Wired News tells us today about this crazy project conducted by scientists in Ireland: « A range of connected furniture for awareness of daily routines and rhythms between distant family members ». It’s a strange system involving two kitchen tables, radio tag readers, projectors and computers. The idea is to help people who are far away from their loved ones feel a little closer by creating a mirror effect between two tables.
Let’s say your boyfriend is off somewhere in Spain having a great time eating paella, and you’re at home depressed and hungry, smoking one cigarette after the other. On your table, you see your pack of cigarettes, but you also see a projected image of your boyfriend’s paella and glass of wine. On his table, he sees your ashtray getting fuller and fuller.
The appearance of an image of a book at one table may suggest that someone is enjoying a day off from work. The sight of a pack of cigarettes, however, could mean the same person is feeling stressed out and might appreciate a phone call from a friend. […] Objects removed from one table cause their corresponding images on the other table to lose their color, and then to fade slowly away. Conversely, the longer objects remain on the sending table, the larger the images on the receiving table grow.
« We hope that the couples will develop their own symbolic language using the objects, knowing that the images represent subtler messages, » said Dipak Patel, a researcher working on the Habitat project.
So let me get this straight: you get rid of the guy (or the girl), but you still have to deal with his mess, or at least projected images of them? While I find the whole idea very poetic and I love it when science gets a little mad, I can just hear the so-called subtler messages couples would be exchanging using that system…
What’s up with those Irish scientists? Too much Guinness?
