Jakob – social networking accessory for your sofa

For many ‘connected’ people, online social activities are sometimes more intensive than the social interaction with family members living in the same house.

To make ‘off-line’ socializing more appealing to the online addicted crowed, Dutch Industrial Design student Paula Kassenaar has a solution to offer called ‘Jakob‘.

‘Jakob’ is a creative addition to the armrest of a sofa. The idea is to form a platform for a wide variety of social and nonsocial interactions: playing games together, leaving messages for one another, teasing each other or reminiscing by finding back sound snippets of memorable moments.

Jakob incorporates basic everyday technology connected through electronic yarn in a clever and innovative way. The main function is recording sound bits, short twitter like messages, for family members who can listen to it when you are not around or feed the sofa with your own personality.

The use of conductive yarns and embedded electronic modules allow bending, twisting, toying around with ‘Jakob’ which blends into the character of sofas seamlessly.

I like concepts like this one (and hopefully one day commercial products) around sofas which are kind of center point in almost everyone’s household. Spicing up sofas with a bit tech for fun or function transforms our good old sofas into a 21st Century interaction tool.

Jakob is currently presented in the Attrackz Lounge at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven/The Netherlands.

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