It’s amazing what some minds can do with technology – or, in this case, the team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The team has just unveiled a new technology called inFORM, which allows you to reproduce digital content physically in 3D.
With this technology, users can utilize inFORM to react to various things, including 3D models, bar graphs and more. In addition, you can also use Skype with it, creating a physical version of the person you’re having a conversation with – even though it’s not a hologram projector. Hey, it’s the next best thing.
inFORM cost quite a bit to make, with 900 small motors that control each pin on it. The pins then work together to render objects in 3D, with each one costing around $20 to $30. That doesn’t mean we won’t see it for consumer means down the road, but, for now, it’s merely an MIT project – but an innovative one. The game possibilities are very interesting.“The traditional sort of interaction design and device design sort of assumes for a very static way of interacting and this [inFORM] device can change its physical form very quickly and that means that we need to come up with new ways that we interact with technology,” said Seam Follmer, working alongside his team, Daniel Leithinger and Professor Hiroshi Ishii, at MIT’s Tangible Media Group.
Source: Digital Trends
