Using social geometry to manage interruptions and co-worker attention in office environments

Social geometry is a novel technique for reasoning about the engagement of participants during group meetings on the basis of head orientation data provided by computer vision. This form of group context can be used by ubiquitous environments to route communications between users, or sense availability of users for interruption. We explored problems of distraction by co-workers in office cubicle farms, applying our method to the design of a cubicle that automatically regulates visual and auditory communications between users.