glanceable

Simplicity is hip

2005-10-04T17:49:00.000-05:00

"Philips has created a buzz with the anouncement of some exciting new smart concept products and ideas that target the hip lifestyle consumer, which means you. The products include: THE CHAMELEON, a lamp shade that changes to match any color you 'show' it. MOMENTO stores the most cherished moments, recorded as short movie clips, and replays them as floating magical fragments in a glass ball. HERBARIUM, an intelligent greenhouse designed to provide the best climate for growing health-giving herbs from smart seed pads. LED Bulbs can be (re) adjusted by twisting for the color and atmosphere right at the source." from the cool hunter

(left to right: Chameleon, Momento, Herbarium, LED Bulbs)

Note: Now that Blogger has an easy interface for del.icio.us tags, we'll be adding them to posts. The biggest advantage will be that the first tag will either be concept or product to help differentiate between things on sale and ideas still in R&D.

The Contact Board

2005-10-04T09:59:00.000-05:00

we make money not art: The Contact Board: "Contact Coard is an accessory for landline phones to help users manage their contacts."

There are 3 areas on the board: one to make the calls, another to edit the number and the third one to listen to messages. The user can call one of their contacts or listen to a message from that person by putting the magnets on a specific area.

Nabaztag the WiFi Bunny

2005-09-24T10:02:00.000-05:00

With a title to a post like that, it's real tempting just to leave there.

Nabaztag is a bunny equipped with Wifi and responds to inform you of Internet information (stocks, traffic, your email). It's 95 euros from Violet, the French company that brought us Dal, the color-changing WiFi lamp.

(via Slashdot, visit especially if you want to read a lot of rants about bunnies)

The crocodile and the toothbrush

2005-09-23T10:26:00.000-05:00

The toothbrush uses a colored end to help inform children if they are brushing with the right pressure (green=good, red=too much), then turns blue when you have brushed long enough (two minutes).

Even more interesting from a social condiditioning perspective, the toothbrush interacts (via RF) with a silicone crocodile that will remind them to brush if they forget. The crocodile maintains a steady lifelike breathing motion, but if the child forgets to brush it will slow down until it eventually stops. The only way to re-animate it is for the child to brush their teeth correctly. (from We Make Money Not Art)

RFID in Japan: E-Paper RFID Tag

2005-09-22T17:07:00.000-05:00

Epson produced an RFID e-ink display with no power necessary. At the Auto-ID Expo that recently took place in Tokyo, Epson unveiled a passive RFID tag (13.56MHz; ISO 15693) that has a display. The display component is implemented by using E-ink's EP Sheet and uses electrophoretics to not require batteries.

Public Air Quality Indicator

2005-09-18T19:42:00.000-05:00

The aim of the Public Air Quality Indicator project is to make existing information on air quality and pollution levels accessible. The indicator gives information specific to the location in which it is placed in the city and is updated 4 times a day.

A similar system controls a window opener on the city hall. Depending on the current pollution level, the window will close (warning) or open (pollution below average) enabling the public to read the indicator from the street.

The SUCK LED Mirror - with RSS feed!

2005-08-17T13:35:00.000-05:00

Much like the Philips Homelab Mirror TV, except it's $300 not $2000, and it displays LEDs that can be programmed to web data (like say an RSS feed, or even more image-based ambient-like interfaces). There is also a programmable LED clock. On the market, cool.

Sleep Orb

2005-08-17T12:27:00.000-05:00

Aparna Rao's My Bedtime project is aimed at underlining that each individual has a unique sleep need that is independent of social time.

A wired pillow is connected to an "alarm clock" with an Orb as it's face. The pillow senses the sleeper's movements and then the alarm rings only when the body has had enough sleep.

The alarm design is a nice mixture of old-time alarm clock and new age eyeball Orb design to show a new approach to sleeping that respects a person's sleep and biorythms. Unfortunately although our biorhythims are independent of social time, most jobs are not.

