Paper Reading #15: Jogging over a Distance between Europe and Australia

Comments:
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Reference Information:
Title: Jogging over a Distance between Europe and Australia
Authors: Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller, Frank Vetere, Martin R. Gibbs, Darren Edge, Stefan Agamanolis,
              Jennifer G.  Sheridan
Presentation Venue: UIST’10, October 3–6, 2010, New Yomrk, New York, USA

Summary:

This paper is about a project that social joggers can use to have a social experience with others from long distances. A social jogger is somebody who uses jogging to spend time with others to do such things as 'catch up with what is going in their friends life'.  A person can choose to jog with anybody in the world and use features that allow communication and a feature that let's each person know if they are running together or ahead or behind the other.

 
Communication is done with the other person through a headset. The communication channel is through a cell phone that is stored in a mini pouch around the persons waist. Through the headset multiple people can talk to each other from anywhere in the world.

The pacing feature is done through a mini-computer inside the pouch around each persons waste. Before jogging the user must enter a target heart rate so the system has knowledge of what should be average for each user. The heart rate of the user is kept track of during exercise through a wireless heart monitor on the users chest. This system allows people to run together even if they are in completely different condition. If one persons heart rate is above their average jogging heart rate then that means they are running faster. The other user is made aware of this through the headset. The other person will sound like they are running ahead and the other behind. If both users are running at their target heart rate they will sound like they are right next to each other.

Some things worth noting are most users thought this was better than actually running with somebody in person. They felt safer running alone at night because of the constant and direct communication with another person. Most people jogged in parks so headset didn't interfere with traffic sounds.

Discussion:


This was a very interesting paper because from experience I can understand how difficult it is to jog with somebody else. You have to slow down or speed up constantly and it is often hard to communicate because you are breathing so hard or maybe they aren't close enough to you. This system allows each person to run at their own speed but at the same time know how they are doing in real time compared to their partner in case they want to try and keep up with them on an exercise level. This system is also cool because it could allow friends from all over the world to have a social experience in a different way unless maybe they were jogging partners in the past.  I think this type of idea is perfect for casual/social joggers. I also like how the results of how each person is doing compared to the other is given in real time and not when they are done jogging.