Reactable

[filkertom]

Nicked from mbumby, demo videos of Reactable, "a collaborative electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible multi-touch interface". Take a look, and a listen:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h-RhyopUmc
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPG-LYoW27E
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEDia3CFdfg
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zodf6_YGujo

I believe there are software packages that do similar stuff, and I'll try to track them down and link to them here. But the fact that this is physical, and immediately responsive, is just amazing.

Comments

[seanmonster.livejournal.com]

Wow, almost reinventing the Theremin.

[kengr]

It's only somewhat physical. I'm pretty sure that the objects that go on the table are nothing more than physical tokens that the table can read ID and orientation info from.

The rest is still software.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[nightmarewriter.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmmm. Sorta reminds of an instrument postulated in John Brunner's "Shockwave Rider", one of my favorite 70's SF books; that talks about everything from Genemodded animals, to "Delphi" betting pools (based on a concept that we are smarter collectively than we are individually, and people would place bets on future events from odds the Delphi would predict -- in a wiki-ish fashion), to Ecological housing, to video games.

Among the amazing things in this book, as a background in a scene mostly devoted to where they played the video game (that reminds of "Strategema" in Startrek: NG) was a dance floor with vertical beams of light. People would go on the dance floor and interrupt the lights at various heights with parts of their bodies, and produce tones thereby. Several of them acting in (heh) concert, could make melodies.

Seems to me this 'Reactable' could produce music, but several people would have to cooperate on which objects to put down and how to move them. It's a learnable skill.

[seanmonster.livejournal.com]

...several people would have to cooperate...

You mean something like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm_FzLya8y4)?