StateSnap: a snapshot-based interface for state-reproductable operation of networked appliances

This paper describes a snapshot-based interface for networked appliances operations that allows users to store and reproduce the conditions of media contents in those appliances by means of photographed image data of the networked appliances. The conditions of the appliances are stored as metadata in photographed image data and displayed over a display of each appliance. A user can reproduce the state of the appliances with those image data. Furthermore, such a reproduction can be made on other appliances with the same function. Storing the information as image data makes it easy for a user to refer to an exact data out of an enormous amount of data. One of advantages of this system is that, by photographing many appliances at the same time, one image data can hold various appliances conditions. We have developed a prototype system to realize the proposed interface and some applications to confirm its effective usage. We have also confirmed its possibility for practical use through an evaluation of the system´s performance.