Day 7: More

I had a couple more ideas that I wanted to get out in the open before
the week ended. There are lots of images, so I'm going to explain them
one by one.

Image 1 & 2: The idea behind the belts is that for one person to
engage another person in conversation, they should always be directly
facing their counterpart. This set consists of two belts, with one
belt buckle containing an IR emitter, and the other having a
receiver/detector. If the receiving belt doesn't detect the emitting
belt, it will start to beep.

Image 3 & 4: In my meeting with Cynthia we also talked about
tone/volume of voice being an aspect of first impressions. Voice falls
somewhere in the area between the spoken word and body language. Image
3 is an idea of having fake glasses made of high-tech glass that
frosts over (the kind we see in fancy bathroom stalls) whenever the
users speaking tone/volume falls below or rises above a certain level.
Image 4 is the same voice regulation idea applied to cufflinks that
trigger a reaction in an inner ear bud.

Image 5: A finger shaped cap with an implanted needle that prevents
the user from tapping his/her fingers in conversation. I am aware that
this is very tongue-in-cheek, like the collar idea, but just wanted to
throw it out there.

Image 6: This is my original chair idea from last semester repackaged
into shoes. There will be a sensor that monitors leg tapping/bouncing.
If the user continuously shakes his/her leg, the embedded miniature
vibrating motor in the shoe will vibrate as a reminder to stop.

Image 7: Body language experts often point out the importance for
people to show their palms to the person they are trying to establish
a rapport with. Showing the palms is a sign of openness, and it can
also be traced back to older times when it was a sign of not baring
arms. This wristband features a camera-flash taser that is connect to
an accelerometer. The accelerometer triggers the taser which when
wearer's palm is facing down.

Next step: I'm going to categorize all the product ideas I've come up
with and label them as either more fictional or more functional. I'll
also be conducting a survey with all the product images and
descriptions to see which ones people find to be the most interesting.

(download)