VortexBath: Study of Tangible Interaction with Water in Bathroom for Accessing and Playing Media Files

We describe an interface for places where people use water, such as the kitchen, toilet, or bathroom. We developed a prototype that can be operated by users by tangibly interacting with water. It enables image files and movie files to be browsed by projecting the images onto water, it plays music files with album jacket images, and it reads out information from the Internet using speech-synthesis technology. We also describe a demonstration of how users can access their media files by tangibly interacting with water, which is different from conventional way such as pressing buttons on a remote control.