May 9th is Europa Day. On 9th of May 1950 the first move was made towards the creation of what is now known as the European Union.

In Hasselt visitors could cycle through Hasselt or take a tour bus and discover various projects funded by EFRO (Europees Fonds voor Regionale Ontwikkeling/European Foundation for Regional Developement). Our project Creating Spaces was exhibited in art centre Z33. A demo of a multi-touch table, crewed by Johannes Taelman and a presentation
by Liesbeth Huybrechts informed visitors about our current research.

At the Venice Biennale, the mæve installation connects the entries of the EveryVille student competition and puts them into the larger context of MACE content and metadata. By placing physical project cards on an interactive surface, the visitors can explore an organic network of projects, people and media. mæve is designed and developed by the Interface Design team of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

Mæve installation @ Venice Biennale 2008 from Maeve installation on Vimeo

Source: http://portal.mace-project.eu/maeve/ & meave on vimeo

SLAP: Silicone Illuminated Active Peripherals. Bridging the Gap Between Virtual and Physical Controls on Tabletops

Physical user interface components such as buttons, sliders, knobs, and keyboards have many advantages: thanks to their haptic nature, they are easy to operate without looking, and their shape guides the user's input gestures. However, they are often expensive, and it is hard to change their labeling on the fly. Computer interfaces have largely replaced these devices with virtual on-screen controls, such as push buttons, scrollbars, rotary knobs and soft keyboards. Virtual controls are very flexible, easily changed dynamically - but they lack the physical, haptic texture and feedback of their real-world counterparts.

Silicone ILluminated Active Peripherals, or SLAP widgets, are physical widgets made from silicone rubber and acrylic that combine the advantages of physical and virtual devices: SLAP buttons, sliders, knobs and keyboards have the physical shape of real devices to provide the right haptic feedback, but are still easily relabeled using a tabletop rear projection. At the same time, they are particularly low-cost, and easy to put to use.

Artefact is developing an interesting concept design that aims to bridge the gap between the physicality of the real-life retail experience, and the flexibility of an online shopping platform.

The concept is called “The Wall”. It’s a large, monolithic looking interactive display that interacts with in-store physical products, and then aggregates associated online content about that item. It can help you “crowd source” your decision about whether or not to buy a particular piece - “does this look good on me?” The Wall will also be able to find similar items you might like (or at a certain price point), and help customers find other available products online, or in the store.

Via rb.trends