One of Lift Conference’s special treats is the Lift Experience, a series of projects and installations from artist and designers all over the world. Discover each installation on this blog, and check out the Lift experience page for more information!

Meet QB1. A computer that looks, feels and acts like no other computer.
Just one year after that the exhibition of their first prototype at the MoMA in New York, Frederic Kaplan and Martino d’Esposito present at Lift Experience, a robotized computer named QB1. No mouse. No keyboard. You simply interact with it with gestures.

We discovered mouse and keyboards 25 years ago… These tools are wonderful to edit texts, do our budget or conceive new products. The interaction principles they introduced are still the one used in our most of our personal computers. In the meantime, our lifestyle has changed. Now we use computers to play music, watch videos, get some news, and communicate with our friends. And we don’t want to sit at our desk to do all this…

QB1 is the result of collaboration between an engineer, Frederic Kaplan and an indutrial designer, Martino d'Esposito. Kaplan, now researcher at the CRAFT laboratory of EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne), worked ten years for Sony, creating brains for entertainment robots. d'Esposito, teacher at ECAL (The University of Art and Design Lausanne), designs objects and furniture for several companies including Ligne Roset, Cinna, Neweba and Monodor. Together, they co-founded OZWE, a company that creates 'disruptive' devices, like QB1.

At Lift Experience, you'll learn how to browse into QB1's interactive menus and selection tools and discover how QB1 can change the way you can access to your music. You’ll also discover new multi-player games that you can play with your whole body.

If you want to try QB1 at home., OZWE organizes a “casting” to select a few “families” that could welcome QB1 during the Fall 2009. Your picture will be taken and you’ll discuss with Frederic Kaplan and Martino d’Esposito to see if your place is a good environment for a machine of this kind.
More information on : www.ozwe.com