Welcome to U-Me New Media
New to New Media? Click here for an interactive tour of the University of Maine's New Media program.
U-Me New Media at a glance
! Departmental Alerts
- Co-create with nature in new Life Art class (Oct 2009)
- NMD295 Design Patterns for New Media in Spr 2010 (Oct 2009)
- Need advising help? Check out these links! (Mar 2009)
- NMD430 Contagious Media in Fall 2009 (Mar 2009)
- NMD 430 Indigenous Media in Spr 2009 (Oct 2008)
- JavaScript your world with NMD305! (Oct 2008)
- How to get a Degree Audit (Apr 2006)
New Alert
culture
interaction
narrative
time
network
document
Physical Computing Students Get their Glow On
Physical computing classes stretch the bounds of the user interface
APRIL_2009. Who needs Facebook when you can find a kindred soul standing in the same room? Featured in USA Today and NPR, the Friend Finder is the latest innovation in physical computing produced by students in Mike Scott's interaction sequence.
Friend Finder encodes personality preferences in a circuitboard; don a Friend Finder sweatshirt, and LED lights sewn into the design light up if you near someone with similar preferences. Active within 30 feet, this wearable device is ready to put hidden affinities on display, even in a crowded art opening, dining hall, or elevator.
USA Today says the device "could be a matchmaker," while Marissa Brassfield writes "We've featured a number of electronic shirts on TrendHunter.com, but this wearable Friend Finder is my new favorite."
Friend Finder has also appeared in local radio and newspaper features. The Bangor Daily Newssays, "It’s not as romantic as seeing stars, but a prototype developed last
semester by a class of nine University of Maine junior and senior new
media students could be a way to find love--or at least make more
personal contact--through wearable technology."
New media can be more intimate than a mouse and keyboard, as wearable devices like Friend Finder demonstrate. This year undergraduates in ASAP, the New Media Department's commercial R&D wing, have also built a multi-touch computing surface and travelled to the Alaskan Folk Festival as video journalists.
ABOVE: Touch-table photo by Zev Eisenberg; all other photos by Bill Drake.
Updated: 2009-04-15 by Jon Ippolito
Updated: 2009-04-16 by Craig Dietrich
Updated: 2009-04-23 by Jon Ippolito
Posted 2009-04-15 15:37:14 by Jon Ippolito
Comments on this story... (toggle all)
More interaction news...