As Far As I Can Tell

Last semester I was on a project team investigating tangible interface design for music players. In our initial concept generation phase we had a version of the player which took the form of glasses, cups, and mugs. Each type of drinkware could be associated with a different genre of audio so you could, for example, listen to NPR with your morning coffee cup and classic rock with your beer stein. The music would start when you poured the liquid and stop when you were done drinking. The idea grew from of a desire we observed in our research — people like to have music keep them company as they go about everyday activities.

That particular concept didn’t move past the initial idea stage but today I stumbled upon a project at MIT by Jackie Lee and Hyemin Chung that also uses drinking as input. Their project, Lover’s Cups, is about communication between two people at a distance through the action of drinking. Personally I think that “softer” activities like holding or hugging are stronger for remote and ambient intimacy, but it’s interesting to see somebody else using drinking as a tangible interface.