Simple Life 2013 Jan 10

This is such a Cranbrook piece!

It is a critical design. It presents such a precise point of view, definitely a conversation piece and probably win an award if placed on a pedestal. Yet it is also so innocent.

So here’s a first grader walking to school on a Thursday morning. In a rather unusual sight, she was behaving just like a city kid, walking with her head down staring into a handheld device, working her stylus pen like as if she’s in a hurry to email the power point presentation out before the 8 o’clock meeting.

Yet, this hand held device is like no other. It requires no battery. It is extremely light weight and compact. The screen has excellent response and unparalleled tactility, with a stylus pen giving a natural feedback and resistance, with absolutely no lag or visual parallex from a thick glass, like most LCDs do. The pressure sensitivty cannot be described through “bits”. It just felt like what all stylus pad is supposed to feel like.

No wonder this girl’s attention is glued to this handheld device. It’s arguably the best interactive portable device ever created!

Now let’s watch her give you a live product demo!



So you have it, an age old trick applied to micmick the lastest and greatest, with such simplicity that it really becomes an irony, or a sartire, and is something you would see in a Cranbrook critic session, or a sketch on The Onion. For those who didn’t understand what was going on in the video, it is basically a elastic piece of clear pink plastic laid over a white soft back. When the pen presses the plastic against the back, it sticks to the back piece showing a color contrast. That’s how the drawing is created. Of course, the slider simply separates the two pieces of material, hence “clears” the image.

So why is this ironic? Well, this toy has existed since when we were young as a drawing board. In the world of today when everything is moving towards digital and virtual interface, and when every city kid wants an iPad, someone answered the desire of digital luxury with a very low cost technique for the country kids who can’t afford first world technology. To me, the irony is that in pursue of the ultimate interaction experience, we’ve gone so far to develop tools using advance technology and exploiting such vast amount of resources, only to be recreated with such a simple technique that already exist since before the digital age even started.

Oh and BTW, this girl got this toy as a prize that she won at a pin ball machine at the weekly Monday night market. It’s literally a give-away.