MIT Invents A Shapeshifting Display You Can Reach Through And Touch

What the fracking frack?

We live in an age of touch-screen interfaces, but what will the UIs of the future look like? Will they continue to be made up of ghostly pixels, or will they be made of atoms that you can reach out and touch?

At the MIT Media Lab, the Tangible Media Group believes the future of computing is tactile. Unveiled today, the inFORM is MIT's new scrying pool for imagining the interfaces of tomorrow. Almost like a table of living clay, the inFORM is a surface that three-dimensionally changes shape, allowing users to not only interact with digital content in meatspace, but even hold hands with a person hundreds of miles away. And that's only the beginning.

Dumbfounded. Source

reply to post by Mugen


That is the coolest thing I have ever seen, I want one of those.

reply to post by Mugen


That is utterly staggering.

I am very much impressed.

I can't see the video. Is this similar to the computer that Tony Stark has in the Iron Man movies? Is it similar to the computer displays in "Minority Report"?

I've seen an interface projected onto this milky-liquid solution, and using Kinect-style sensors it lets you splash around in the water to control the computer. Is this what that thing is by chance?

reply to post by MystikMushroom


Can you see this? Basically this, but he was doing it through some iPad?

reply to post by Mugen


Alright, now make each of the sticks into a musical note, and the guy can play them. Volume control, rapid changes in motion and pitch. Ah, the h with it, just put a woman on the thing and see what we can do with that.

That was about the best introduction and finish in the fewest words of an OP I've seen here.

And I know what will happen to all of us. Years ago I was amazed that you could touch a screen with two fingers and make a picture expand or contract. That was unbelievable. Now it's probably used at the KFC drive-thru. This tech, too, shall enter our commonplace world, so let's enjoy it's entrance! Think of the gaming it's going to affect. And long distance romance, and the websites which will be created....on and on....

Hope phones are like that soon, it'll make choking that unhelpful operator a lot easier!

Very cool yet somewhat simplistic.

How cool would it be to build a house like that. Oh wait I want to add a wall remove a wall , etc. Endless configurations.

reply to post by interupt42


So it's basically one of these but connected to motion sensors and computer controlled hydraulics?


www.yeahsm.com...

Neat video. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet though (keyboard looking thingys) , needs more shiny. Light show was cool XD

Thanks for posting.. My first thought was to miniaturize the pillars or columns down to something less than a tooth pick's circumference for finer detail and manipulations.

Many things coming or hidden are truly amazing.

Hold on till i pick my jaw up off the floor....
So, soon we'll be able to have virtual sex with anyone in the world.
SIGN ME UP THERE.
SecretKnowledge will boldly go where no one has gone before...

Just another step as we get closer and closer to our very own holodecks.

Now if we could just keep from blowing ourselves up, the future just might be truly astounding.

727Sky
Thanks for posting.. My first thought was to miniaturize the pillars or columns down to something less than a tooth pick's circumference for finer detail and manipulations.

Many things coming or hidden are truly amazing.

thinking along the same lines, the machine shown in the videos is just showing that the tech works. Now the things being manipulated can be made into anything, little sticks, plastic or rubber, some kind of nanotech objects which move with just the slightest touch (like playing guitar or drums, this can get to the point of being played like an instrument). Much more, sky's the limit. Shake on it (across the innernets).

Totally and completely amazing!

I hate to be "that guy"...but how long 'til the porn industry makes use of this technology?

reply to post by Mugen


Wow, that is absolutely incredible! I just wonder what life will be like 10, 20 or 30 yrs from now and it both excites and frightens me at the same time. Thanks for posting OP!

The inevitable sexual capabilities are rather titillating aren't they?

reply to post by Mugen


Ah, that pesky sex drive rears its ugly head. The military probably has had this for years, and only uses it for sex.

Posting for the bump, so people can see and appreciate the beginning of the Sexless-Sex Age (follows the Communication Age and comes before the New Stone Age).

I saw this on the latest superman/(that new film with will smith and son) and wanted one!!!!

AND NOW THERE ALREADY IS ONE! omg i want so bad


Forget that old 80s hand sized pin desk toy that you can push your face into and stuff, this is so much more badass.

Would be great for 3d maps!

Bump, till it's on the main page. this has 34 flags right now, rather quickly, but threads with eight, nine, and ten flags are on the main page. Why is the formula which puts things there missing this page????

This tech can also be used for playing chess, once someone codes it for that. Or for pin the tail on the donkey!