Q-Aura: a quantitative model for managing mutual awareness of smart social artifacts

What if physical artifacts or devices can be aware of each others' physical presence and location, and interact with each other without user intervention or to enable innovative applications? We propose a model for devices to manage awareness of each other, extending a spatial model of interaction previously used in virtual environments. While there has been previous work on cooperative artifacts, our model is unique in introducing a quantitative technique. Moreover, our model is novel in adding to proximity-based interactions among devices the concepts of the following: 1) aura collision types based on relative locations of devices and 2) multiple (adjustable) levels of awareness and concealment measures so that each device can control how much it wants to be aware of others and how much it wants to be concealed from others. Our model is general and supports awareness of devices in (sufficiently) close physical proximity and the right aura sizes. Such devices' awareness of each other facilitates or triggers interaction, and normally precedes interaction among devices (as in human communication). Our model has numerous applications, from smart soft-toy features to proximity-triggered data exchanges.