I think it was 2002 or 2003 when James Patten of Prof. Hiroshi Ishii's Tangible Media Group invented an extremely elegant interface using multiple interaction pucks called Audiopad. Patten's project has been slashdotted etc. and there are now many Audiopad fans all over the world that salivate over this elegant interface. "Where do I get one?" is the question I've always asked myself, even though I am probably as close as possible to the source of this magic technology here at the Media Lab.
One of our sponsors, NTT Comware, has developed a commercial version of this system that is developed with their own proprietary technology. The system, by its experimental nature, is prohibitively expensive for the average consumer. They believe that the price will eventually come down in the next few years. If you haven't experienced this interface yet, you haven't felt true unencumbered digital interaction.
When I spoke to the project champion, Mr. Kase of NTT Comware, earlier this year, one of his comments stuck deeply in my brain. He said that this kind of interface—of moving tokens around on a board resulting in a quintessential realtime response—is probably not well-suited for the average computer user. Kase believes that this kind of interface best suits the C-class executive that wants to work at the 50,000 feet-in-the-sky perspective; however, the general computer user will probably always need devices like the keyboard and the mouse for the finer grain information tasks. His comment made me wish that I was a C-class executive ... for only a micro-moment.
Posted by maeda at December 18, 2004 04:13 PM