Jogging over a Distance

Jogging over a Distance supports pace awareness through spatialized audio: if you are faster, your friend's voice appears from behind through the headphones, indicating you are 'ahead', if you are slower, you have to increase your effort to catch up!

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We have found through the use of an online survey and Internet forums that joggers often run with others. The main reasons for 'social jogging' were socializing, motivation to run faster, to have more fun, and to be encouraged to run in the first place. However, due to our modern nomadic lifestyle, jogging friends often move apart, and hence we designed "Jogging over a Distance" to allow social joggers, who now live in separate places, to utilize the benefits of running together although being apart.

Jogging over a Distance experienced several iterations, and we now present the latest, Jogging over a Distance 4.0. The video documents a previous version, and a complete history can be found in the publications below. 

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Jogging over a Distance

With Jogging over a Distance, each jogging partner puts on a pair of headphones and wears the remaining equipment in a small pouch around the waist. While each partner jogs, heart rate data is collected and used to position the audio of the conversation in a 2D sound plane, oriented horizontally around the jogger’s head. As one jogger speaks, their partner hears the localized audio and is able to detect whether the audio is coming from the front, the side, or from behind, and thus the other person is putting more effort in, the same, or less. Similar to a collocated setting, the audio cues runners when to speed up or slow down in order to “stay” with their partner. The joggers can discuss running routes, motivate each other to keep pace, or simply listen to the environment noises of the other location.

Marathon Runner with Jogging Novice

Using augmented heart rate data allows joggers with differing athletic abilities to run together: a marathon runner can jog with a complete novice! Thus, the system allows joggers to do something that is not possible when running side by side - challenge their individual effort level while running with friends who run at different intensity.

This approach uses technology not just as a tool to overcome the limitations of distance, but rather as an opportunity to create experiences not possible without the distance: We call it "beyond jogging together". 

 

Technical Implementation

Jogging over a Distance consists of two identical systems, each with a miniature computer, a heart rate monitor (the graphic shows the initial GPS version), a mobile phone connected via Bluetooth for voice and data, and a headset. Heart rate data is collected wireless and sent to the mini computer. The computer then transmits this data via the 3G connection of the mobile phone to a server, which calculates the relative effort people invest into the run. As a result of this, an algorithm calculates a sound position value for each jogger. As each jogger talks, their voice is picked up by a microphone and the audio is transmitted via a mobile phone. (We initially used VoIP technology, but found the lag and reliability insufficient for our purposes.) Before routing the incoming audio from the remote jogger’s mobile phone to the headphones, the mini computer applies a spatialization algorithm to the sound source. The mini computer uses the sound position value received from the server to transform the audio data into spatial 2D audio by placing the sound source onto an imaginary plane around the joggers head. The result is that the jogger hears their partner’s voice coming from a certain direction.

Background

We were initially interested in the experience joggers would have if they would communicate with a remote partner through an audio channel only, and therefore asked 18 volunteers to go running at the same time, but in opposite directions, equipped with a mobile phone and a Bluetooth headset. We were intrigued by how much of a sense of presence the audio conveyed to the participants: they not only mentioned hearing the other person’s voice, but also the wind, the noise of the footsteps depending on the ground surface, and the breathing of the remote jogger, which they amounted to a social and enjoyable experience. Two of the participants took up our idea and decided to jog regularly together through a mobile phone connection beyond the duration of the study, confirming that remote jogging with an audio interface can result in a desirable experience.

Acknowledgements

This work was based on a survey on social jogging, which was initially supported by CeNTIE (Centre for Networking Technologies for the Information Economy), which is supported by the Australian Government through the Advanced Networks Program (ANP) of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts and the CSIRO ICT Centre. A newer version of the system was supported by Distance Lab, UK. We would like to thank Stefan Agamanolis, Matt Karau, Andrea Taylor, Elena Corchero, Chris Wolf and all our participants. Thanks also to Lana Dauberman for shooting the video.

Publications

Mueller, F., Vetere, F., Gibbs, M. R., Agamanolis, S., & Sheridan, J. (2010) Jogging over a Distance: The Influence of Design in Parallel Exertion Games. ACM Siggraph 2010. 

Mueller, F. (2009) Digital Sport: Merging Gaming with Sports to Enhance Physical Activities Such as Jogging. In Digital Sport for Performance Enhancement and Competitive Evolution: Intelligent Gaming Technologies. http://www.igi-global.com/reference/details.asp?ID=33413&v=tableOfContents

Mueller, F., (2008) Long-distance sports, in Computers in Sports book, Dabnichki, P., Baca, A. (eds.), WIT Press, UK.

