CU-later: A communication system considering time difference

Despite the widespread use of technology for social communication across distance, a number of barriers to such contact still exist. One such barrier is the problem of communicating with people in different time zones. To address this problem, we propose the CU-Later system which considers the time difference between two locations. CU-Later is a system which allows synchronizing activities across time zones by displaying recorded video of a remote activity after a time shift. As one example of its use, the system connects two remote dining tables and lets users see and hear each other having dinner despite actually having done so at different times. We discuss the design of this system and a preliminary field test of time-shifted video.