Newscast: a novel interface for delivering news
Orkan Telhan
MIT Media Labs
20 Ames St.
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
orkan@media.mit.edu
Elysa Wan
MIT
77 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
wane@mit.edu
ABSTRACT
This paper describes an interface design which investigates
an alternative model for interaction with news through a
physical interface. We introduce the metaphor of dripping
water which corresponds to flow of information and
discuss its affordances in a new kind of public/private
display. We believe that the newscast addresses a different
paradigm for perceiving everyday news unlike more
traditional sources of information (E.g. newspaper, TV,
RSS feeds) integrating their features as a customizable
news aggregator that can be in your living room.
Keywords
Ubiquitous computing, ambient media, tangible interfaces.
INTRODUCTION
The delivery of news information has a rich history which
has constantly been shaped by the latest advances in
information technology. Television, radio and printed
materials are perhaps still the most popular way of
delivering news. When using these mediums, the end user
is typically a passive consumer of information, allowing
the editors to control which sources, genres and specific
news items are presented. On the other hand, the
physicalities of these media create many usage
implications. Time and print limitations constrains the
amount of content which can be presented. Also, the
physical presence of traditional news media creates a
unique context as a single-purpose object with an exclusive
function.
Since the advent of the Internet, news web sites have given
users more breadth and control over their news
consumption. Additionally, the recent popularity of
technologies such as the Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
and Atom, have sparked the creation of software
applications known as news aggregators. These
applications allow users to combine content from different
sources and create a “personal newspaper” [1]. While this
creates organization in a sea of information, using a multi-
James Teng
MIT Media Labs
20 Ames St.
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
jteng@media.mit.edu
Andres Monroy-Hernandez
MIT Media Labs
20 Ames St.
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
andresmh@media.mit.edu
purpose device with rich interactivity like a personal
computer requires a high level of attention from the user.
While each news medium introduces its own model of
interaction and set of affordances, both traditional and
modern interfaces are attention intensive, making news
navigation an isolated and entirely foreground activity.
Ongoing research addresses the challenge of seamlessly
integrating of information with everyday life. Additionally,
as media technology designers, we are acutely aware that
the interface design has a significant effect on the way
users perceive news.
Our approach integrates news into daily life in both its
physical form and its interface architecture.
The newscast is a table, with an embedded pool of water
where news items are. Each news items is represented by
an individual “news droplet.” A news droplet is both
physical water droplets and a digital image of news item.
When a news droplet “falls” a water droplet falls and
creates ripples on the water surface; at the same time a
photograph or headline from the news item is projected on
the same location. The content of the news is manipulated
by a set of knobs or faucets which allows the user to
control of the source of information (e.g. CNN, BBC) or
the news genre (e.g. as politics, technology, fashion). Each
faucet allows the user to control the amount and flow of
news from its specific news feed. Inspired by the intuitive
gesture of catching water, newscast let its user to capture
more detailed information about a specific news droplet
(either by hand or a cup). Once a droplet is caught, a more
detailed version of the particular news item is displayed on
the table.
The visualization of the news droplet is a key to our
approach for creating an alternative perception for the
news information. Provided that each news droplet has two
levels of interaction, the user can choose the level attention
he/she ones to put into the content. News can either be
presented as a slideshow of headlines or images,
resembling the metaphor of ticker heavily utilized in
recent TV based news layout or a special page that is
dedicated to that individual news item, providing more
text and images. Once retrieved from an RSS feed, now
the news droplet has a life of its own as an isolated news
entry. In our visualizations, one of the main challenges is
to design an interface that does not overpower the content
of the news by aestheticizing or trivializing it. In the same
vein, we believe that we benefit from the metaphor of
water both as an interaction scheme, as well as a natural
source of inspiration for the association between the flow
and aggregation of news as water like behavior.
We see the “newscast” as an alternative and novel interface
that brings the functionalities of a news aggregator to the
physical world while eliminating the continuous high level
of attention necessary with a computer. By framing the
newscast as a piece of furniture it integrates news
information into the natural social environment (e.g. a
living room, a town square, etc). This amalgamates the
features of a conventional TV display, interactive web
pages and customizable RSS feeds as information
resources. While tailoring this hybrid technology which
benefits from existing media, we incorporate the added
benefit more from a gestural interface that doesn’t require
external input devices.
PREVIOUS WORK
Projects like the Newsmap by Marcos Weskamp [2] and
My.UserLand.Com, the first news aggregator, developed
by Netscape and UserLand [3] familiarized the idea of
mixing different news items from varied sources or
categories into a single digital environment. Discussions of
the convergence between television and the Internet had
already been going on since the early 1990’s [4], while
nowadays the concept of TV on-demand is already a
commercial reality.
The newscast interaction model is inspired by the
SenseTable [5] developed at MIT Media Laboratory, which
provides us a framework for the interaction mechanism by
s based on information projected onto a table.
Using water and other natural media has been present in
the history of tangible interfaces, in the MIT Media
Laboratory’s WaterLamp project the mapping of bits to
water ripples was presented for the first time [6] as well as
David Small’s Stream of Consciousness project.
USER SCENARIO
The newscast is well-suited in either a public or private
environment, the following user scenario is relevant in
either setting. A user, Sarah, approaches the news cast and
watches the images and ripples as news droplets fall
continuously on the table. She customizes the content
displayed by newscast by adding and removing faucets
placed on the side of the table. By turning a faucet, Sarah
increases or decreases the number of articles which are
displayed in that category or genre. This also affects the
rate at which those water droplets fall. When Sarah sees an
interesting picture so she places her hand above the news
droplet and catches a drop of water. Then the full length
article is displayed on the table along with a function
which sends an e-mail to remind Sarah of the article later.
If Sarah “misses” an interesting news droplet she can use a
slider which scrolls through previous droplets, once she
releases the slider the newscast goes back to its normal
state.
DESIGN
When approaching this design space we hoped to create an
interface which navigates through news items in an
effective, intuitive and calm way. The newscast addresses
this need both with its operational method as well as its
aesthetic quality.
We were inspired by the idea that news is happening all
the time, not just when a news program is scheduled on
television, or when a person chooses to visit a news
webpage. Consequently, news browsing should also be a
continuous activity. As such, we choose to navigate
through news items with a continuous shuffle of news
droplets. This exposes the user to a vast breadth of
information without a complex navigational procedure.
Because this system presents news constantly, it is
essential that the system to do so in a calm and non-
intrusive way. For that reason we designed the news
droplets to fall at a slow and constant rate, creating a semi-
static interface which does not require foreground
attention. Meanwhile, the aesthetics of real water create a
tranquil and natural display.
Our analysis newscast placed the newscast at the center of
the attention continuum where ambient objects such as
décor, watches and artifacts (e.g. the Ambient Orb [7]) at
one extreme and attention-intensive device like such as the
personal computer, television and newspapers on the other
end. This unique position provides users with the desired a
constant, yet non-invasive awareness of news information.
Fig. 1 This illustrates the continuum of attention
required for several interfaces. Our project occupies
the intermediary position between ambient and
intrusive devices.
The integration of news and daily life is highlighted by the
physical form of the newscast as a table. In the same
respect, this physicality benefits from the tangible
manipulative used to control news content and amount of
information shown. The controllable faucets were inspired
by the common tangible interface of the sink. This
 Fig. 2 The setup of our current newscast prototype, with labels corresponding to the table, knobs, projector, camera
and nozzles.

