SCN: Presence awareness

[Steve]

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(Lisa Guernsey, NY Times)---Making a phone call has always 
been a game of chance. You never know whether the person you 
are calling is available. You just punch in the numbers and hope to 
get lucky.    

Imagine being able to learn without dialing a single digit whether 
another person's phone is in use, or in the case of a cellphone, 
whether it is even turned on. Now imagine being able to do the 
same thing with any wired or wireless device of the future  -  
whether it is in the car, in an airplane or at the gym. Not only could 
you learn whether a person is available for a chat, but you could 
also deduce what that person might be doing at that exact moment, 
all without exchanging a word.    

That is the idea behind a programming concept called presence 
awareness, which is based on the realization that appliances on a 
network can automatically be detected by other devices.    

"The days of phone tag are on the way out," said Sonu Aggarwal, 
chief executive of Cordant, a company that develops instant-
messaging technology. "This is a very powerful concept with long-
term implications."    

Many software developers predict that presence technology will 
become almost as ubiquitous as communication devices 
themselves. In six months, Motorola officials say, the company will 
roll out a system that will allow a caller to tell whether another 
person's mobile phone is on and whether it is in use. Nokia and 
Ericsson, among several other telecommunications companies, are 
also developing the technology, for use in either land-line or 
wireless phones.    

Presence technology is also being considered for hand-held 
computers, wireless Web pads, communications systems in cars, 
and even exercise machines that provide Internet access at the 
gym. Some systems, the officials say, will go as far as using 
tracking systems like the Global Positioning System, or G.P.S., to 
detect the location of a person who is logged in.    

The prospect of information that can reveal a person's availability 
at a given moment, anywhere in the world strikes many people as 
both creepy and intriguing.    

Katelyn Y. A. McKenna, an assistant professor at New York 
University who conducts research on Internet relationships, has 
found that people are comforted when they can see the distant 
movements of people from their inner circles, like family and 
friends. Devices that use presence technology could provide such 
reassurance.    

"You could see that you could instantaneously reach these people 
if you need them," Dr. McKenna said. "I know my mother would be 
extremely reassured if she could see, 'Oh, she's off the plane; her 
cellphone came on; she's landed.'"    

But along with comfort comes the unnerving feeling of being 
watched, a lesson that has been experienced by millions of instant 
messaging users. By keeping track of the activity on their Buddy 
Lists, people with I.M. can use log-in information to get a sense of 
their buddies' routines  -  when they arrive at work, when they are 
online at home on a weekend, or in some cases how long they 
have been away from their computers. Information that was private 
(or at least not easy to acquire) can become known  -  with little 
effort  -  by employers, co-workers, friends, family members and, 
sometimes, by strangers.    

"When you have these technologies you really expose yourself 
and your day to a lot of people," said Bonnie A. Nardi, an 
anthropologist at Agilent Technologies, a company that makes 
high-tech monitoring devices.    

After spending a few years studying instant messaging, Dr. Nardi 
said she became aware of the subtle impact of presence 
technology on people's lives. It is time, she said, to think about 
"what we want people to know about what we are doing at a given 
moment."    

Software programmers and executives have begun talking about 
how to capitalize on presence technology's potential. For example, 
at Dynamicsoft, officials have discussed how presence software, 
wireless hand-held computers and G.P.S. tracking could alert a 
person when a friend happened to be a few blocks away. A phone-
based system could also automatically plug in teleconference 
participants the instant everyone in the group was available.    

In the future, Mr. Aggarwal of Cordant said, technology might be so 
integrated that a traveler could wear a wireless badge that 
interacts with a computer on the back of an airplane seat. When 
the computer sensed that the traveler was seated, it could 
automatically redirect messages to the computer's screen or send 
word to the traveler's contacts that he was on board.    

The only widely available version of the technology currently in 
use is instant messaging. If I.M.'s popularity is any indication, 
people may be ready to embrace the possibilities of presence 
detection.    

More than 50 million people in the United States use instant-
messaging products today, according to industry estimates, and 
many of those people say that their favorite aspect of the 
technology is the ability to see whether a buddy is online.    

