TED Thursday

Kate Stone: DJ decks made of... paper

An inspiring woman shares her experiments of combining her love of paper and technology into something totally unique. She makes a very interesting observation that "you can't change the nature of things, but you can change the environment in which the things are in". And suddenly, this observation can be applied to anything – whether it's sheep or electrons!

After buying her own printer press, she teaches herself to print, and then combines regular paper with conductive inks and tiny circuit boards to offer a unique, magical experience. To date, applications include a newspaper embedded with audio and video, posters that display energy usage in real time, and the extremely nifty paper drum kit and set of DJ decks she demonstrates onstage.

The mind boggles with the possibilities this technology presents, and while I don't know what a print run would cost, an interactive poster would surely be cheaper and more "thief friendly" to reproduce than say, touch-screens.

Get inspired!