Abstract. This paper describes a study on the influence of personal and shared play objects on the amount of social interaction. The study makes use of Swinxs, a commercially available game console that uses the strength of digital games to facilitate physically active games that can be played indoor or outdoor. A Frisbee-like object called Swinxsbee has been designed to support new game possibilities for Swinxs and stimulate social interaction. The results of a user evaluation show that children playing with shared objects engage in more social interaction than children playing with personal objects. Furthermore we observed that when games require much physical activity, this might have a negative influence on the level of social interaction, while games demanding creativity might have a positive influence.

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Abstract:People capture more and more photographs leading to large personal photo collections that require much time and effort to organize. A lack of organization can have a negative effect on photo retrieval and photo sharing. In this user-centred design case study we have explored new possibilities for organizing and sharing photographs. To organize photographs the concept Living Media was created; automatic positive selection based on which photographs are viewed more often and viewed for a longer time. These photographs are apparently more interesting and therefore they will keep their appearance; less popular photographs will slowly fade to black over time. To share Living Media away from the computer the device Pearl was designed. Pearl has an integrated pico projector that projects an interactive collage of Living Media in a living room.Interaction with the collage, such as deleting unwanted photographs from the collage, gives input to the selection procedure of Living Media. Placing Pearl at a distance creates a larger projection size, suitable for sharing photographs with a group of people. Our design is evaluated in two small user studies, where we found benefits and challenges of using a combination of positive selection and pico projectors for photowork and photo sharing.

Summary: The first aim of this work was to study the solid‐state copolymerization (SSP) of bis(2‐hydroxyethyl)terephthalate (BHET) with poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT) by FTIR spectroscopy. The development of the chemical microstructure during the SSP‐reaction was examined as a function of the BHET content, showing the different regimes. The thermal behaviour of the resulting copolymers with different BHET contents was also investigated during cooling using infra‐red dynamic spectra. For low BHET‐concentrations, only crystallization of PBT‐sequences was observed, while for high BHET‐concentrations, only crystallization of PET‐sequences was detectable with a cross‐over behaviour for intermediate concentrations.