Happylife

BACKGROUND Auger's research explores the potential impact of engineering and physical sciences on the economy, public policy, culture and our everyday lives. Auger collaborated with Aberystwyth University Computer Science Department (AUCS), whose research project, in partnership with the Home Office and HM Revenue and Customs, was to develop new informatics technologies to assist in the policing of national borders. Auger, and his collaborators, speculated on how AUCS's research could make the transition from the context of national security into a family home, examining how passive-profiling techniques could be employed to display and mediate the most private and emotive aspects of family life CONTRIBUTION In Happylife, a camera equipped with sensors detects changes in a person's mood and emotion. By analyzing this data the camera may be able to predict future criminal activity. Happylife adapts this technology for keeping peace in the home. A dial, one for each family member, registers current and predicted emotional states. Complex scenarios are created where the significant relationship between the technology and the family is demonstrated: "It was that time of the year. All of the Happylife prediction dials had spun anti-clockwise, like barometers reacting to an incoming storm. We lost David 4 years ago and the system was anticipating our coming sadness. We found this strangely comforting." SIGNIFICANCE This research is an example of how design can work to playfully contextualise or repurpose certain practices and uses of technology, in order to illuminate the possibilities, limitations, and issues inherent in those practices. Happy life underwent further research in collaboration with AUCS and Shenyang Jianzhu University in China, where the technology was installed in a Chinese family home for a test period.