Welcome to Wallyworld

click to enlargeTuesday September 20

Paris

This sensitive little key-table knows if you come home with the shits by the way you dump your stuff on it.

It’s a project of the English Royal College of Art, Interaction Design Research department under the title Electronic Furniture for the Curious Home. See details and other loopy stuff here –

http://www.interaction.rca.ac.uk/equator/weight_furniture.html

Much as slamming doors are a crude measure of mental state, so the table uses the transient onsets of a new weight to gauge mood.

What they mean is, if you come home and slam your stuff on to it (like keys/mobile phone/coins etc.), it knows you're in a foul mood.

The table would trigger reactions to emotion extremes in a variety of ways. For example, mechanised frames might swing off centre to warn other inhabitants to tread carefully.

That’s a bit lame, isn’t it? The picture frame goes out-of-kilter if you chuck a wobbley? Woopy-doo.

Couldn’t the table be a bit more proactive? A bit more caring? Like couldn’t it take your shoes off... mix a cocktail... give you a neck massage... roll a reefer or something?

In Maxwell Smart’s apartment it would have.