Royal College of Art graduate Eunhee Jo has designed a tactile speaker with a fabric control panel and a speaker that moves to the music (+ movie).
The control panel for the Tangible Textural Interface (TTI) speaker is embedded in a concave surface on one side. By pushing the fabric surface, the user can skip tracks, adjust the volume or select options on the equaliser.
On the other side, the speaker's surface pulsates to the beat of the music and physically responds to selections made on the control panel.
Eunhee Jo recently graduated from the college's Innovation Design Engineering course. The TTI speaker was completed in collaboration with Hideki Yoshimoto and is on display at Show RCA 2012, which continues until 1 July.
See more stories from Show RCA 2012 here and watch course leader Miles Pennington give a tour of the show here.
Here's some more information from the designer:
TTI by Eunhee Jo
Interactive surfaces makes everyday objects multi-functional and fun. Reactive technologies have now enabled normal interfaces with new functions and new possibilities. The role of the surface is changing radically, according to how it’s designed and incorporated with objects.
My proposal was to re-define the role of the surface in future lifestyle, exploring how surfaces can be an integrated as part of a product or environment.
TTI (standing for Tangible Textural Interface) is a new sound system that embeds a tactile surface. TTI has flexibility that enables people to physically touch and feel the response through the controls and physical morph of the surface. TTI delivers new aesthetics through integrated flexible surfaces as interface material unlike adapting conventional materials for interfaces such as plastic or glass. Unlike existing 2D interfaces, TTI has a curved 3D surface opening up new possibilities in making flexible forms and shapes within the interface.
TTI consists of 3 main functions, backwards and forwards, volume control and equaliser, having a physical feedback and control interface within one surface. As you control the functions, the left surface physically responds to the controls. Tactile surface also responds to the beat of the music.