household appliance allows people to control water from
two separate source (hot and cold), and combine them to
create the desired result. In the same manner, the faucets
on the newscast allow users to control and combine
different sources of news to create a personalized mixture
of news content. To view the full story of a news droplet, a
user must “catch” the news droplet using a cup or his
hand. This tangible interface uses the powerful concept of
physically capturing information.
The newscast utilizes the rich metaphor of water in many
ways. Most fundamentally each news item is mapped to a
water droplet which combines to create the pond of water
on the table. Also constant and natural stream of water is
similar to the constant and natural occurrence of news
events. More generally, each news feed is a stream of
water which the user can control and manipulate. Finally
the physical ripples created by the news droplets is similar
to the emotive effects a news items has on a user
consciousness as well as the actual effects the news even
has on the world.
Finally, we want to emphasize that this system is not
designed to replace other forms of news distribution, but
rather to extend provide yet another way to represent
information in a non intrusive and aesthetic way.
IMPLEMENTATION
such as science, entertainment, technology, etc.
Turning the knobs change the rate news droplets
are displayed.
• Projector. A projector is suspended above the table
and displays the images and headlines of news
onto surface of the table.
• Camera. The camera points towards the surface of
the table and detects the movement of a user when
catching a news droplet.
• Water system. An array of adjustable water valves
above the table store and release the water
droplets on the surface of the table.
• Software. An application continuously downloads
news items from RSS feeds and sends the text and
images to the projector. The system is constantly
monitoring the camera and the knobs to detect
when the user catches a news droplet and when
the knobs are turned on/off to control the types of
news projected.

The current model of newscast has the following elements:

• Table. The table made with acrylic has a small
reservoir of water embedded in the center.
• Knobs. The initial implementation has three
knobs, each representing a different news genre
 • a repository of past news items and providing a way to
Fig. 3 The newscast prototype. Above is a news
droplet displayed on the table surface. Below is the
detailed version of the selected news droplet.
FUTURE WORK
The most interesting challenge of the system is the
utilization of affordances provided by of physical water in
relation to digital news. Consequent research would
explore the deeper implications of physical water and the
way it may be used to represent and manipulate
information. One example the size of the droplet’s ripple
what information it might provide about the news item
(i.e. a more important news item creates a larger ripple).
Also we are interested in exploring the idea of the table as
filter or view previous history using a slider or another
tangible interface.
More generally, we would also like to explore other
dynamic designs of the table and news stream. For
example, instead of a flat reservoir, news droplets could
drop onto a topographical surface which physically creates
streams and a structural organization of the water. Also
relevant is creating a cyclical relationship between the
water on the table and the water falling from the news
droplet, similar to the natural water cycle.
CONCLUSION
The conceptual base of the newscast lies in the intersection
of different types of objects and technologies. The system
strives to make the best use of the metaphor of water
droplets as news items. We compared this system to other
similar ways of displaying information, making a clear
distinction of where the newscast is positioned. Finally, we
believe the use of real water and knobs provides a good
interface for news but we are interested in looking at more
ways of utilizing this tangible interface.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Professor Hiroshi Ishii and the 2005 Tangible
Interfaces class for providing a supportive environment for
this project.
REFERENCES
1.Wikipedia entry on news aggregator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_aggregator
2.Marcos Weskamp Newsmap project at
http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/index.cfm
3.UserLand My.UserLand.ComNews Aggregator at
http://radio.userland.com/newsagg
4.Press., L.. The Internet and interactive television.
Commun. ACM 36, 12, 19.
5.J Patten, H Ishii, J Hines, G Pangaro. Sensetable: a
wireless object tracking platform for tangible user
interfaces. CHI 2001
6.A Dahley, C Wisneski, H Ishii. Water Lamp and
Pinwheels: Ambient Projection of Digital Information
into Architectural Space. Proceedings of CHI '98.
7.Ambient Devices at http://www.ambientdevices.com