Reading #15: Madgets: Actuating Widgets on Interactive Tabletops

References:
Madgets: Actuating Widgets on Interactive Tabletops by Malte Weiss, Florian Schwarz, Simon Jakubowski, and Jan Borchers.  


Published in UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology.


Author Bios:
Malte Weiss is a PhD student at Media Computing Group.
Florian Schwarz is an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Simon Jakubowski is a Research Scientist at AlphaFix.
Jan Borchers is a professor at Aachen University.


Summary:
Hypothesis:
Tabletops that use Madgets allow for much easier interaction and actuation control.


Methods:
Madgets seek to be lightweight while also being easy to use. Sensing is done via visual tracking and the widget controls are transparent. The computer tracks all the elements of the system and finds paths between positions.


Results:
Overall it was successful. It allowed for widgets to be easily built and mapped onto the system. It allowed for rapid change of a system and for easier experimentation. 


Contents:
The description of the project followed the introduction. All of the elements of the project are described, both physical and computational. It then tells how all the pieces fit together.


Discussion:
I didnt really care for this article. It just didnt seem something that would really catch my interests as being the next big thing. While it is a neat idea for building prototypes of various systems, i feel like that could be easily accomplished in a different way that would be more effective.