What happens when a mom “just couldn’t deal with a computer’s scroll bars, control keys, mouse, and other “cryptic” hardware,” and her kid is technically inclined?
The kid makes a “typewriter that sends email. It is a regular portable typewriter, which has concealed electronics that automatically sends the typed letter as an email…when the letter is finished and pulled out of the machine’s carriage”
The project is called 22 Pop (after the Olivetti typewriter, Letterea 22 and a reference to internet protocol terminology) and not only does it help his mom but it expands the boundaries of the e-mail universe. “The project directly responds to the monopoly of electronic interfaces for email access.”
It was created by Aparna Rao, a student at the Interaction Design Institute in Milan, as part of her masters thesis Household Objects in the Act.
Why not use a typewriter? Provide it with the latest technologies while “preserving all the intuitive, elegant and aesthetic qualities of interacting with a purely mechanical object.”
The concept is brilliant in that it brings the technology to the generation that exhibits the most resistance to it in a way that is non-threatening and ultimately empowering.