king talk

We reported about stiftables some weeks ago. This video shows more applications that can be used for the cookie-sized, computerized tiles that can be stacked and shuffled in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. Is this the next thing in hands-on learning? David Merrill is a grad student in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT’s Media Lab. He and his fellow students in this group work on new technologies that give us more and better abilities to do things we want to do. His main interest now is the Siftables project, the subject of his TEDTalk, on which he works with Jeevan Kalanithi. In another field of inquiry, Merrill is looking at ways to access digital information in the wider world, when we are away from a traditional computer.

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»Providing dynamically changeable physical buttons on a visual display« was developed by Chris Harrison and Scott Hudson (Carnegie Mellon University / USA). It´s all about  a visual display that contains deformable areas, able to produce physical buttons and other interface elements. These tactile features can be dynamically brought into and out of the interface, and otherwise manipulated under program control. The surfaces they describe, provides the full dynamics of a visual display (through rear projection) as well as allowing for multi-touch input (though an infrared lighting and camera setup behind the display).

To illustrate the tactile capabilities of the surfaces, they describe a number of variations we uncovered in our exploration and prototyping. These go beyond simple on/off actuation and can be combined to provide a range of different possible tactile expressions. A preliminary user study indicates that the dynamic buttons perform much like physical buttons in tactile search tasks. The official paper can be downloaded here.

Another flexible approach called impress comes from Silke Hilsing (FH Würzburg / Germany). Impress is the deliverance of the touch screen from its technical stiffness, coldness and rigidity. It breaks the distance in the relationship of human and technology, because it is not any longer the user which is subjected to technology, but in this case the display itself has to cave in to the human. Impress is a chance of approach of user and technology, above all, from technology.

It is a matter of a flexible display consisting of foam and force sensors which is deformable and feels pleasantly soft. Impress works with the parameters position and time like other touch screens as well, but in addition to that, it reacts, above all, on the intensity of pressure.

The user can merge in and collaborate with technology more than ever. He can squeeze out information and fly through rooms, he can form three-dimensional and put objects in motion by deforming the surface. Four short applications allow an insight into an absolutely new world of deeply sensitive and intuitive interaction possibilities. This project was created by using Arduino and Processing.

via infosthetics & FH Würzburg Blog

What most of the media tables out there (especially multi-touch tables) are missing is haptics: Touching a multi-touch table surface to sort photos or resize maps is great, but try using it without looking, and your fingers will quickly wander off that on-screen virtual button, slider, or keyboard. The SLAP project changes this — by letting you put real, physical widget set like a keypad (a), knob (b), slider (c), keyboardknobs (d), and other controls right onto the table. Being able to feel those controls makes it much easier to use them without looking.

The trick: the controls are made from silicone and acrylic, so they are transparent, and the computer inside the table can detect their position on the table surface and project the right labeling right onto those controls from underneath. This makes it easy to, say, relabel a SLAP Keyboard from US to German keyboard layout (without paying much money to Art Lebedevs OLED keyboard), or to make a SLAP Button look like a Play button to control videos in one instant, and the next moment turn it into a button to save a file.

But how do SLAP controls know what they should be controlling? Easy — just double-tap your finger, say, next to a SLAP Keyboard and on a text editing window at the same time, and the two are connected: whatever you type on the SLAP keyboard will end up in the text window. This way, SLAP controls bring haptic and tactile feedback back into the world of virtual, on-screen table interfaces, combining the advantages of physical and on-screen controls. And since they are just passive objects, with no electronics, they are simple, robust, and cheap — something researchers and designers will appreciate when prototyping the tabletop applications of the future. For more information, visit the website of RWTH Aachen.

Our Chemieraum projects input device had a similar approach. We think that a combination of tools and touch will be the future or what do you think?

While i was trying to get some informations about the new Arduino TinkerKit development i stumbled upon this video from last years »Arduino toyhacking workshop« in London 2008 (workshop 2009 video is here). It´s just a quick overview, but you can find more detailed videos of each project here at tinker.it. The idea of toy hacking is not actually new, but I still like it. Just go home and look around what you got and then tinker it. It´s doesn´t matter if it´s a toy keyboards, RC cars, a singing Santa Claus… whatever  ; )

So if you would use a toy keyboard you could make your own »piano shirt« like the girls from kobakant did. Mika Satomi and Hannah Perner-Wilson often work with soft conductive and resistive fabrics to create wearable electronics from cheap, basic and off-the-shelf materials. That´s what it´s all about… You don´t have to spend much money and time for a quick ´n´dirty prototype. You just want to tinker around trying to get an idea if your concept is working or not by using materials which you have already at hand.

Toys are just an amazing source of cheap technology to hack and reuse. »Lowtech sensors and actuators« from Husman Haque (see article about primal source) and Adam Somlai-Fisher is a great example of this approach. You can download their PDF (1,1 MB) and learn something about personalizing your toys with the help of Arduino e.g. the sound responsive cat.

One result of ours is the toyhack of the famous »Big Mouth Billy Bass« which was originally constructed by the american toy company Gemmy Industries. We thought that it´s cruel to let Billy sing his same old song again, and again, and again… So we connected a microphone to his mouth and mp3 EQ signals to his back. Now he´s enjoying his life as a karoake fish. This hack was the result of a »getting started with Arduino« Workshop at the FH Joanneum was realised with the help of Christian Perstl and Daniel Fabry.

If you have some interesting projects about toyhacking in mind, just contact us. Thanks.

The fine people at Arduino have released the new, enhanced, extra jumbo Arduino Mega. Nicey!
It is a larger, more powerful Arduino board. It’s based on the on the ATmega1280 (datasheet), which has 128 KB of Flash (program) memory, 8 KB of RAM, and 4 KB of EEPROM. The board has 54 digital pins (of which 14 provide PWM output), 16 analog inputs, 4 hardware serial ports, I2C, and all other goodness you expect from an Arduino board. The Mega is compatible with most shields designed for the Duemilanove, and includes the same automatic power selection, auto-reset on upload, and pre-burned bootloader. The Mega will be appearing soon at distributors throughout the world. Check the buy page for the one closest to you.