Fluid Interfaces

A display embedded in a mirror allows users to reflect on their recent activities and use of their time. The mirror recognizes its users and fetches data regarding their activities from their mobile device. The system also demonstrates the use of the mirror as a financial aid, helping users understand their spending. An alternative application which is based on the same platform is a clothing store shopping scenario, in which the mirror acts as a portal to the user's instant messager buddy list.

Blossom is a multiperson awareness system that uses ioMaterials-based techniques to connect distant friends and family. It provides an awareness medium that does not rely on the attention- and reciprocity-demanding interfaces that are provided by digital communication media such as mobile phones, SMS, and email. Combining touch-based input with visual, haptic, and motile feedback, Blossoms are created as pairs that can communicate over the network, echoing the conditions of each other and forming an implicit, always-there link that physically express awareness, while retaining the instantaneous capabilities that define digital communication.

How can traditional values be embedded into a digital object? We explore this concept by implementing a special guitar that combines physical acoustic properties with virtual capabilities. The acoustical values will be embodied by a wooden heart—a unique, replaceable piece of wood that will give the guitar a unique sound. The acoustic signal created by this wooden heart will be digitally processed in order to create flexible sound design.

We all make promises to ourselves: lose 10 pounds, save more, exercise more. And yet, it is far too easy to make such promises and then find a thousand excuses to break them. Drawing on the fact that we are much less likely to make a social promise and then break it, Compact Contract is a tool for making small "contracts" with our friends and family, with a built-in reminder of the time period within which we have promised to act.

Cornucopia is a concept design for a personal food factory that brings the versatility of the digital world to the realm of cooking. In essence, it is a three-dimensional printer for food, which works by storing, precisely mixing, depositing, and cooking layers of ingredients. Cornucopia's cooking process starts with an array of food canisters, which refrigerate and store a user's favorite ingredients. These are piped into a mixer and extruder head that can accurately deposit elaborate combinations of food. While the deposition takes place, the food is heated or cooled by Cornucopia's chamber or the heating and cooling tubes located on the printing head. This fabrication process not only allows for the creation of flavors and textures that would be completely unimaginable through other cooking techniques, but it also allows the user to have ultimate control over the origin, quality, nutritional value, and taste of every meal.

Defuse is a commenting platform that rethinks the medium's basic interactions. In a world where a single article in The New York Times can achieve 3,000 comments, the original design of public asynchronous text systems has reached its limit; it needs more than social convention. Defuse uses context to change the basics of navigation and message posting. It uses a combination of machine learning, visualization, and structural changes to achieve this goal.

Project management is often an art. But in an objective way, it is also about memory. We often know exactly how to get our work done, and in a single sitting we can map out the process and steps. However, and time goes on, we often lost track of this, and thus retrace and reinvent what we had already decided. "Done" is a chat-based ReflectOn for allowing a person to reflect on this initial process and map their instantaneous actions to their long terms goals. By connecting these domains of though, "Done" helps the user get more done, while gaining a deeper insight into the process inherent to their work.

This project explores how programmable surfaces in an urban context can be shaped and textured in more flexible ways than traditional LED displays. Our screen consists of modular LED tiles that can be bent and rearranged to create curved or 3-D display surfaces. The tiles are textured using sillicon, which provides waterproofing as well as light diffusion.

Despite the advances and advantages of computer-aided design tools, the traditional pencil and paper continue to exist as the most important tools in the early stages of design. Inktuitive is an intuitive physical design workspace that aims to bring together conventional design tools such as paper and pencil with the power and convenience of digital tools for design. Inktuitive also extends the natural work-practice of using physical paper by giving the pen the ability to control the design in physical, 3-D, freeing it from its tie to the paper. The intuition of pen and paper are still present, but lines are captured and translated into shapes in the digital world. The physical paper is augmented with overlaid digital strokes. Furthermore, the platform provides a novel interaction mechanism for drawing and designing using above the surface pen movements.

ioMaterials is a project encompassing a variety of collocated sensing-actuation platforms. The project explores various aspects of dense sensing for humane communication, memory, and remote awareness. Using dense collocated sensing actuation and sensing, we can change common objects into an interface capable of hiding unobtrusively in plain sight. Relational Pillow and Blossom are instantiations of this ideal.