O'Brien, S. & Mueller, F. (2007) Jogging the distance. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems. San Jose, California, USA, ACM. Note CHI ’07 (acceptance rate 25%, tier 1+)

Mueller, F. O’Brien, S., Thorogood, A. (2007) Jogging over a Distance – Citywide. Demo PerGames’07-Pervasive Gaming Applications (acceptance rate 50%)

Mueller, F., O’Brien, S., Thorogood, A. (2007) Jogging over a Distance. Interactivity CHI ’07 (tier 1+)

Mueller, F., O'Brien, S. & Thorogood, A. (2007) Jogging over a Distance: Supporting a "Jogging Together" Experience Although Being Apart. CHI '07: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. San Jose, CA, USA. ACM, 2579 - 2584. 

O’Brien, S., Cole, L., Mueller, F. (2006) Holding Hands Over a Distance: Technology Probes in an Intimate, Mobile Context, OzCHI ‘06

 

Press

TechNewsDaily: Interactive game keeps jogging buddies in touch 

Discovery News: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/05/10/joggingbuddy_tec.html?category=technology&guid=20070510100000

ABC: http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1920528.htm?tech

The University of Melbourne Voice: http://uninews.unimelb.edu.au/articleid_4246.html

Bright magazine (Netherlands): http://www.bright.nl/solo-sociaal-hardlopen-zet-aan-tot-grotere-prestaties

Information Aesthetics: http://infosthetics.com/archives/2007/05/jogging_over_a_distance.html

Textually.org: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2007/05/015897.htm

Engadget: http://podcasts.engadget.com/2007/05/14/jogging-over-distance-technology-makes-it-a-social-experience/

ACM Tech News: http://technews.acm.org/archives.cfm?fo=2007-05-may/may-14-2007.html#311543

A2mediagroup: http://www.a2mediagroup.com/pdf.php?a=15087

What's new: http://www.whatsnew.tv/Article.aspx?id=143

Computerpoweruser: http://www.computerpoweruser.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2Farchive%2Fc0709%2F64c09%2F64c09.asp

IGI Global: http://www.igi-global.com/newsletter/may09/MayShape.html

Radio: (broadcasted in Australia as part of whatsnew.tv) jogging_over_a_distance.mp3

 

Video

The video from above is also available to download (right-click, save as) in MPEG 2 format (DVD quality, 39 MB) and iPod format (MP4, 8 MB).

 

 

• Book Chapters and Journal Articles

• Conference papers, peer-reviewed

• Workshops and Panels

• Theses

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Book Chapters and Journal Articles

 Mueller, F., Gibbs, M. R., & Frank, V. (2010). Towards Understanding how to Design for Social Play in Exertion Games. Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 14(5), 417-424. Springer Publisher.

Mueller, F. & Agamanolis, S. (2009) Interaction Design in Sports. In Design for Sport book. To appear 2009.

Mueller, F., Gibbs, M. R. & Vetere, F. (2009) An Exploration of Exertion in Mixed Reality Systems via the “Table Tennis for Three” Game. In Dubois, E., Gray, P., Nigay, L. (Eds.) Engineering of Mixed Reality Systems. To appear 2009.

Mueller, F. & Berthouze, N. (2009) Evaluating Exertion Games - Experiences from Investigating Movement-Based Games. In Bernhaupt, R. (Ed.) Evaluating User Experiences in Games. To appear 2009.

Wulf, V., Mueller, F., Moritz, S., Stevens, G. & Gibbs, M. (2009) Computer Supported Collaborative Sports: An Emerging Paradigm. In Digital Technology and Sport. http://www.igi-global.com/reference/details.asp?ID=33413&v=tableOfContents

Mueller, F. (2009) Digital Sport: Merging Gaming with Sports to Enhance Physical Activities Such as Jogging. In Digital Sport for Performance Enhancement and Competitive Evolution: Intelligent Gaming Technologies. http://www.igi-global.com/reference/details.asp?ID=33413&v=tableOfContents

Mueller, F., Gibbs, M., Vetere, F. & Agamanolis, S. (2008) Design space of networked exertion games demonstrated by a three-way physical game based on Table Tennis. ACM Computers in Entertainment, 6, 1-31.

Mueller, F., (2008) Long-distance sports, in Computers in Sports book, Dabnichki, P., Baca, A. (eds.), WIT Press, UK.

Mueller, F., & Gibbs, M. R. (2008). The Design of Networked Exertion Games. Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting, 5, 13.

Mueller, F., (2007) Connecting Cities via Distributed Physical Activity, in Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: the Next Level book, Borries, F., Walz, S., Böttger, M. (eds.), Birkhäuser.

Mueller, F., (2007) Games over a Distance: Playing Together Although Apart Using Exertion Interfaces in Concepts and Technologies for Pervasive Games - A Reader for Pervasive Gaming Research, Magerkurth, C., Röcker, C. (eds.), Shaker, Germany.

