Mobile Interaction with the Real World: Introduction to the Special Issue

IntRoductIon Mobile phones have become an integral part of our everyday lifestyle and for many it is intolerable to be without it. The usage of these devices is nowadays not just about calling and texting but more and more about browsing the web, writing emails, playing games, consuming media, receiving location-dependent information and participating in social networks. An upcoming, very important aspect is that the mobile device is conceptually not just used for the interaction with digital information but also for the interaction with the real world we are actually living in. Kindberg et al. (2002) did pioneering work in this area through their research on mobile interaction with people, places and things in the real world. When considering the developments towards location-based mobile services in the last years than one could assume that this area is now very well understood and intensively applied in practice. The indirect mobile interaction with other users who are not co-located is also very much explored already through application areas like voice communication, text messaging, social networking applications and instant messengers. The direct mobile interaction with co-located users and the interaction with objects in the surrounding environment is still a field with many open research questions and issues. It is still very problematic to start an interaction via a mobile device with the mobile device of another person close by or with several co-located persons. Although it is technically possible via technologies like Bluetooth, WiFi or Near Field Communication (NFC) most people do not use it because of complicate technical device discovery and selection processes. The main issue is the technology available does not support those interactions on a level we are used to, such as moving objects or changing their orientation with our hands, pointing onto objects or gestures towards an object. Once a connection between co-located users is established it is still questionable how they can or should interact with each other whereby important aspects such as privacy issues, social protocols or collaborative aspects have to be considered. ii Mobile interaction with smart objects, displays and surfaces in the environment were the focus of many research projects in the last decade leading to new interaction metaphors, But we are far from arguing that aspects such as the selection of one or several objects and the interaction with them are solved. One field that gathered quite some interest is the usage of pointing-based …