R*Emote Mirror

2005-08-01T09:28:00.000-05:00

Color as telepresence. A wonderful emotive way of letting people in remote areas get a "feeling" for each other. r*Emote Mirror has two functions: one is a mirror, and the other is interactive color lighting.

Each person is represented by a color and their basic silhouette, so you are red and your sister in Seoul is in blue. You glance at the mirror and see blue, she's there. If you walk nearby and both colors are there, the overlapping portions are purple. If you are both in front of each mirror, the overlapping of color will hopefully evoke feeling of togetherness.

from: we make money not art

New Book: Inescapable Data

2005-07-30T16:36:00.000-05:00

"There is no doubt that we are being bombarded by data everywhere. The good news is that some companies are working on ways to make some of the data more 'accessible' without being more overwhelming. The point to Inescapable Data is that we are probably at the beginning stages of allowing us to absorb more information than ever before and in less intrusive ways."

The Optimus Keyboard

2005-07-21T12:32:00.000-05:00

The Optimus keyboard has gotten a lot of talk on the blogs. Basically they plan to build a keyboard with OLED displays underneath the keys so each key is customizable. It sounds like Optimus is going to initially target this at professionals, and gamers/hackers of course have fallen in love with the customizability. While most of these are imagining customized HalfLife keyboards, I think one incredible feature is the ability to change the keyboard instantly.

So you have a display surface in which several keys could be dedicated glanceable displays, and the drill-down to details on the glance is literally a click away. You could even use the entire keyboard as an animation surface when certain types of events happen. Wonderful. Unfortunately it also reaks of a nice idea that will be vaporware, stay tuned.

POSTIN: Wireless Mailbox Notifier Gadget

2005-07-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

Live in an apartment building or have a -really- long driveway and need notification when the mail comes? A German company offers POSTIN. Local wireless to a LCD weather station-like device notifies owners when the mailman is dropping mail in the mailbox. (thx Wibrary)

Microsoft Pitches Displays for Laptop Lids

2005-07-20T09:24:00.000-05:00

Don't know how this slipped through, but it looks like Microsoft is working with laptop vendors to integrate SPOT devices into future laptops to display not only SPOT data, but also provide some information about the status of the laptop's battery, application details, etc. It's a little like the secondary displays that have become so popular on cell phones, although in this case I have little understanding about the amount of time your laptop spends closed where a quick glance would give you valuable info.

I imagine we'll find out soon.

Philips’s iCat Smart Companion does, uh, stuff

2005-07-15T11:14:00.000-05:00

Cats and lamps that Philips hope will eventually replace your remote control with a dialog system. For the time being, Philips only sells these platforms to universities and research labs.

MusicCube

2005-07-14T19:20:00.000-05:00

The MusicCube, a wireless cube-like object, renders more tangible several content attributes of Mp3 music. Play lists, music rhythm, volume, and navigational feedback are communicated via multicolored light.

Users can physically interact with their music collections via the MusicCube using gestures to shuffle music and a rotary dial with a button for song navigation and volume control.

flora

2005-07-14T19:15:00.000-05:00

'fluorescent light organizing radio accessory' that is able to display the geographical position of a buddy by merging a compass-like interface with the game 'hot & cold'. the green color indicates the direction of the buddy being tracked, while the buddy's distance is displayed in feet & the elevation (ex. different floor in mall) is depicted with a direction arrow (up or down). via we-make-money-not-art.com

Ambient Experience for Healthcare

2005-07-14T17:15:00.000-05:00

"This program is designed to reduce the stress and claustrophobic effects of an MRI through the utilization of a complete multimedia environment that adapts to individual patients." from BusinessWeek / IDEA awards 2005. By Philips. tag

Fifth Wave of Computing in Business 2.0

2005-07-03T21:18:00.000-05:00

Finally picked up the article in Business 2.0 on the Fifth Wave of Computing. It picks Ambient Devices as one of the "Big Kahunas" of the Fifth Wave of Computing.

