"Tell Me": prototype of a communicating musical object. © DR
Four students from the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design designed “Tell Me”, a connected music box that conveys “mood sounds”.
Bored with firing the ultimate selfie? The communication of the future as imagined by four students from the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID) will be conveyed through sound and not image. Sounds received from the direct environment (a watch, a plant, a set of keys, a packet of biscuits…) are replayed and modified via a small box equipped with an Aruindo, capacitive sensors and WIFI. It is achieved in the manner of Makey Makey, the small play kit that makes vegetables sing, or transmitted from one box to the other like the Nabaztag rabbit, one of the first connected objects from the Internet of things.
The dead simple scenario (communication through the exchange of original sound sequences) relies on the observation of well-established audio uses such as the personalisation of ring tones (you associate tiresome family with an unpleasant sound in order to screen by ear) and numerous audio notifications.
Angelisa Scalera from Italy, Francesca Desmarais from America, Henriette Kruse Jørgensen from Denmark, Samantha Lim from Singapore designed their “Tell Me” prototype in May 2014 during a workshop on tangible IT (IT that takes an interest in the matter). The project was posted at the beginning of the month on Internet. They explain that this “communication device that allows domestic objects to relay sound and mood” is designed as a set of “music boxes connected via WIFI that allow people to communicate their moods by playing with a conductive object in their home”.