Still, even some of the technology's adherents acknowledge how 
strange it is to remotely broadcast their whereabouts. Mr. Aggarwal 
uses MSN Messenger, which displays a clock icon in the contact 
list to indicate when a person has not touched the keyboard or 
mouse for, say, five minutes. As soon as he resumes use of his 
keyboard or mouse, the clock goes away. Often, he said, he gets a 
phone calls the minute he hits the keys, and the caller is invariably 
someone who had been waiting for that icon to disappear.    

"Without my being aware, people are watching me," Mr. Aggarwal 
said.    

Hints of a coming struggle between privacy and openness turned 
up in a recent project at Bell Labs, the research and development 
arm of Lucent Technologies. In the project, which was called Rear 
View Mirror, a scientist, Dr. James Herbsleb, and several 
colleagues studied a group of Lucent employees in American and 
European offices who used a Bell Labs instant messaging system 
for more than a year. Privacy issues arose from the start.    

"Some people in Germany said, 'This looks like a surveillance tool 
for us,'" Dr. Herbsleb said.    

He added that they did not like the idea that supervisors could 
detect  -  and therefore monitor  -  exactly how long they had been 
online and how much time they had spent typing on their 
keyboards.    

As a result, Bell Labs researchers altered the software to give 
users complete control. The program's default options were set to 
make users appear to be offline. If people wanted co-workers to 
know they had logged in, they had to turn on the feature that 
displayed their availability.    

That solution did not work very well, Dr. Herbsleb said. The 
software, which was intended to avoid problems like phone tag, 
was useless if people had to badger colleagues to announce their 
availability. Besides, he said, it missed the point of presence 
technology, which is useful precisely because it senses what is 
going on without any action by a user.    

Ultimately, the researchers and employees compromised. The 
presence system was automatically turned on for people within 
small work groups. People outside those groups had to get 
colleagues' permission to watch their movements. "Don't allow 
people to just lurk and spy," Dr. Herbsleb said.    

But as staying in touch electronically becomes the mark of modern 
movers and shakers, many people say they will gladly allow their 
presence to be known in exchange for the convenience of constant 
contact. "It's sort of like leaving the front door open, and saying, 
'Come on in; don't even knock,' " said David Wertheimer, who 
writes a daily Web log called Netwert and is an avid user of instant 
messaging software.    

Software developers say they can design presence awareness 
systems to accommodate both those who seek privacy and those 
who want constant contact. Yahoo and Microsoft, for example, 
include privacy features in their instant messaging products. Users 
must grant permission before their names can be added to 
someone's contact list. Instant Messenger, both the stand-alone 
version and the one embedded in AOL's Internet service, does not 
allow that level of control. Users have no way of knowing whether 
someone has added their screen names to a buddy list.    

Michele Magazine, a publishing consultant in Manhattan who 
briefly used the Instant Messenger program from America Online, 
said she was troubled by the lack of privacy. "I don't want people to 
know when I'm at home," she said. "There was no way to hide."    

Whether people will use permission features or other blocking 
tools is another question. Social pressure can be a powerful 
disincentive. Some teenagers who use instant messaging 
programs, for example, said they would not block their peers 
because they would not want to seem rude.    

Consider something like the following alert showing up on your 
screen: "Bill wants to put you on his buddy list. Do you accept?" If 
Bill is merely a distant acquaintance, and you decline, will it look 
like a snub? Suppose your girlfriend can tell that you are in your 
office, using your computer but not your phone. If she decides to 
call and you don't answer, she may think: "Why not? Clearly you 
are available. Are you ignoring me?"    

The Internet Engineering Task Force, the group that develops 
standards for Internet communication, has been thinking about 
several such implications, according to the engineers involved. 
One of them is Jonathan Rosenberg, chief scientist for 
Dynamicsoft and a co-author of the task force's standards for 
presence and instant messaging technology.    

Dr. Rosenberg has come up with an answer for the social dilemma 
of managing privacy without appearing rude. His idea is 
appropriately called polite blocking, and it works something like a 
little white lie. Users could appear to be busy with phone calls 
when, in fact, they might be blissfully enjoying a few minutes of 
solitude.    

There is another alternative, of course: People could extricate 
themselves from the technology often enough to keep their 
contacts guessing. A contact may determine that someone's mobile 
phone is on  -  and it very well may be, but it may also be sitting at 
home.    

"Until we get to the bioimplant," said Craig Peddie, who works on 
presence technology at Motorola, "we won't be able to know that 
you really have it with you."    


Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company  





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