Blow and light!

Wind to light: when the wind blows, the turbines produce light. Sweet!

The hand free controller by nintendo

In 1989, Nintendo invents the hand free controller. A player controls the video game without the use of the hands, by using his/her neck muscles. Found on nesplayer. Exploration of physical limitations in game design is interesting, especially when in 2006 Nintendo invents the hand necessity controller, the popular Nintendo Wii.

Bit or byte?

Russian dolls revisited for the new era by Matryoshkus.
Here

Mirror, mirror, tell me if I received an sms ...

A nice ambient way to check sms.

The +336+, designed by Robert Stadler of the French design group Radi Designers, is a mirror that is able to receive SMS messages sent from a mobile phone. The messages appear as luminous text, running on the mirrors’ surface when one gets close to the mirror. This clever piece of design is not affordable for most of us: this limited edition (of 20) costs $10,000! If this price tag is not a problem, you can purchase the mirror at Generate - Via The Style Files.

Brush and rince!

I stumbled upon this very fun project, a toothbrush that can redirect water from a faucet to your lips for easy rinsing.

A nice place to hang out

Falling Garden, San Staë church on the Canale Grande, 50th Biennial of Venice, 2003

A nice place to hang out ... in 2003!

The Doge (Mocenigo) needed a church so as to be able to have a monumental tomb built for himself, the church (San Staë) needed a saint so as to be able to be built, the saint (San Eustachio) needed a miracle so as to be pronounced a saint, the miracle needed a stag in order to be seen, and we built the garden for the reindeer.
The visitors lie on the bed above the doge’s gravestone, and the garden thinks for them.

More info

Recycled Jack-in-the-Box Camera

Arianna brought me back this awesome camera from Cuba, recycled Jack in the Box camera that is currently in hands of Yasmine who took this beautiful picture ...

Jealous computer: beware

A little flash back onto Electric Dreams (1984), in which a artificially intelligent PC falls in love with a cellist and discovers jealousy. A regular topic in science fiction, it is funny to see it in advertisement.

A viral campaign based on the premise that computers and other digital kinds of things can exhibit emotions, like jealousy. They certainly exhibit stubborness, insolence, daring-do, morose sorts of apathy moods, memory loss, short-term memory loss, deep depressions leading to suicide, and the occasional carbuncle and rash. Quite often. By Nokia to promote the NSeries and the N95. Via teckwondo.

Small, mobile, clever humanoid robots

The Personal Robots Group at MIT media lab is developing mobile humanoid robots that possess a novel combination of mobility, moderate dexterity, and human-centric communication and interaction abilities. The small footprint of the robot -roughly the size of a 3 year old child- allows multiple robots to operate safely within a typical laboratory floor space.

Robots in therapy

Interesting research on the investigation of the possible use of robots in therapy and education of children with autism

Ben Robins, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Rene te Boekhorst, Aude Billard (2004) Effects of repeated exposure to a humanoid robot on children with autism. In S. Keates, J. Clarkson, P. Langdon and P. Robinson (Eds.) Designing a More Inclusive World, Springer Verlag, London, pp. 225-236.

Introduction In this paper we discuss lessons learnt from our previous study, and introduce a new approach, heavily inspired by therapeutic issues. A longitudinal study with four children with autism is presented. The children were repeatedly exposed to the humanoid robot over a period of several months. Our aim was to encourage imitation and social interaction skills. Different behavioural criteria (including Eye Gaze, Touch, and Imitation) were evaluated based on the video data of the interactions. The paper exemplifies the results that clearly demonstrate the crucial need for long-term studies in order to reveal the full potential of robots in therapy and education of children with autism.

Video of this research by BBC

Paper