Google’s Little Signals experiment uses air to send distraction-less notifications
When we think about notifications, the first things that come to mind are blinking LEDs or that familiardingsound, triggered by the arrival of a new message or perhaps by a shopping app to remind of a long-forgotten item on the wishlist. But humans can pick up sensory cues in numerous other ways, and Google’s now experimenting with just that, looking for new methods to subtly signal for attention while keeping intrusion and distraction at the absolute minimum.
Designed by London-based studio Map Project Office in collaboration with Google’s Seed Studio,Little Signalsis a new Google experiment that imagines various shapes of ambient computing devices in the future. It uses six conceptual objects, each with unique innovative ways to perform the simple act of notifying:
Efforts are being made to come up with new ways for users to interact with tech. A recently exposedGoogle patentshowed that the company’s been working on a ‘skin interface’ (gesture control via the user’s skin), which can be applied to a range of products, particularly wearables such as smartwatches and earbuds. But this is perhaps the first time that more ways of the reverse – technology communicating to us – are being tried out.
While not explicitly mentioned, smart home devices are the most likely to use any of the six aforementioned modes. The entire thing is obviously still in its experimental stages, but Google has detailed atutorialon how you can build the six devices yourself using Arduino.
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