The typewriter that sends email

Indian artist Aparna Rao 22 POP project is inspired by her mother's frustration with e-mail and using a computer.

To make emailing as easy as writing a letter, Aparna collaborated with Mathias Dalhström (Sweden) to build the prototype of a typewriter (still widely used in India) that sends email. The typewriter is an ordinary Olivetti "Lettera 22" but electronics automatically sends the typed letter as an email to the intended person: through the use of various sensors concealed in the body, a small chip interprets all the mechanical operations of letter writing. When the letter is finished and the paper pulled out of the typewriter’s carriage, the email is sent via a telephone cable that fits into the back of the machine.

(probably my favourite project from Ivrea Interaction Design Thesis projects. My mother lives far away from me -though not in India- and is hopeless in front of a PC.)