Last week, during the Salone del Mobile in Milan, I went to see the Greenhouse Effect exhibition that showed the works in progress of IDII students. I made pictures, asked a few questions, but my snaps were so depressing that I couldn’t blog anything (apart from the brilliant InstantSoup). Plus, the projects I liked best were not online.

Today, surprise, surprise, I found the brand new website of one of those projects: Giovanni Cannata ‘s Light Appliances (dubbed Household IP information appliances for low-tech Italians) thesis project.

He made the prototype of a system of information appliances that simplify interaction with internet services, allowing people who don’t use computers to access services over the internet (video calls, internet radios, e-mails, etc.)

The system is composed by buttonless appliances, each one dedicated to one specific function like email, voice over internet, video call and internet TV. These appliances are supported by a service and a very simple one-button remote control, called the “dropper” allows the system to be highly flexible.

Light Appliances allows you to browse photos in a digital picture frame by caressing the frame’s corner and to call the friend displayed in the photo by dragging and dropping the contact into a phone using the “dropper”, or sending him a handwritten e-mail by dragging the contact into an e-mail appliance instead.

Other works by Giovanni Cannata: Creative Collision.