Strange Loop

Programmable Ink

Sketching with pen & paper is a powerful way to think through ideas, but ink on paper is static. Dynamic behavior, on the other hand, requires programming -- which lacks the immediacy of the canvas: it's indirect, abstract, symbolic, and full of bureaucracy. What if we could harness the power of modern tablet computers to combine the intimacy of ink with the power of computation?

In this talk, we'll review our research at Ink & Switch into programmable ink. We'll show live demos of three quirky research prototypes for stylus & tablet computing. We'll talk about how, and why, these projects differ from past work, and we'll try and balance the crunchy technical details with the hand-waving philosophical goals driving them.

Szymon Kaliski

researcher, designer & developer

I'm a principal investigator at Ink&Switch -- an industrial research lab -- where I explore various topics around end-user programming and tools for thinking and doing. I also run a boutique research & development consultancy called flow/control. In my free time I work on personal projects, and make drone/ambient music from deconstructed acoustic sounds.