TattleTrail: An Archiving Voice Chat System for Mobile Users Over Internet Protocol

Mobile communication has become a significant part of everyday life. The advent of mobile phones and PDA’s has reinforced the necessity for people to be connected without being physically tied down. Communication is key, but current modalities are restricted to simple protocols such as telephony, and less expressive mediums such as text messaging. TattleTrail is an archiving audio chat application for mobile users that attempts to address current limitations in mobile communication by exploring novel communication modalities using voice as a medium over the flexible Internet Protocol (IP) network. TattleTrail acts as an application server within a mobile audio framework that supports different combinations of synchronous and asynchronous communication channels, archiving of chat messages, and new methods of interactively browsing speech. New transitions between synchronous and asynchronous communication, as well as hybrid channels concurrently supporting both modalities, have been explored, which point to new possibilities for mobile communication. Thesis Supervisor: Christopher Schmandt Title: Principal Research Scientist, MIT Media Laboratory