Mueller, F., Stevens, G., Thorogood, A., O’Brien, S., Wulf, V. (2007) Sports over a Distance. Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Special Issue on Movement Based Interaction. Springer Publisher.

Mueller, F., (2006) Auf Die Harte Tour, i-com Journal, Special Issue on Playful Computing. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Vol. 5, Issue 3, pp. 19–24.

Mueller, F., Agamanolis, S. (2005) Sports over a Distance. ACM Journal: Computers in Entertainment, Vol. 3, 3, July 2005

 

 

 

Conference papers, peer-reviewed

 Mueller, F., Edge, D., Vetere, F., Gibbs, M. R., Agamanolis, S., Bongers, B., & Sheridan, J. G. (2011). Designing Sports: A Framework for Exertion Games. In CHI '11: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Vancouver, Canada.

 Mueller, F., Vetere, F., Gibbs, M. R., Edge, D., Agamanolis, S., & Sheridan, J. G. (2010). Jogging over a distance between Europe and Australia. In UIST '10. Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, New York, New York, USA.

Mueller, F., Vetere, F., Gibbs, M. R., Agamanolis, S., & Sheridan, J. (2010) Jogging over a Distance: The Influence of Design in Parallel Exertion Games. ACM Siggraph 2010.

 Mueller, F., Agamanolis, S., Vetere, F. & Gibbs, M. R. (2009) Brute force interactions: leveraging intense physical actions in gaming. Proceedings of the 21th Australasian conference on Computer-Human Interaction. Melbourne, Australia, ACM. OzCHI 2009 (tier 2)

Mueller, F., Agamanolis, S., Vetere, F. & Gibbs, M. R. (2009) A Framework for Exertion Interactions over a Distance. ACM SIGGRAPH 2009. ACM.

Mueller, F. (2009) Exertion in Networked Games. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games. Doctoral Consortium Extended Abstracts. Orlando, Florida. ACM, 346-348. 

Mueller, F, Gibbs, M & Vetere, F (2009) Design Influence on Social Play in Distributed Exertion Games. CHI '09: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Boston, MA, USA. ACM Press, New York, USA, 1539-1548.

Mueller, F., Gibbs, M. R., & Vetere, F. (2009). The Mousegrip. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Human factors in Computing Systems, Extended Abstract. 3199-3204 

Mueller, F, Agamanolis, S, Gibbs, M & Vetere, F (2009) Remote Impact: Shadowboxing over a Distance. CHI'09: Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Extended Abstracts. Boston, MA, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3531-3532.

Mueller, F, Agamanolis, S, Gibbs, M & Vetere, F (2009) Brute Force Interface: Leveraging Intense Physical Exertion in Whole Body Interactions. Workshop on Whole-Body Interactions. CHI'09: Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Extended Abstracts. Boston, MA, USA. http://lister.cms.livjm.ac.uk/homepage/staff/cmsdengl/WBI2009

Mueller, F., Gibbs, M. & Vetere, F. (2008) Taxonomy of Exertion Games. OzCHI '08: Proceedings of the 20th Australasian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction. Cairns, Australia. ACM, 263-266. 

Mueller, F., Agamanolis, S., Vetere, F. & Gibbs, M. R. (2008) Remote Impact: Shadowboxing over a Distance. ACM SIGGRAPH 2008 posters. Los Angeles, California, ACM. Siggraph ‘08 (tier 1+)

Mueller, F., Agamanolis, S., Gibbs, M. & Vetere, F. (2008) Remote Impact: Shadowboxing over a Distance. CHI '08 Extended Abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. Florence, Italy, ACM. CHI 2008 (tier 1+) 

Mueller, F. & Gibbs, M. (2007) Evaluating a distributed physical leisure game for three players. Conference of the computer-human interaction special interest group (CHISIG) of Australia on Computer-human interaction: OzCHI'07. Adelaide, Australia, ACM. (tier 2)

Mueller, F. & Gibbs, M. (2007) A physical three-way interactive game based on table tennis. Proceedings of the 4th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment. Melbourne, Australia, RMIT University. (acceptance rate 50%, tier 2)

Mueller, F., Gibbs, M. Table tennis over a distance. Demo, Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment, Australia. 2007. (tier 2)

Mueller, F., Vetere, F., Gibbs, M. (2007) Design Experiences with Networked Exertion Games. PerGames ’07-Pervasive Gaming Applications (acceptance rate 50%)

O'Brien, S. & Mueller, F. (2007) Jogging the distance. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems. San Jose, California, USA, ACM. Note CHI ’07 (acceptance rate 25%, tier 1+)

Mueller, F., O'Brien, S. & Thorogood, A. (2007) Jogging over a Distance: Supporting a "Jogging Together" Experience Although Being Apart. CHI '07: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. San Jose, CA, USA. ACM, 2579 - 2584.  

