Goodbye, point-and-click; hello, point-and-splash! This water-based touch screen by Japanese designer Taichi Inoue is more than just clever and ergonomic, it's downright summery.
In his artist statement, Inoue writes, "It is difficult to say that the interface of mechanical materials like a keyboard, a mouse and so on is very suitable for man. So I made the Minamo interface. 'Minamo' means 'Surface of water' in Japanese. Water is the most intimate material for human body. And I decided to make a touch screen interface on water surface."
The device—a transparent, water-filled fish tank placed on top of an upturned LCD screen—uses a webcam and Max/MSP+Jitter to keep track of user movement.
See it in action below.
4 Comments
Reduce the tank to a shallow pool and you have a great idea.
What would be the purpose of dousing your computer in water? I cannot see the benefit of doing this; just to say water and electricity does mix? A waste of good time if you asked me...
The headline's misleading: no electronic parts are actually submerged (though the LCD screen is arguably "underwater" to the extent that it's, like, set under a tank of water).
Although they do rigs where they cool computers by submerging them in a mineral oil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwdCn1nlAkA <--- this one is good.
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