Name: 【TED】David Merrill: Toy tiles that talk to each other (David Merrill: Toy tiles that talk to each other)
Uploaded: 2017-12-26T04:21:25.000Z
Duration: 7 min 10 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

I want to start out by asking you to think back to when you were a kid,

As you figured out how to reach out and grasp,

you were actually learning how to think and solve problems

by understanding and manipulating spatial relationships.

to how we understand a lot of the world around us.

inspired by this utility of our interactions with physical objects --

along with my adviser Pattie, and my collaborator Jeevan Kalanithi --

I started to wonder -- what if when we used a computer,

instead of having this one mouse cursor that was a like a digital fingertip

what if we could reach in with both hands and grasp information physically,

This question was so compelling that we decided to explore the answer,

In a nutshell, a Siftable is an interactive computer

they can sense each other, they can sense their motion,

and they have a screen and a wireless radio.

so like the blocks, you can move them just by reaching out and grasping.

And Siftables are an example of a new ecosystem

of tools for manipulating digital information.

more aware of their motion, aware of each other,

and aware of the nuance of how we move them,

we can start to explore some new and fun interaction styles.

So, I'm going to start with some simple examples.

This Siftable is configured to show video,

and if I tilt it in one direction, it'll roll the video this way;

if I tilt it the other way it rolls it backwards.

And these interactive portraits are aware of each other.

So if I put them next to each other, they get interested.

If they get surrounded, they notice that too,

And they can also sense their motion and tilt.

One of the interesting implications on interaction, we started to realize,

was that we could use everyday gestures on data,

like pouring a color the way we might pour a liquid.

So in this case, we've got three Siftables configured to be paint buckets

and I can use them to pour color into that central one,

If we overshoot, we can pour a little bit back.

There are also some neat possibilities for education,

where we want to give people the ability to try things quickly,

This is a Fibonacci sequence that I'm making with a simple equation program.

Here we have a word game that's kind of like a mash-up between Scrabble and Boggle.

you get a randomly assigned letter on each Siftable,

and as you try to make words it checks against a dictionary.

Then, after about 30 seconds, it reshuffles,

and you have a new set of letters and new possibilities to try.

So these are some kids that came on a field trip to the Media Lab,

and I managed to get them to try it out, and shoot a video.

And, one of the interesting things about this kind of application

is that you don't have to give people many instructions.

So here's another few people trying it out.

That's our youngest beta tester, down there on the right.

Turns out, all he wanted to do was to stack the Siftables up.

Now, this is an interactive cartoon application.

And we wanted to build a learning tool for language learners.

And he can bring new characters into the scene,

just by lifting the Siftables off the table that have that character shown on them.

David Merrill: Now he's brought a tractor into the scene.

DM: So by shaking the Siftables and putting them next to each other

DM: So, the last example I have time to show you today

is a music sequencing and live performance tool

Each of these has four different variations,

you get to choose which one you want to use.

And you can inject these sounds into a sequence

Subtitles ListPlay Video

【TED】David Merrill: Toy tiles that talk to each other (David Merrill: Toy tiles that talk to each other)

physical

compelling

aware

applause