Kate Stone: Interactive surfaces for music

Kate Stone is the founder and CEO of Novalia, a UK-based company whose mission is to create “magical” interactions. Magical is the word Kate uses to explain that she aims to hide the technology away, and augment our analog interaction with the world with subtle and meaningful improvements. Imagine a musical instrument, a clarinet, say, equipped with invisible sensors and bluetooth chip, capturing the musician’s gestures to control video, or audio effects. Or a printed piece of paper with conductive ink that triggers sound.

Kate imagines a world that is more like Harry Potter than Minority Report. And although she claims she’s not a musician, most of her work revolves around music. From the McTrax she built for McDonalds to DJ Qbert’s album cover, music interactions seem to be the perfect home for her technologies. And for the past year, she’s been chair of the board of the MIDI Manufacturers Association.

Kate will be live-streaming on May 14th at 6:30pm UK time on our channel on YouTube and Facebook.