Mueller, F., Agamanolis, S., Vetere, F. & Gibbs, M. R. (2007) Brute force as input for networked gaming. Proceedings of the 19th Australasian conference on Computer-Human Interaction: Entertaining User Interfaces. Adelaide, Australia, ACM. OzCHI 2007 (tier 2)

Mueller, F. (2007) A Low-Cost Approach to Exertion Games. Poster PerGames’07-Pervasive Gaming Applications (acceptance rate 50%)

Mueller, F. O’Brien, S., Thorogood, A. (2007) Jogging over a Distance – Citywide. Demo PerGames’07-Pervasive Gaming Applications (acceptance rate 50%)

Mueller, F., Gibbs, M. (2007) Building a Table Tennis Game for Three Players. Short paper ACE ‘07-Advances in Computer Entertainment ACM SIGCHI (tier 1)

Mueller, F. (2007) How to Build a Hard-to-Use Mouse. Poster ACE ‘07-Advances in Computer Entertainment ACM SIGCHI 2007 (tier 1)

Mueller, F. (2007) Evaluating a Networked Exertion Game. Workshop ACE’07

Mueller, F., O’Brien, S., Thorogood, A. (2007) Jogging over a Distance. Interactivity CHI ’07 (tier 1+)

Mueller, F., Gibbs, M. (2007) Table Tennis for Three-the video. alt.chi CHI ‘07 (tier 1+)

Mueller, F., Cole, L., O'Brien, S. & Walmink, W. (2006) Airhockey over a distance: a networked physical game to support social interactions. Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGCHI international conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology. Hollywood, California, ACM. (acceptance rate 12%, tier 1)

Mueller, F., Kethers, S., Alem, L., Wilkinson, R. (2006) From the Certainty of Information Transfer to the Ambiguity of Intuition. OzCHI ’06 (acceptance rate 51%, tier 2)

Vetere, F., Gibbs, M., Kjeldskov, J., Howard, S., Mueller, F., Pedell, S., Mecoles, K., Bunyan, M. (2005) Mediating Intimacy: Designing Technologies to Support Strong-Tie Relationships. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems, CHI '05 (acceptance rate 25%, tier 1+)

Mueller, F., Cole, L., O’Brien, S., Walmink, W. (2006) Airhockey over a Distance – the video, CSCW ’06- Computer Supported Cooperative Work ACM (tier 1)

Mueller, F., Kethers, S., Alem, L., Wilkinson, R. From Information Transfer to Ambiguity in Hospital Handovers, CSCW ‘06- Computer Supported Cooperative Work ACM (tier 1)

Mueller, F., Gibbs, M. (2006) A Table Tennis Game for Three Players.  OzCHI ‘06 (tier 2)

O’Brien, S., Cole, L., Mueller, F. (2006) Holding Hands Over a Distance: Technology Probes in an Intimate, Mobile Context, OzCHI ‘06 (tier 3)

Mueller, F., Cole, L., O’Brien, S., Walmink, W. (2006) Airhockey over a Distance. CHI '06, ACM 2006, 1133-1138 (tier 1)

Mueller, F., Vetere, F., Gibbs, M., Kjeldskov, J., Pedell, S., Howard, S. Hug over a Distance. CHI '05 (tier 1)

Mueller, F., Agamanolis, S. & Picard, R. (2003) Exertion Interfaces: Sports over a Distance for Social Bonding and Fun. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, ACM. CHI 2003 (acceptance rate 16%, tier 1+)

Mueller, F., Agamanolis, S. (2003) Breakout for Two. Ubicomp 2003-Ubiquitous Computing (tier 1+)

Mueller, F., Agamanolis, S., Picard, R. (2002) Exertion Interfaces for Sports over a Distance. UIST 2002-ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (tier 1)

Mueller, F., Thomaz, E. (2001) ImpactTV: Controlling Media with Physical Objects. HCI International 2001 (tier 3)

 

Workshops and Panels

Bernhaupt, R., IJsselsteijn, W., Mueller, F., Tscheligi, M., Wixon, D., Evaluating User Experience in Games, Workshop Co-Organizer. CHI ’08.

Mueller, F., Agamanolis, S. Exertion Interfaces. Workshop Organizers. CHI ’08.

Mueller, F., Agamanolis, S. Exertion Interfaces. Workshop Organizers. CHI ’07.

Mueller, F. Exertion in Interactive Entertainment. Panel, Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment, Australia. 2007. (tier 2)

Florian 'Floyd' Mueller was also invited panel speaker on "Interactivity", speaking about Exertion Interfaces at CHI ‘07
Florian 'Floyd' Mueller was also invited Member of the Interactivity Jury for CHI ‘07

 

 

Theses

 Mueller, F.,  (2005) Exertion Interfaces: Sports over a Distance for Social Bonding and Fun. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Arts and Sciences Thesis