LineFORM
from the Tangible Media Group at MIT Media Lab is the result of its creators
asking questions. What if we have a shape-changing material that consists of a
Line? Using such material, how will interactions with computers or tools change?
They
designed a shape-changing interface and described it in their research paper,
"LineFORM: Actuated curve interfaces for display, interaction and
constraints." Ken Nakagaki, Sean Follmer and Hiroshi Ishii make up the
team.
"Lines have several interesting characteristics from the
perspective of interaction design: abstractness of data representation; a
variety of inherent interactions / affordances; and constraints as boundaries
or borderlines," they said.
"By utilizing such aspects of lines together with the added
capability of shape-shifting, we present various applications in different
scenarios."
The video of their work demonstrates a variety of shape changes.
These include body constraints and data manipulation, to investigate the design
space of line-based, shape-changing interfaces. In their concept, the material
can also reshape itself into telephone mode. A smart wristband gives the user
haptic feedback.
Engadget referred
to LineFORM as a "serpentine robot." It involves a linear series of
actuators, wrote Aaron Souppouris, which can move independently or together to
arrange itself in new shapes.
They
said in their paper that "The overall design of the system involves three
parts. There is a series of connected servo motors. It has an Arduino Mega
microcontroller for motor control and sensing. It has a Mac OS computer running
custom applications written in processing that control LineFORM."
Their paper is an accepted TOCHI (ACM Transactions on
Computer-Human Interaction) paper for the ACM Symposium on User Interface
Software and Technology (UIST) from November 8 to 11 in Charlotte, NC.
The authors are exploring this concept because they see a future
where devices in the nature of their LineFORM would be paired with flexible
displays. They see the concept as "next generation mobile devices."
As for the range of functions: Their concept could be used to display complex
information, provide affordances on demand for different tasks and constrain
user interaction.
"We
have shown that a relatively small number of actuators can be used to achieve
an expressive display, and these systems may be easier to prototype than other
form factors of high resolution shape display."
Where do they go from here? They hope their work will be of
interest to researchers. "Our hope is that this work will motivate others
to further explore the space of actuated curve interfaces, from novel actuators
to new interaction techniques."
On
that note and practically speaking, Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan in Gizmodo said, "they imagine Lineform
could replace a lot of the hardware we need for interacting with the world
today–the keyboards, the phones, the cables, and so on–acting like a
plug-and-play interface that could transform based on how you need to interact
at a given moment."
In the bigger picture, the Tangible Media Group has a clear focus
on which technology path they will follow as they continue their innovative
research: "From the three approaches in design research:
technology-driven, needs-driven, and vision-driven, we focus on the
vision-driven approach due to its lifespan."
They said they know technologies become obsolete in ~1 year,
users' needs change quickly and dramatically in ~10 years. "However, we
believe that a clear vision can last beyond our lifespan. While we might need
to wait decades before atom hackers (like material scientists or
self-organizing nano-robot engineers) can invent the necessary enabling
technologies for Radical Atoms, we strongly believe the exploration of
interaction design should begin from today."
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