The big kahunas are a good crowd to be in:
Amazon.com, Ambient Devices, Audium, Cisco, Google, IBM, Salesforce.com, Skype, Successfactors, Tibco, Transera

Interestingly even though the article opens with Microsoft R&D Rick Rashid, they are not mentioned as a big kahuna. I plan to ask Om about this, but my guess is because although they use network proliferation (msn spot), p2p and other tools - all of it is generally in very closed off, piecemeal, un-fifth-wave ways.

Full text of the article here temporarily.

Also see chat on Om Malik's blog about the Fifth Wave, and some more chat on it from Robert Hof over at Business Week.

Smart goggles easy on the eyes

2005-06-26T10:43:00.000-05:00

Brunel grad Katie Williams’ developed a system which projects the number of laps swum, speed, and the elapsed time right in the goggle lens while maintaining the feel of ordinary goggles. This allows swimmers to maintain their form instead of straining to glance at pace clocks or watches which warp their hydrodynamics. A small button on the side of the goggle turns the display on and off and signals to the “compass” the direction of travel - when the swimmer turns, the time is registered and lap-count increments.

One2One

2005-06-26T09:58:00.000-05:00

"Here's something that makes Home automation a little more personal and. This little flower could site on you desk or kitchen. When it blooms it is notifing you that friends or family are on-line. When there not the flower disapears into the pot."

A wonderful application at Media Lab Europe. If there was only a simple way for them to get this market ready.

The Pulse of the House

2005-06-16T13:39:00.000-05:00

To increase consciousness of energy consumption in private homes, the designer put an intangible product, energy, into a very human language. A pulsing glow gives the consumer an ongoing report on the amount of energy being used in the house, which will ultimately lead to more awareness of domestic energy consumption and an increase in conservation of that resource.

"The design features an ingenious, intuitive and very human interface. The system's potential environmental impact is huge. A beautiful, poetic solution." -Imre Molnar, IDSA, Dean of Academic Affairs, College for Creative Studies

Nominated for an IDSA award last year.

::set bang::: ambient dashboard widgets?

2005-06-13T09:57:00.000-05:00

there has been a bunch of talk on the interweb about designing ambient display widgets for the mac os x dashboard. the locket displays the online status of a single buddy on iChat...flores is a vase with up to four flowers, each one indicating a new message in the inbox of your gmail or apple mail...

great. just a few things...

first, aren't we trying to get computation off the desktop? there is the argument that the dashboard and cocoa provide a quick way to get your ambient display up and running and then you can throw it on that spare powerbook you have. okay fine, that is useful for prototyping, but does not an ambient display make... although these widgets are kinda cool, and there's some benefits to be had, i think people are missing the mark on what an ambient display really is. bummer."

An SMS on your sleeve

2005-05-23T15:18:00.000-05:00

A-Nerve (accessory nerve): is a sleeve accessory that can be taken on or off over clothing and that changes pattern (creating pleats on the fabric) when receiving SMS messages. (from we make money not)

UN Studio's Galleria - Glanceable Architecture

2005-05-11T10:40:00.000-05:00

UN Studio's Galleria operates solely for the entertainment and attraction of the public. Currently the building records the day's weather and replays this footage as a slow motion sunset depicted via a facade of 5000 frosted glass discs backed with LEDs. Displaying the previous day's weather is pure entertainment, but with enough data built up the building could begin to use previously recorded weather videos as a premonition of what's to come. Based on forecasts, the facade's computer could search though its database of recorded days and find a past day that closely matched the forecast. Animating the facade with this video content would then give passersby an idea of what tomorrow might be like, instead of what has already passed today. [from Bryan Boyer]

anti-mega: prototyping ambient displays on Tiger

2005-05-09T15:41:00.000-05:00

"Tiger is proving an effective prototyping environment for ambient displays. There were three things I wanted to prototype - copies of Ambient Devices' Orb and Dashboard, and a version of the networked emoticon device (mixed with a hint of glancing). I'm halfway through the orb and the emoticon, but I've got a version of the dashboard working." [from anti-mega]