MIT Media Lab’s Tangible Media Group have developed Recompose, an experimental touch interface that provides tactile feedback.

Recompose is a new system for manipulation of an actuated surface. By collectively utilizing the body as a tool for direct manipulation alongside gestural input for functional manipulation, we show how a user is afforded unprecedented control over an actuated surface.

Made up of motorized tiles that pop up/down, the 3D interface can be directly manipulated by pressing down on the tiles or simply using gestures by waving your had over various areas of the surface, which move in response to your input. The feedback is a 3D visualization of the user’s physical interaction with the tiles. A camera and projector, combined with computer vision are used to recognize and understand the language of the physical interactions.

via Fast Company

Below are slides from my kickoff presentation.

The Baby Boomer generation refers to those born between 1946 and 1964. They grew up during decades of radical social, technological and economic change and thus are generally characterized as being idealistic, ideological and innovative. In 2006 the first Baby Boomer turned 60 years old.



Society is currently undergoing a huge demographic shift towards an increasingly aging population.

This aging demographic is also healthier and living longer lives than their counterparts decades ago; likewise, future generations will have even longer life expectancies.

Baby Boomers are redefining the nature of aging: they are healthier, more educated, wealthier, and more technologically proficient than the current elderly population.

“Middlescence” becomes the new adolescence during which Baby Boomers now have the time and freedom to pursue their own interests, have a fresh beginning and achieve personal fulfillment.

The aim of the One Stop Shop is to improve the job seeking experience for users and to improve the operational efficiency for government staff. Through a 3.5 month process we started with user research by interviewing users and staff and conducting on-site interviews then analyzed user needs and identified problems with the existing process.  With my partner, we used these insights to inform out concept designs from a service and system approach, and held an interim concept presentation for our clients.  The clients were incredibly receptive of my team’s concepts and presentation, which was a great sign.  For our final presentation we focused on a few important interaction points to flesh out the design details, and presented a comprehensive, persuasive and compelling arguments for our complete design solutions. In the end, my partner and I won the silver award and a cash prize of HKD $12,000.  Next spring our projects will be published in a book to be circulated through all the government departments.

What a wonderful experience for a school project.

Hong Kong’s tourism board touts the street as “Electronics Street” so we decided to map the street layout to include the store category types lining the street. We also studied the sidewalk and vehicular road space along with the directional traffic routes.

With the implementation of a pedestrian scheme, we realized it made sense that the street employs ever-changing one-way directions to discourage vehicular traffic. During the evenings and weekends pedestrians take over and the street comes alive with spontaneous performances and informal activities and social gatherings.

After observing street activity during the daytime and evening on both weekdays and weekends, we analyzed the various spaces, uses, and activities present on Sai Yeung Choi and mapped them along private/public and informal/formal axes. From this point we decided to focus our field research to address our hypothesis: enabling pedestrian activity facilitates new interactions and functions on Sai Yeung Choi Street South, defining its unique character in the context of Mong Kok’s themed streets and making it a good public place for youth.