FYP2008 Tangible Operating System

Project Members:
Yeo Daniel Lida

Idea:
Today’s computer operating systems uses the conventional mouse + keyboard Graphical User Interface (GUI) for its daily operations. This project, Tangible Operating Systems, aims to transform all these intoa two-handed Tangible User Interface (TUI), using physical cubes to manipulate and control digital information.

The objective is to demonstrate a new paradigm of file management and computer operational functions via the affordances of the physical cube; instead of just clicking and dragging files using the mouse, users now interact and manipulate files by simply rotating, translating, or even shaking the physical cube to perform various actions and commands.

Instead of interfacing with the digital desktop on the monitor screen, the ordinary tabletop now becomes the virtual desktop itself! Tangible Operating Systems transforms computer use from a time-multiplexing to a space-multiplexing one, and ultimately aims to minimize some of the problems that computer users face with the current GUI system.