Skål (Norwegian for bowl) is a product that has emerged from the Bowl project. It is a media player designed for the home that acts as the interface between physical objects and related digital media on a television.
This video shows Skål in action. A bowl sits on the living room table and a range of physical objects are used to trigger various kinds of media. For example a physical Moomin character like Little My will play a sequence from the Moomin cartoon where she is featured. Skål can control all kinds of digital media; movie-clips, Youtube channels, Flickr photo streams, home videos and online radio.
The product has been used as a probe to build our understanding of RFID technology in playful and domestic contexts and is the result of extensive enquiry into the area. It differs from other similar products like Touchatag and Mirror by focusing specifically on direct and immediate tangible interaction with rich digital media. In some ways it is similar to the iPhone RFID prototype, and here it reflects on the interchangeability of tags and readers in media interaction: RFID systems are symmetrical and interactions can be built through manipulating the reader (the iPhone) or the objects (Skål).
Visit the Skål website for more on the bowl and how it works and Flickr for more images.
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We are having a little discussion about the potential use of these devices over there, we are not experts but think this concept is very exciting: http://j.mp/rfidbowl