Mirror, mirror, on the wall.

Group members: Annie, Cole, Melissa

Introduction:

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, could you have the potential to recall my image from last fall? Predict the weather? Sing me a song?

The Grimm's brothers imagined a magical mirror in their 1867 fairytale, "Snow White".  In the 1900's technology drove the reproduction of the classic literature towards film and television, most notably in Disney's animated feature.  In today's digital age, we wonder, how might this beloved iconography transcend onto the current culture?  150 so years after the idea that was once considered a stroke of the imagination, the magic now has the potential to come alive; the interaction with a mirror, once ink written on paper, later a convincing moving visualization, to its realization today.

Concept:

We would like to explore the possibilities behind a bathroom mirror with embedded digital features.  The interface might include interactions such as digital audio and visual input and output.  Information might be processed and stored from an internal drive, and perhaps have Internet capabilities that might send and receive information.  We imagine an interesting use of the mirror could be as a recording device used for daily reminders, motivations, love notes, etc.

Digital tokens could be used to represent information such as a music note playing audio files, a cloud to represent weather reports, a pill bottle to remind the user to take their vitamins, a post-it note to represent a grocery list, a newspaper might signal the headlines from the NY Times, and so on, the possibilities are great and will challenge our research to focus on the needs and wants of our potential user.  As well, we must work within our limitations which have yet to be fully determined and will provide a framework for the logistical application of such tokens.