JotWatch is a device designed with the singular purpose of easing quick note taking on the go. As our days fill with the deluge of microtasks and information fragments that modern life entails, every one of us has had occasions when we wanted to take a quick note, or remember something, or jot down a moment of inspiration. Yet, the task of digitally recording this thought faces enough steps, waits, and changes of context scatter fleeting thoughts and discourage note-taking. The JotWatch is a simple device in a wristwatch form factor that attacks this problem with always-on, fast note-taking ability along with navigation features that allow users to make the most of limited physical real estate.

A game-based approach to creating structured information useful for computers to learn a type of associated information of half-truths, not well represented in any corpus to date. "Half the truth is often a great lie."—Benjamin Franklin

Can static paint be programmable? Can a watercolor comic change? We explore these options by using special ink and embedded LEDs, and through the design of watercolor and paper paint that visually change and tell a story.

MemTable is a table with a contextual memory. The goal of the system is to facilitate reflection on the long-term collaborative work practices of a small group by designing an interface that supports meeting annotation, process documentation, and visualization of group work patterns. The project introduces a tabletop designed both to remember how it is used and to provide an interface for contextual retrieval of information. MemTable examines how an interface that embodies the history of its use can be incorporated into our daily lives in more ergonomic and meaningful contexts.

Midas is a touch-based personalization system that bridges the gap between personal area networks (PANs) and explicit authentication. It is designed to interact with ubiquitous interfaces in the objects and environment surrounding us in order to achieve seamless access to information via public and pseudo-public surfaces and environments that modify themselves to the needs to the users on the fly and on contact. By confining the communication to touched object while avoiding the need to use an explicit authentication token such as a RFID, we enable new means of customizing our surroundings to our needs.

The moving portrait is based on a set of black and white portraits, comprising a rich library of photographic sequences. It resides in a picture frame and interacts with its viewers using a variety of sensing techniques. The sensing architecture enables the portrait to be aware of viewers’ presence, identity, distance, speed, and body movements. The cognitive architecture controls the portrait’s reaction, taking into account the viewer’s behavior, the portrait’s mood, and memory of previous interactions, all of which contribute to complex, believable behavior. A portrait represents a part of our lives and reflects our feelings, but it is completely oblivious to the events that occur around it or to the people who view it. By adding interaction, dynamics, and memory to a familiar portrait we create a different and more engaging relationship between it and the viewer.

Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, recently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group. It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one's aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.

Pulp-Based Computing is a series of explorations that combine smart materials, papermaking, and printing. By integrating electrically active inks and fibers during the papermaking process, it is possible to create sensors and actuators that behave, look, and feel like paper. These composite materials not only leverage the physical and tactile qualities of paper, but can also convey digital information, spawning new and unexpected application domains in ubiquitous and pervasive computing at extremely affordable costs.

The goal of Quickies is to bring one of the most useful inventions of the twentieth century into the digital age: the ubiquitous sticky note. Quickies enriches the experience of using sticky notes by linking hand-written sticky notes to mobile phones, digital calendars, task-lists, email, and instant messaging clients. By augmenting the familiar, ubiquitous sticky note, Quickies leverages existing patterns of behavior, merging paper-based sticky note usage with the user's informational experience. The project explores how the use of artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), RFID, and ink-recognition technologies can make it possible to create intelligent sticky notes that can be searched, located, can send reminders and messages, and more broadly, can act as an I/O interface to the digital information world.

ReachBand is a wireless wristband with an RFID reader that can detect user interactions with everyday objects, such as holding a book or opening a door. ReachBand enables the delivery of personalized services and just-in-time information to the user. It is used by various projects at the Lab, such as ReachMedia and Ambient Semantics. ReachBand v2 is being further developed, and will include updated electronics and communcation capabilities, as well as reduced dependence on a PC.

ReachMedia is an interface for on-the-move interaction with information and services for everyday objects. The purpose of this project is to blend the affordances of the physical world with the strengths of the wealth of related digital information, leveraging the particular strengths of each. The system uses ReachBand, a wireless wristband with an RFID reader and accelerometers to support hand- and eye-free interaction by using a unique combination of input and output methods such as gestural input and audio output.

In a digital, immersive world, e-book readers and flat displays are taking over what was once the realm of books. The reBook project attempts to revitalize traditional book production by adding a digital interface fabrication step to the conventional print and bind process. A reBook is a fusion of a 'real book' and an e-book; the cover is embedded with a memory module, wireless microprocessor, paper-based keypad, and flexible display. The reBook's coupling of digital content within a familiar design allows for reinterpretation of classic book functionality. We are exploring how new interactions such as search, bookmarking, physical copy and paste, and annotations could emerge with such a product.

