An explorative comparison of magic lens and personal projection for interacting with smart objects

One shortcoming of self-describing smart objects augmented with digital resources is the limitation of output modalities due to their long established physical appearances. To overcome this drawback intangible representations e.g., sound, video projection etc. are usually coupled with the tangible representations of smart objects that enable access and interaction with their value added features. In this paper, we explore two mobile interaction techniques that associate such intangible representation to smart objects using a pico projector augmented camera phone. The first technique utilizes a Magic Lens metaphor applying mobile augmented reality (contextual information is overlaid while looking at a smart object through camera) to uncover and interact with smart objects. The second technique, Personal Projection follows similar mechanisms in discovery and interaction, except information is projected onto the nearest surface. We report the implementation of these two techniques and a comparative qualitative study with three prototype smart object applications. The findings give us deeper insights on the positive and negative aspects of these two techniques and open up a range of stimulating research issues that we discuss in the paper.