Pattie Maes presents the advances of the MIT in portable interfaces, ubiquitous computing and augmented reality at La Salle BCN

This Monday, the MIT Media Lab´s fluid interfaces research group Founder and Director, Pattie Maes, carried out the Conference "Designing Fluid Interfaces" at La Salle Campus Barcelona - URL. In her speech Pattie Maes presented the projects and progresses that are being achieved by the MIT and, additionally, she illustrated them through videos that showed their use and applications in the areas of study, memory, decision-making and collaboration. Pattie Maes highlighted the importance of digital devices in all aspects of our lives. "We work with them, we communicate, we learn, we have fun, we express ourselves...," said the founder and Director of the MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces research group. She also explained how the way we interact with them has changed and evolved since personal computers were created more than 40 years ago. She said that" before it was a passive and disturbing experience meanwhile now is more and more, an active and conscious act". In fact, MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces research group tries to radically rethink this interaction with the computer. The Founder and Director of the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces research group presented some of the projects and progress that are being conducted in the field of portable interfaces, ubiquitous computing and augmented reality. One of them is the Eye Ring, an intelligent vision system located in a ring. "It's a portable interface which allows the user to receive information about the object, either in a visual or auditory way", she explained. Another project is the LuminAR, which reinvents the traditional incandescent bulb and the desk lamp evolving into a device of information category. "This system allows users to receive information from visualized objects ", detailed Pattie Maes. Another of these advances is the so-called Smarter Objects, that "uses augmented reality to project images and data and to change the physical behaviour of the objects that surround us", according to the American scientist. Waazam is also a project of the MIT and "enables users to build their own joint world without being in the same physical place", said Pattie Maes. The objective of the MIT Media Lab, as she reminded, is to create a more natural, consistent and integrated experience of digital devices in our physical lives and design and build devices that function as a natural extension of our minds, bodies and behaviours. Pattie Maes, also visited the facilities of La Salle Campus Barcelona – URL and learnt about the projects carried out within the University.