What the heck is Electronic Mail?

"Electronic Mail is a term that's been bandied about data processing circles for years. Simply put, it means high-speed information transportation. One of the most advanced methods is terminals talking to one another. Your mailbox is the terminal on your desk. Punch a key and today's correspondence and messages are displayed instantly (...) Electronic Mail is document distribution that's more timely, accurate and flexible than traditional methods. There's no mountain of paperwork (...) Tomorrow's automated office will clearly include Electronic Mail. - Honeywell Office Automation Systems"
Ad found on Abdul Taiyeb's blog

Vital monitoring system concept

Dan Bishop has designed the Vital Monitoring System concept that enables medical staff to take and record a patient's vital signs effortlessly. The baseline vitals must be taken manually initially for future readings to be based upon it, but subsequent readings are made much easier. All the patient needs to do is swipe the temperature sensor across their forehead, where the device will then get to work by activating its blood pressure/pulse sensor on the inside of the monitor. The patient is alerted to do so via a light vibration (although a slight electric shock on April Fools' day would have been funny). When will we see hospitals feature the Vital Monitoring System? Not anytime soon.

Via ubergizmo

Felt rocks

Just because I find them beautiful ... Felt rocks by Molo.

In their raw form, a felt rock is technically a lump of felt formed when small bits of wool fluff gather while making polishing wheels for optical lenses, spun around in a drum with them. With steam and pressure, each stray piece of wool begins to entangle itself with others roughly creating a completely unique rock-like shape without the help of any bonding agents. Each felt rock is then carefully selected by molo and then finished through their own process. Felt rocks are solid all the way through, made out of 100% pure wool felt, and carefully dyed. they come in hand selected sets of 5 ( 2 natural and 3 grey, or 2 moss green and 3 grey ) and are packaged in a natural grey wool felt bag.

Jouez l'ecolo

Paperless or techno flat?

Miquel Mora Mor | Paper Alarm Clock | Printed electronics on paper

What ever happened to the paperless future?
What if we could enhance paper instead of getting rid of it?
The Flat Futures project deals with this future. A future where, through printed electronics we could print technology (displays, batteries, speakers...) in flat and flexible surfaces. Objects will wear technology instead of carrying them inside. It will become their skin.
How will this affect our lives? How will our relationship with these enhanced objects change? If any surface can display anything, where will its value be? In the physical object? Or in the information itself?

Light hidden within the wood

Light Play

Back in 2005, I saw the light play table, created by Anab Jain and Stuart Wood, a beautiful fiber optic table of natural light.

Recently I came across the work of the evil mad scientists and the because we can. A table that reacts by light to your motions and without motion it calms down to a very slight attractive twinkling.

The entire table pulls a total of 35 watts when it is fully active. That's less than a single common household light bulb!
Using a network of 32 active and passive near-infrared optical sensors, it detects motion above the table and changes in ambient light. Made of fully analog circuits, the light patterns sweep outwards from your motion with perfect fades, glowing stronger the closer the movement is, rippling across a pool of 480 super-bright white LEDs. It works in full sunlight or total darkness.

The cat is on the table, only his moving tail is setting off the lights

Social Sensors

Social Sensors by Chris Hand

community anticipation enlarger bluetooth boredom bouncer open source ambivalence revolutioniser wireless road rage communicator dog-mounted love alarm gardeners neighbourliness matcher in-library fear disposer gps-based group hug finder childrens happiness counter automatic group hug announcer community togetherness generator peer-to-peer frustration reducer personal paranoia filter hand-held fear investigator domestic happiness announcer childrens boredom communicator pensioners obsession matcher hand-held powerlessness alarm community homesickness reflector industrial uncertainty alarm neighbourhood jealousy subverter kitchen environment-friendliness messager predictive anger investigator dashboard-mounted depression reducer public transport relaxation finder in-library loneliness broadcaster family empathy communicator -- Extract from 139,590 Devices

Portable bubble wrap

Found on geek student this unlimited popping action portable device created by Bandai that even rewards you with a new sound after 100 pops!

Microscopic spies

Even your printer is spying on you! Hard to believe.
Intrigued by the new project of the Computing Culture's research group directed by Chris Csikszentmihalyi, I discoverd Seeing Yellow. So if you think that you need to hide your IP address and remove spywares, well maybe spies are around you in your tangible environment for a while now!

When you print on a color laser printer, it's likely that you are also printing a pattern of invisible yellow dots. These marks exist to allow the printer companies and governments to track and identify you -- presumably as a way to combat money counterfeiting.

Now Seeing Yellow has a tangible-antispyware available for you and this by calling your printer maker (and more)


Glass invaders designed by Sebastien Messerschmidt

Sensor doll as a music expression device

Yonezawa, T., Clarkson, B., Yasumura, M., and Mase, K. 2001. Context-aware sensor-doll as a music expression device. In CHI '01 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Seattle, Washington, March 31 - April 05, 2001). CHI '01. ACM Press, New York, NY, 307-308.

Abstract We present a sensor-doll capable of music expression as a sympathetic communication device. The doll is equipped with a computer and various sensors such as a camera, microphone, accelerometer, and touch-sensitive sensors to recognize its own situation and the activities of the user. The doll has its own internal “mind” states reflecting different situated contexts. The user’s multi-modal interaction with the passive doll is translated into musical expressions that depend on the state of mind of the doll.

Paper