Real-World Presence in the Era of Ubiquitous Computing

Abstract

In the era of everyday ubiquitous computing, all of us have at least once lost track of time, space or our social environment when using our smartphone. In such situations, we might not feel present in the here and now in the physical real world. Presence has been a long term topic of interest in virtual reality research as the feeling of being there, in a technology-mediated virtual world. However, we have yet to understand our feeling of being here and now in the physical real world under the wide availability and easy accessibility of smartphones. In my thesis, I want to examine the concept of real-world presence from a theoretical, users’ and technology development perspective. I aim at understanding current and developing new mobile solutions, with the goal of supporting our presence in the physical real world.