The following text gives a comprehensive insight in how we think about communication and collaboration. At the end you will find links further interesting readings from our research partners at the Fraunhofer Society:
Communication processes are as old as mankind itself. In stone-age cultures the elders and the wise met the rest of their tribe around the communal fire. Today such meetings take place as a necessary bridge between the individual and the community at fixed times and at a central location. They form the basis of a necessary ritual for creating a sense of community and preserving identity by defining and depicting social rules of behaviour as hierarchical and power structures. In this respect, the subject is an ”old” one, but does, however, gain new dimensions as a result of the rapid development of communication and information technology.
Communication within a community always needed specific locations and areas as we have remained ”instinctively territorial creatures” in terms of hereditary behaviour until today. The abstract meanings of words such as ”place” in the sense of belonging, of possessing and of a sense of security show how closely our thoughts and actions, our feelings and social links are related to concrete locations. The functions of communication processes and how they are reflected in space planning, have been subject to a constant process of development and differentiation over thousands of years.
When we speak of the ”age of communication” today we mean worldwide data networks and almost unlimited physical mobility, which lead to the exponential growth of knowledge and information worldwide.
The availability of information is therefore both the prerequisite and driving force of competitive advantages and technical progress. The phenomena of globalization and specialization are the direct result of the material and mental mobility of an information society, in which communication has become the decisive innovation factor.
The basics were described by Dr. Dr. Norbert Streitz
Roomware: Towards the next generation of human-computer interaction based on an integrated design of real and virtual worlds
another article in the IEEE Computer Society Magazine
Roomware: Computers Disappear and Interaction Evolves
Christan Müller Tomfelde cares about the non-interactive part of the InteracTable
Interactive Tabletops with Non-Interactive Rims
