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A bunch of German scientists have developed a way for mobile phones to communicate messages by touch: A set of pins that rises and falls would transmit information, kind of like braille. They don’t actually use braille, mind you. Their system is intended to communicate simple types of messages to a mobile phone user, so that they could receive messages on the sly. If you were in a meeting, you wouldn’t need to actually pull out your phone and look at it — you could just stick your hand in your pocket, feel your phone, and figure out that your spouse was texting you. As the BBC reports:
For instance, the ‘@’ sign might feel like a spiral, the word ‘I’ as a wave that flows towards the person and ‘you’ as a wave that flows away.
I love this idea. It’s part of the (hopefully) growing trend towards “ambient information” — devices that communicate information in the peripheries of our attention, as opposed to forcing us to stare at a screen. If you’ve ever seen the Ambient Orb — produced by the insanely brilliant David Rose and his team at Ambient Devices — you know what I’m talking about. Indeed, one of the most elegant pieces of ambient-information design I’ve seen are the psychoacoustics of America Online’s Instant-Messaging application. When someone on your buddy list logs on, you hear the sound of a door creaking open; when they leave, the door slams shut. It’s a delightfully nonintrusive way to let you know that your virtual social-scene is filling up, without forcing you to continually click over to look at your buddy list.
A well-designed “touch and read” mobile phone could do the same thing: When you idly reached into your pocket to touch it, it could gently indicate some important information, without you needing to whip it out and stare at it.
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
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» visit the Collision Detection archives
September 26, 2008 » 01:57 PM
From an interview with ethnobotanist and anthropologist Wade Davis:
One of the cultures you celebrate in Light at the Edge of the World is the Inuit. What do you most admire about them?
Davis: The Inuit didn’t fear the cold; they took advantage of it. During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. The family, fearful for his life, took away all of his tools and all of his implements, thinking that would force him into the settlement. But instead, he just slipped out of an igloo on a cold Arctic night, pulled down his caribou and sealskin trousers, and defecated into his hand. As the feces began to freeze, he shaped it into the form of an implement. And when the blade started to take shape, he put a spray of saliva along the leading edge to sharpen it. That’s when what they call the “shit knife” took form. He used it to butcher a dog. Skinned the dog with it. Improvised a sled with the dog’s rib cage, and then, using the skin, he harnessed up an adjacent living dog. He put the shit knife in his belt and disappeared into the night.
September 25, 2008 » 11:21 AM
“Video from a camp north of Toronto in December 2005 shows a car spinning around in a nearby, snow-covered parking lot. Prosecutors characterized that as special driver training but the defense, and many outsiders, said it was nothing more than “cutting doughnuts,” a favorite winter pastime of young Canadian motorists.” - A key piece of evidence submitted in the trial of a gang of alleged young Canadian terrorists.
September 24, 2008 » 11:21 PM
“Life imitates art imitating life: just thought a gnat crawling across my monitor was part of a Flash-based ad. I clicked it.” - A Tweet from Bill Braine.
September 24, 2008 » 02:37 PM
“Funniest FB friend request ever: “Twitter friend hoping to get to second base (Facebook!) ;-).”” - A recent Tweet by Pistachio
September 24, 2008 » 12:28 PM
Chinese powdered-milk crisis creates a new market: The return of the wet nurse
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