ReflectOns are objects that help people think about their actions and change their behavior based on subtle, ambient nudges delivered at the moment of action. Certain tasks—such as figuring out the number of calories consumed, or amount of money spent eating out—are generally difficult for the human mind to grapple with. By using in-place sensing combined with gentle feedback and understanding of users' goals, we can recognize behaviors and trends, and provide a reflection of their own actions tailored to enable both better understanding of the repercussions of those actions, and changes to their behaviors to help them better match their own goals.

With the Relational Pillow project, we are trying to provide a simple, intimate, and personable communication medium between loved ones. The pillows are capable of sensing touch information, and displaying incoming touch data as a pattern of lights that show the outline "drawn" upon the remote pillow. Pillows can connect to each other over the network so that this sense of touch can be shared across long distances. The physical sensation of holding a pillow and interacting with it builds upon the idea of using the natural features of the object in order to acheive a deeper connection between the users, without interfering in the communication process itself.

Remnant is a greeting card that merges the affordances of physical materials with the temporal malleability of digital systems to create enshrine and reinforce the very thing that makes a greeting personal: that hand of the sender. The card uses records both the timing and the form of the senders handwriting when it is first used. At a later time, collocated output recreates the handwriting, allowing the invisible, memorized hand of the sender to write his or her message directly in front of the recipient.

Shutters is a permeable kinetic surface for environmental control and communication. It is composed of actuated louvers (or shutters) that can be individually addressed for precise control of ventilation, daylight incidence, and information display. By combining smart materials, textiles, and computation, Shutters builds upon other facade systems to create living environments and work spaces that are more energy efficient, while being aesthetically pleasing and considerate of their inhabitants' activities.

Siftables are compact electronic devices with motion sensing, graphical display, and wireless communication. One or more Siftables may be physically manipulated to interact with digital information and media. A group of Siftables can thus act in concert to form a physical, distributed, gesture-sensitive, human-computer interface. Each Siftable object is stand-alone (battery-powered and wireless); Siftables do not require installed infrastructure such as large displays, instrumented tables, or cameras in order to be used. Siftables' key innovation is to give direct physical embodiment to information items and digital media content, allowing people to use their hands and bodies to manipulate these data instead of relying on virtual cursors and windows. By leveraging people’s ability to manipulate physical objects, Siftables radically simplify the way we interact with information and media.

Information is often confined to paper or computer screens. SixthSense frees data from these confines and seamlessly integrates information and reality. With the miniaturization of computing devices, we are always connected to the digital world, but there is no link between our interactions with these digital devices and our interactions with the physical world. SixthSense bridges this gap by augmenting the physical world with digital information. It brings intangible information into the tangible world. Using a projector and camera worn as a pendant around the neck, SixthSense sees what you see and visually augments surfaces or objects with which you interact. It projects information onto any surface or object, and allows users to interact with the information through natural hand gestures, arm movements, or with the object itself. SixthSense makes the entire world your computer.

We have seen an explosion of data, but the tools necessary to understand it have not kept pace. Humans have innate spatial memory and spatial organization abilities, but our interfaces into this ever-growing world of data rarely take into account a learned behavior of space. SpaceMarks changes that, creating an intuitive and consistent method to organize, learn, and collaborate with spatially aware resources: it provides a much-needed method for offloading the processing of our information into the world around us.

SpendTrend is a ReflectOn designed to allow its user to reflect on spending habits. Often we spend based on the momentary buying capability, without considering the long-term outcomes. Most would not think twice about a $4 Starbucks latte, but over a year this amount becomes non-trivial. Likewise, we often fail to think about savings in the long term. By making trends visible at the moment of purchase, SpendTrend attempts to make users mindful of their behavior and long-term goals. SpendTrend is built into a credit card, and has embedded processing and communication. The SpendTrend reader informs the card of the details of the purchases. With accurate, fine-grained information about purchases, the card then computes and display feedback, while also acting as a collection device for receipt data. The card harvests power directly from the reader, and has no explicit charging needs.

Spotlight is about an artist's ability to create a new meaning using the combination of interactive portraits and diptych or polyptych layouts. The mere placement of two or more portraits near each other is a known technique to create a new meaning in the viewer's mind. Spotlight takes this concept into the interactive domain, creating interactive portraits that are aware of each other's state and gesture. So not only the visual layout, but also the interaction with others creates a new meaning for the viewer. Using a combination of interaction techniques, Spotlight engages the viewer at two levels. At the group level, the viewer influences the portraits "social dynamics". At the individual level, a portrait's "temporal gestures" expose much about the subject's personality.

