Siftables can sense their neighbors, allowing applications to utilize topological arrangement
No special sensing surface or cameras are needed
storyboard: a grouping gesture
assembling siftables
exploded view of a single siftable
Siftables:
Imagine overturning a container of nuts and bolts, then looking through the resulting pile for a particular item. Or spreading photographs out on a tabletop and then beginning to sort them into piles. During these activities we interact with large numbers of small objects at the same time, and they utilize all of our fingers and both hands together. We humans are skilled at using our hands in these ways, and can effortlessly sift and sort - focusing on our higher level goals rather than the items themselves.
Siftables aims to enable people to interact with information and media in physical, natural ways that approach interactions with physical objects in our everyday lives. As an interaction platform, Siftables applies technology and methodology from wireless sensor networks to tangible user interfaces. Siftables are independent, compact devices with sensing, graphical display, and wireless communication capabilities. They can be physically manipulated as a group to interact with digital information and media. Siftables can be used to implement any number of gestural interaction languages and HCI applications.
The Siftables interaction platform is a collaboration with Jeevan Kalanithi.
Publications
D. Merrill, J. Kalanithi and P. Maes. Siftables: Towards Sensor Network User Interfaces. In the Proceedings of the First International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction (TEI'07). February 15-17 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA.
Noah Murphy-Reinhertz - case design v4, fabrication
Paula Aguilera - video production
Drew Shapiro - server design / development
Evan Broder - firmware hacking, including basic flash memory access, OLED, animation, and 'attentionables' implementation
Orit Zuckerman, Sajid Sadi - created original 'attention' piece that became 'attentionables' demo
Josh Kopin, Laura Harris, Tobe Nwanna, and Rick Mancuso are developing new features and application examples using Siftables
Colleagues in the Ambient Intelligence group and the rest of the MIT Media Lab - thanks for your great enthusiasm and brainstorming
Interested to prototype your own ideas with Siftables? We have a number of collaborations in progress with researchers in academia and industry. contact me with inquiries.