balance using transparency

In the field of Ubiquitous Computing, we are facing a lot of embarrassments. We bring computers into everywhere, but we are concerned about our privacy. We try to make computers more intelligent, but we don't want to lose control. We would like to share more over the network, but we're not always sure whether we share too much. In a word, where is the balance?

For some reason, I have been playing with the idea to use tranparency, or degree of blurness, to find this balance. One application in my mind is a background screen for a community, a project team or whatever. An example is shown in the picture below.


(balance using transparency)

So the grey rectangle represents such a screen, on which each small icon is a live video of a room, and the largest one is my own room, which could be a meeting room, a lab, or an individual's office. The black gadget below is something like a remote for users to control the degree of blurness, the transparency or the volume or whatever, kind of let the user control how clear he would like to reveal himself and his environment.

A possible scenario goes like this: we are a department, and we install this screen in each of our rooms for us to keep aware of some activities around. I participate in this community, so I have one screen in my office too. For example, A is a meeting room, there are always some presentations there. For a presentation, I am not sure whether I'd like to join. If the presentation is totally public, then the video is very clear, so I can see who are there, how many people are there, which helps me decide whether it is a good one or whether it is relevant or not based on the attendence. If it is a meeting, but not public, the meeting people can make it kind of blur, we can only see there is meeting there, but have no idea who are in the meeting, and what the meeting is. If the room is a lab I am working with, it is public to me, I can always see what's going on there. For instance, if I see my teammates are getting together, discussing, I probably would go there to join them, or increase the volume of that video to get some sense of what's going on. I would also be able to see my teammate's offices, and they can see me too. It is always reciprocal, you know. I can control how much I'd like to reveal my office to them. If I am reading, and I don't want to be bothered, I make my video very blur, meaning I am having my private time but still let them know I am at office. If I am working on my project, I would like to be very clear, meaning I am public now and let them know I am working on that, so if we have questions, we can discuss right awa. I can also control what to show, and in which angle the video should be taken. All the controls are done with the remote.

Several characteristics with this specific application:
1. I control the degree of clearness and volume of sound to control how much I want to reveal myself
2. it is at my background, most of time, it is quiet, and especially after I get used to it. Once in a while, a glimpse of it can give me some information of my environment and keep me current about what's going on in my department and have control about how much I'd like to get involved. If nothing special, i go back to my own business. If I find there are a lot of people in a room, and it is very clear, I can choose to increase the volume of that, and to get some sense of what's going on, and decide what I should do in that case.
3. So it is about sharing, and we can choose how much to share, because we can see ourselves on the screen too. It is reciprocal, so according to the screen we know who are able to see me, which helps me to decide how much I'd like to share.
4. The system just bring the information to me, it is me to notice something, analyize and control how much I'd like to invovle if something special happens. I am in control!

Part of this idea is from my own experience. Sometimes, I'd like to study in a chair, with TV on, but without sound. So the TV is not intrusive at all. Once in a while, I look up from my own books, make a glimpse of the TV, if I see something unusually, I'd increase the volume of the sound, and listen to it. If some Ads come up, I decrease the volume and go back to my own study. With this practice, I can keep current with the news with not so much cost. It is very simple, just to use remote change the volume. The information keeps flowing into my living room, and I am in control how much I'd accept it. I works very well for me at least.

I came across a vedio sort of close to the idea to control the degree of clearness:
http://www.ralphammer.de/hp/flash/Berlin_engl.html

As for research, what potential things I can get out from it:
1. to explore the idea of design for experience. It is not to make some tasks easier or efficient. It is an experience for users. It is concerned about how users reveal themselves and get involved in the community, with the change of sense of spatiality by the system.

2.to explore the idea of holistic design. Since users are important part of the system, in the sense they themselves are the information, they control how to present the information, and they also analyze and make sense of the information with social practice(join the meeting, go to have chat with teammates. )and users' s social behavior based on the information. How such a system should be designed? How should the designers work with users? What elements should we take into account to design such a system? What methods, artifacts and social practices should be used to design such a system?

3. It could be used as a testbed to study privacy issues, attention practices and community.

The issues with this idea is:
1. Why would users pay extra effort to control the clearness?

2. Is it true that less tranparent, or less clear, then less privact information?
3. what are the privacy concerns with this setting? Is it 1 or 0 case? That means if I agree to use video, I don't have privacy concern. Or else I won't use vedio at all.

I don't know!