Could the screen of the future be analogue?

10th January 2019

Alex Lynn

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After a multi-million dollar crowdfunding campaign, Scribit has been presented at Las Vegas’ 2019 Consumer Electronic Show (CES), where it will be on display until January 11th. Designed by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, Scribit is a write and erase robot that can turn any vertical surface into a low-refresh screen displaying information from the web, user-generated content and art. Scribit can endlessly transform any physical wall around us into an analogue screen.

“We need access to more and more information. But we already have too many pixels in our lives – the ones on our smartphones, tablets, laptops and TVs,” said Carlo Ratti, founding partner of CRA and director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “How could we increase access to data in a more seamless and analogue way? This was our starting question for Scribit.”

Andrea Baldereschi, CMO of Scribit, explained: “Children still rate writing on walls as one of their favourite un-permitted hobbies. With just two nails, Scribit hangs on your wall and can combine up to 4 markers to draw art, data and murals on any vertical surface. Fortunately, unlike some of our more famous pre-historical ancestors, Scribit is also able to erase its work and leave no trace, making it an effective low-refresh rate screen.”

A restaurant can post the day’s menu on its wall, a financial firm can post stock market updates in its lobby, someone who loves art can reproduce a Van Gogh or any other masterpiece, old and contemporary.

Ratti added: “Ultimately, beyond the ability to represent data, we see the Scribit platform as developing into a kind of Spotify for visual content."

The Consumer Electronic Show (CES) is a busy event for the global tech community. Since 2016, innovations in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI), flexible screens and Virtual Reality (VR) have dominated the Las Vegas show. While we all share excitement for the benefits of such technologies, many are questioning today’s pixel monoculture. Scribit proposes an alternative direction.

Scribit is an IoT companion that not only allows users to turn their walls into interactive canvases, but also reminds us that great things require patience. Like the Slow Food movement, we could think about ‘Slow Info’. In the process of creation, the Scribit robot and the user can work together, both of them using markers, to complete an analogue piece of creativity that improves the space where we live and work – and that is ready to be reconfigured again, if necessary.

Visit the Scribit stand at CES (7th to 11th January 2019): Sands, Hall G – 51108, Eureka Park.