Next time you splash around at the Six Flags water park you may be doing something significant — like contributing to research on computing.
A fish-shape musical instrument that spouts water jets into which users dip their fingers is being hailed as an example of a new user interface. The instrument, called a hydraulophone, involves putting your fingers on tiny water jets and producing a soothing, organ-like music.
It’s an example of what’s being called a “Flexible Limitless User Interface” that doesn’t demand any level of skill from its users, yet can offer an experience that’s deeply satisfying.
“What we really do with these kind of interfaces is make them as addictive as possible, and to do that we have to find a way you can exert your own influence on a system,” Steve Mann, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Toronto, told attendees at the Singularity Conference in San Francisco held over the weekend. “It can be a very absorbing experience.”
Yup. Musicians are becoming obsolete.
Posted via email from Flatacre
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