Sprout I/O is a kinetic fur that can capture, mediate, and replay the physical impressions we leave in our environment. It combines embedded electronic actuators with a texturally rich substrate that is soft, fuzzy, and pliable to create a dynamic structure where every fur strand can sense physical touch and be individually moved. By developing a composite material that collocates kinetic I/O, while preserving the expectations that we normally have from interacting with physical things, we can more seamlessly embed and harness the power of computation in our surrounding environments to create more meaningful interfaces for our personal and social activities.

subTextile is a toolkit for behavioral textiles: the intersection of on-body computation and electronic textiles focusing on the interactive capability of electronic textiles. It provides a powerful visual programming language and hardware platform specifically designed to create complete behavioral textile systems. Using a rich, goal-oriented interface, subTextile makes it possible for technical novices to explore electronic textiles, while providing open-ended expandability to experts. As e-textiles mature, better tools and techniques are needed by artists and designers experimenting with these new materials. The subTextile project was created to support cross-pollination between technical and design disciplines in the hopes of fostering greater creativity and depth within the field.

Surflex is a programmable surface for the design and visualization of physical objects and spaces. It combines the different memory and elasticity states of its materials to deform and gain new shapes, providing a novel alternative for 3-D fabrication and the design of physically adaptable interfaces.

TaPuMa is a digital, tangible, public map that allows people to use their own belongings or the everyday objects they carry with them to access relevant, just-in-time information and to find locations of places or people. TaPuMa envisions that conventional maps can be augmented by using the unique identities and affordances of the everyday objects. The TaPuMa system uses a table-top environment where map and dynamic content is projected on the table. A camera mounted above the table identifies and tracks the locations of the objects on the surface, and a software program identifies and registers the location of objects on the table. On the basis of identifications of the objects, the software provides relevant information visualization to be shown on the table. The projector augments the table and objects on the table with projected digital information from overhead along with the map. The project explores a novel interaction mechanism where physical objects are used as interfaces to digital information. TaPuMa allows users to acquire information through tangible media, the things they carry.

TeleStory is a tangible interface for children to learn vocabulary through gestural experimentation. Children pair characters in a story and influence their actions through gestural input on the Siftables platform. TeleStory allows children to influence the design of a television animation and learn the meanings of words by triggering actions in the narrative.

We are using intelligent interfaces to spatially organize streams of incoming information into coherent themes. Theme Stream helps us to deal with the ever-increasing streams of information generated around us by applying both supervised and unsupervised machine-learning techniques to the layout of information in the user interface.

thirdEye is a new technique that enables multiple viewers to see different things on a same display screen at the same time. With thirdEye: a public sign board can show a Japanese tourist instructions in Japanese and an American in English; games won't need a split screen anymore—each player can see his or her personal view of the game on the screen; two people watching TV can watch their favorite channel on a single screen; a public display can show secret messages or patterns; and in the same movie theater, people can see different ends of a suspense movie.

Transitive Materials is an umbrella project encompassing novel materials, fabrication technologies, and traditional craft techniques that can operate in unison to create objects and spaces that realize truly omnipresent interactivity. We are developing interactive textiles, ubiquitous displays, and responsive spaces that seamlessly couple input, output, processing, communication, and power distribution, while preserving the uniqueness and emotional value of physical materials and traditional craft. Life in a Comic, Physical Heart in a Virtual Body, Augmented Pillows, Flexible Urban Display, Shutters, Sprout I/O, and Pulp-Based Computing are current instantiations of these technologies.

The system consists of virtual representations of a handful of people that react to what a person is currently reading, writing, or talking about. These "digital personas" are constructed automatically by analyzing personal texts (such as interviews/blogs/messages posted by the person being modeled) using natural language processing techniques and the Open Mind Common Sense knowledge base. The "What Would They Think?" system has several applications. For example, it can help a person form a deep understanding of a community that is new to them by constantly showing them the attitudes and disagreements of strong personalities of that community. Other applications include virtual "mentors" or "guides," and knowledge-sharing in communities and workgroups.

WordPlay is a mutual tabletop interface for the generating, organizing, and exploring new ideas. Participants add terms to the table by speaking, modify the properties (size, position, rotation) of the terms with their fingers, and find related concepts through a simple set of gestures (stretching, merging, circling).