Into the Infractor
infractor - interactive, collaborative multitouch application from siwamat on Vimeo.
How do turn a wet, dreary day into a good one? Read about installations! Well, if you're a big interaction dork that is. And it's a good thing I'm not the only dork, otherwise this little electronic number would have never been invented - The Infractor.
The Infractor was the creation of the Interface Design students at Potsdam University of Applied Sciences. The piece is an interactive table that visualizes content from the NY Times database (apparently they have an API). Using a variety of small physical objects the user is able to search and filter the results of the NY Times all in real time. At first glance I assumed that they were working on a Microsoft Surface table, but it turns out the table was designed and created by the students at the same university.
It's interesting as I have seen pieces quite similar to this in the past which have been touted as the future of interactivity. Now, say conceptual devices like this did indeed become our future interfaces. Each time I've witnessed a variation on it the same question comes to mind each time: how flexible are these shapes? The interface definitiely seems to have a near endless level of flexibility but what about these fixed, physical shapes? Tangible as they may be, is it really a boon to technology to have all these accompanying parts? Would hand interaction be any worse, or better? I guess it depends largely on it's application.