with latency issues. The runner's heart rate is taken and compared to the other runner they are connected to. If the other runner is running faster, the audio in the headset is projected to sound in front of the current runner. Likewise if the partner is running slower, the audio will sound as though it is behind the current runner. This allows for real time competition betweent the runners, as opposed to waiting until after they are both done to compare results. Thus, this system allows runners from different areas to compete with one another in real time.

The group recorded 14 runs from 17 different participants. Every pair of runners had some social past, whether they be friends or siblings. Seven runs included a person in Germany or the UK and another in Australia. The system had very positive reviews from the participants, and some preferred it to runner with another because they did not have to slow down for their partner.

Discussion:
This system actually is pretty cool. I know lots of people who like to run, and would like to have a partner to run with. This would make it easy to do that without slowing down for the other person, while still providing the accountability that some people need. I am unable to run anymore myself due to injuries, but I would definitely try this system if I could.

There doesn't seem anything overly technical about this paper or system. Some of the audio techniques are tricky but the paper describes them well. I don't see any reason this system could fail from a technical standpoint. The only difficulty should be getting people to try it.