TouchPort

TouchPort: Allow Me Into Your Dream, a Handshake-based Mixed Reality Sharing Protocol

Abstract

As mixed reality wearables approach mainstream adoption, we face a future of fragmented realities where each user inhabits their own isolated augmented layer—their own siloed "digital umwelt." TouchPort addresses this challenge by reprotocolizing the handshake—humanity's oldest social protocol—to enable spontaneous sharing when two mixed reality wearers encounter each other. Upon handshake, a portal opens over the clasped hands, allowing each person to peek into the other's world. By pulling the other person through, users can invite them into their mixed reality space. Unlike existing solutions that require multiple steps of discovery, invitation, and consent through digital interfaces, TouchPort embeds these functions into embodied gestures: the handshake signals discoverability and consent, while the pull grants permission. We present this embodied protocol through a recursive multiplayer "experiential futures" experience where participants traverse each other's procedurally generated mixed reality "dreams", fostering spontaneous co-located sharing in our fragmented augmented future.