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Fabian Hemmert's Shape-Shifting Phones Make Information Incarnate

by Matthew Zuras on February 2, 2010 at 08:25 AM


One of the ongoing issues with digital life is that the data we process is translated though devices with little naturalistic feedback. Is it possible for the gizmos of the future to incorporate interfaces that physically respond to the data they display? Designer and PhD student Fabian Hemmert seems to think so. He spoke at the TEDx conference back in November, and introduced the audience to three concepts for making digital data tangible, basing his ideas on the potential of cell phones.

Hemmert's weight-shifting phone contains a moving apparatus that shifts the device's center of gravity to the position most suitable for a particular kind of data output. Hemmert uses the example of GPS mapping, which could be improved by the phone's weight pointing in the right direction. Another prototype, the shape-changing phone, shifts its high and low axes to indicate unseen information residing off-screen. His final phone invention is an "ambient life" mobile, which offers an artificial heartbeat and diaphragm that indicate the liveliness of the device. Are your e-mails piling up? The phone palpitates in agitation, so just stroke it to calm its frayed nerves. Brilliant. [From: Infosthetics]

Tags: cell phone, CellPhone, concepts, data, fabian hemmert, FabianHemmert, prototype, ted, tedx, top

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