Assignment: Midterm Project 1: Group project proposal

Collaborators:

For the Tangible User Interface project, I am interested in developing "memory beads" for people to carry with them. The idea comes from the notion that we carry memories with ourselves as we travel through life. The memory bead can encapsulate photos, movies, music and sound within the bead and play back on demand. Each bead will have a small LCD, a small speaker, sensors to tell if it is being held, small connectors (for connecting to a desktop or other bead) and come in many fun colors.

The bead idea makes them like jewelry that can be worn by the user. When held ("squeezed" slightly), the bead can show pictures, play back sound or video. When connected to another bead, the user can move memories by "squeezing" the bead to "squeeze" the information from one to another.

A small dock allows the beads to be connected to a computer or television. When connected to a computer, the user can download new memories, back them up or play them as a slide show. When more than one bead is connected, the user can create a slideshow containing all the multimedia on the connected beads.

The beads enables collaboration among many users when creating a presentation, along with easy sharing of memories between family and friends