Stephanie Lin, Samuel Luescher, Travis Rich, Shaun Salzberg, Hiroshi Ishii

Abstract

This paper introduces a design for a new way of managing the flow of information in the age of overflow. The devices, rainBottle, collect virtual data and converts it into a virtual liquid that fills up specially designed glass bottles. The bottles then serve as an ambient interface displaying the quantity of information in a queue as well as a tangible controller for opening the applications associated with the data in the bottles. With customizable data relevance metrics, the bottles can also serve as filters by letting less relevant data overflow out of the bottle.