jive is a range of devices that you buy your grandparents. To let them keep up to date and stay in touch with you.

What is jive?

jive is a proof of concept for a new communication device. Jive was created as part of Ben Arent's product design degree. Jive is a range of 3 products that were designed to get elderly technophobes connected to their friends and family.

jive negates 3 major point of pain, which is currently stopping elderly users getting connected.

• 'getting online'
  one plug router solves this problem by being pre-loaded with ISP setting at POS. So setup is a true plug and play experience.

• 'loading and sharing contact details'
  jive uses friend passes to link a physical persons ID with digital life. A user simply links a friend pass to their friend feed account. This will then seamlessly update all of this data onto betty.

• No Mouse Needed
  To operate jive you simply place an avatar onto 'betty's' display. So if you want to send a message you just place betty on the left of the screen, and you can now send a message to that person.

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Find out more.

• The development process.

• Technical Details.

• Invest in 'jive' / Buy my Patent.

• See betty and jive at Middlesex Product Design graduate show. June 7th - 9th at the Trumen Brewery; London.

• PRESS - Get your info here.


• New Make your own tangible user interface!

Loading Friends.

a friend pass is the way in which you link your friends data to 'betty'. A friend pass can also be used to communicate with the person in it using the tangible user interface of betty. This simply means place a person on the screen and this person will be updated

Exploring Friends.

If you want to find out more specific details about a person you can just place that persons 'friend pass' onto the screen. The screen will automatically know who that person is, and upload specific updates about that person.

Staying In Touch.

When you want to send a message to a person you use their friend pass on the left of the screen. This activates the send a message dialogue.

You can now just pull out the keyboard, and send that person a message.

Any returned message will come up when you place a friend pass to the right of the screen.

Find out more about the interface design in the technical details.

Getting Connected.

jive come with a 'one plug router'. When jive is purchased all setup details are embedded into the router. This means that the user just plugs that router into the phone, plugs in the power and flicks the switch.

Wireless internet is now setup, so 'betty' can receive all of her updates via the web.

jive's connection is free!

yes. jive can be free. as 'betty' will display updates in home, this on screen can be used for targeting advertising that will be used to subsidize the ADSL internet connection.

Currently the 'grey pound' holds 80% of the nations wealth. Yet they are an under advertised market. jive will allow for specific demographic, and recommendation based advertising possibility. Now your Gran can understand what an Amazon wish list is, or just buy the latest shoes from Hotter Shoes.

Keeping up to date.

When 'betty' isn't being interacted with she will scroll short updates and display the latest photos of all friends that are registered with jive.

This data is from an online aggregation service, which stores links to all the information about you. Plus you can link your mobile phone, so keeping your Gran up to date with everything your up to is easy.