San Francisco, CA
[research]
David Merrill
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Siftables is a platform for physical interaction with information and media. Each Siftable has sensing, feedback, and wireless communication capabilities, making them a mashup of tangible interface and sensor network. The platform is a collaboration with Jeevan Kalanithi (of taco lab), and my thesis explored new interactions with digital content that Siftables enable. Click here for more information...
I finished my Ph.D. in the Fluid Interfaces group at the MIT Media Lab. My background is in Cognitive Science and Computer Science, and my work explores how our interactions with computation can leave the limitations of the desktop interface behind. I develop physical-digital tools that operate comfortably in our real-world environment to enable new forms of expressivity, problem-solving and collaboration. more... research interests
physically embodied, sensor-rich interfaces to computers |
news 11/13/2009: Emerging Interface Panel Discussion at UCLA / DMA. 11/9/2009: At Stanford to give a talk to Wendy Ju's Music250A class at CCRMA. 11/3/2009: Talk and demo at the Product Development and Management Assoc. conference in Anaheim, CA. 10/28/2009: Demoing at Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age event at Google. 10/15/2009: I keynoted the South Carolina EdTech conference in Myrtle Beach, SC. 9/18/2009: I spoke about Cookie-Scale Computers and Other Physical Approaches to Computing at UX Week in San Francisco, CA. 5/11/2009: I visited and gave a talk about my research at the Santa Fe Complex at the invitation of Project GUTS. 5/1/2009: Handed in my dissertation!! 4/31/2009: I spoke about Siftables and other projects at the Interactive Media and Game Development seminar at Worcester Polytechnic. 3/26/2009: I spoke at the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco. My talk was about Physical Play: Siftables and Other New Forms and Formats for Interaction, Collaboration and Creativity. 3/18/2009: I made a guest appearance on High Tech Fever, a Cambridge TV show about technology and entrepreneurship hosted by Joost Bonsen. 3/18/2009: Gave a talk IDEO in Cambridge about Siftables and interaction design possibilities for multi-object gesture. 3/14/2009 (PI day!): I was a guest on GeekSpeak, a technology-oriented radio show on NPR recorded in Santa Cruz, CA. 3/11/2009: Jeevan Kalanithi and I spoke about Cookie-Scale Computing at O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference (ETech) in San Jose, CA.
2/6/2009: I presented several new Siftables applications (music sequencer, equation-maker, word-finder, and more) at the Ted conference in Long Beach, CA. [watch the video] 11/21/2008: I spoke at the MOVES Institute at the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, CA. 11/19/2008: I spoke at Future Forward, in Weston MA.
10/2/2008: I spoke at the California College of the Arts (10/2) and Stanford (10/3) this week. 9/15/2008: I defended my thesis! The title: Gestural Interaction with Embodied Media.
7/27/2008: Siftables featured in a Boston Globe innovation economy article June 2008: Siftables recognized with honorable mention by ID Magazine's Student Design Review! (Sept / Oct '08 issue) [click here] |