Ideo’s C6O REDUX Brings Mixtapes Back
Ideo worked on the changing relationship we have towards music, adding a new, dynamic yet vintage approach:
The concept behind the C60 Redux is this: We’ve gone from handling vinyl, tapes and CD’s to clicking on MP3’s, losing tactility in the process and making a casualty of the mix tape. Is it possible to bring that back in a digital way? Bone, Johnson, and a group of IDEO designers endeavored to do so by creating a music player built with RFID readers and some Arduino Mini Pros, all housed in a record player case

Does the mix tape still exist in a digital world?
via [core77] [Synthetictom] source [IDEO]
December 17th, 2010 at 16:57:54
I like that idea very much!
I have always been a fan of Mix-Tapes (and from time to time I listen to some of them I made in the 80’ies).
The C60 Redux is the first MP3 player concept I find actually appealing enough that I want to go out and buy one!
For a DIY project the 54 RFID-antennas used in the original concept are probably too hard to build, but I immediatly imagined a single antenna solution, where the user puts the RFID-tags on a conveyor belt.
The conveyor belt will be switched on after a song was played and drops the next tag onto a single (simple) RFID reader. (Auto-Power-OFF when the belt is empty!)
The conveyer should have a certain length, so the user can physically reorder the tags/songs to be played next.
RFID jukebox! Got to think about this over christmas holidays.
Eberhard
December 19th, 2010 at 10:37:33
Wazz AL from the French studio Nodesign.net made the same thing 2 years ago. Also done with Arduino, it features great stereo speakers. http://vimeo.com/1137753
December 20th, 2010 at 15:50:43
Really interesting object / project.
If I find a blog post that tells it is done with arduino (I haven’t found it in the Nodesign blog) I’d really post & trackback here.
Thanks for commenting,
ciao
davide
December 20th, 2010 at 15:57:21
It is impressive to see what has developed out of the initial idea described in imissmypencil! A lot of people apparently felt closer connected with their music collection on mix tapes or on vinyl. So a goal was to bring back the tactile joy of physical interaction into our music library.
As an interaction design intern at IDEO I had the pleasure to be involved in the prototyping process. And we actually started with a single antenna solution prototype: The user puts his music tokens (with RFID-Tags) on a disc that starts rotating until the antenna (illustrated by a turntable cartridge) detects the first token of the users playlist. The disc stops and the music starts playing. When finished it starts rotating again until it finds the next song. Although we had some discussions about the right music to spin on it the turntable analogy with tangible jukebox features worked really well!
But see yourself: http://vimeo.com/17683484
December 20th, 2010 at 18:50:18
offtopic, has the ethernet board project been abandoned?
December 20th, 2010 at 22:39:06
Ahahahaha ! Amazing !
December 21st, 2010 at 14:39:21
not at all. 😉
thanks for commenting
davide
December 21st, 2010 at 14:41:08
wow. Thanks Konrad for the link
davide
January 14th, 2011 at 23:03:51
More details on the evolution of the RFID music player!
http://labs.ideo.com/2011/01/14/c60-evolution-of-an-idea/