Skål (Norwegian for bowl) is a media player designed for the home that lets you interact with digital media using physical objects. You place objects in a wooden bowl to play back related media on the TV. Skål uses RFID to sense small, batteryless tags inside or attached to physical objects, toys, dolls and figures. You can fit any toy of suitable size with RFID tags and connect it to your own media content.
A bowl sits on the living room table and a range of physical objects can be placed within it. When an object is placed in the bowl related media is played back on the TV. For example a physical Moomin character like Little My will play a sequence from the Moomin cartoon where she is featured. Skål lets you control all kinds of digital media; movie-clips, Youtube channels, Flickr photo streams, home videos, online radio etc.
Skål is designed by Jørn Knutsen, Einar Sneve Martinussen and Timo Arnall. It emerged from Touch, a design research project looking at RFID in products and interactions. Touch at AHO is funded by Verdikt.
See also Immaterials: the ghost in the field
