"Reaction [beta]"
Exchanging contact details with a Handshake 14 Jan 2008
Hideaki Matsui, Dong Ho Yun, and Jea Wan Park have designed a ring that allows people to exchange their contact information by simply shaking hands. The idea won the 2007 Red Dot Award for Interaction & Communication design concept:
"Shaking hands is a customary action of greeting other people. This product brings the action one step further by creating an actual function. When people first meet and shake hands, the ring on their fingers get close enough to operate. The rings exchange their user's information and store them [while] they are shaking hands. The more people they meet, the more information they have. When the users browse through the people they have met, the [accompanying video] card displays their basic information that was stored in the ring. The power source is provided from human temperature, so it doesn't need any plug."
[via Neatorama]
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2 comments so far
Iain 14 Jan 2008 11:41 AM
I like this idea but it suffers from the same problem that faced video-phone manufacturers more than a decade ago. That is: there's no point owning a video-phone unless your friends (i.e. the people you regularly call) own one too. Thus, you decide to wait until your friends buy video-phones before you take the plunge. Of course, your friends are following exactly the same logic and are waiting for you to make the first move. The result: Stalemate. No one ends up buying a video-phone.
It's the same thing with these rings. They are only useful if other people have them. But other people won't buy them unless they see that other people are using them...and so on...The result: Every one sticks to using business cards (as they allow contact information to be transferred in any situation).
Mitch 14 Jan 2008 01:03 PM
What about the privacy implications? Few people would want to wear a device that would give away their contact details to anyone passing them in the street.