An update for myself. Various networked objects that I've ran across recently and that seems to be curious for my projects:
Analogue Tape Glove (Signal to Noise)
"This interactive sound installation deals with "exploring the physical connection between people and technology". A tangible user interface is provided in the form of a glove, worn by the participant as they are invited to interact with an analogue tape surface. As the glove comes in contact with the tape, sound is generated and can be manipulated via touch and movement. The pre-recorded sound on the tape is a random collage of compiled material including a range of musical styles & found recordings. According to its creators, the work “explores the somewhat obsolete medium of tape through a playful and sonically interesting experience."
Daily Stack (sebastian rønde thielke and anders højmose)
"The simple design allows users to help track their work flow by creating physical representations of their tasks. The design consists of a small base and a series of wood blocks that each have a different colour and shape. Each colour represents a different task and the time interval is determined by the size of the block. The user stacks their tasks on the base, committing to them. the base contains electronics that communicate with a computer, tracking time and tasks in progress digitally. The user can even go back through their archive and look at previous stacks. the design helps the user better visualize their time, helping them make the most of it."
"Slurp is tangible interface for manipulating abstract digital information as if it were water. Taking the form of an eyedropper, Slurp can extract (slurp up) and inject (squirt out) pointers to digital objects. We have created Slurp to explore the use of physical metaphor, feedback, and affordances in tangible interface design when working with abstract digital media types. Our goal is to privilege spatial relationships between devices and people while providing new physical manipulation techniques for ubiquitous computing environments."
Kokonatchi / ココナッチ (University of Tokyo and Waseda):
" Looking something like a hybrid stress ball and giant butter bean, Kokonatchi connects to your computer via a USB lead, sits on your desk, wiggles and lights up when a new tweet enters your account feed. It contains RGB LEDs which change color according to the context or ‘emotion’ of the tweet, and vibrates or ‘shivers’ when it is scared"
Olars (Lars Marcus Vedeler)
"Olars is an electronic interactive toy inspired by Karl Sims' evolved virtual creatures. Having thousands of varieties in movement and behaviour by attaching different geometrical limbs, modifying the angle of these, twisting the body itself, and by adjusting the deflection of the motorised joints, results in both familiar and strange motion patterns."
"OnObject is a small device user wears on hand to program physical objects to respond to gestural triggers. Attach an RFID tag to any objects, grab them by the tag, and program their responses to your grab, release, shake, swing, and thrust gestures using built in microphone or on-screen interface. Using OnObject, children, parents, teachers and end users can instantly create gestural object interfaces and enjoy them. Copy-paste the programming from one object to another to propagate the interactivity in your environment."
Species (Theo Tveterås and Synne Frydenberg)
"Interactive toy that tunes in on bacteria frequency and amplifies it."
Why do I blog this? a kind of messy list but it's sometimes good to collect curious projects and see how they compare to what has been done in the past. Some interesting new trends ahead in terms of interactions: augmentation by other channels than visual representation, new forms of object connectivity (slurp), the importance of original material (wood, textiles). It's not necessary brand new in 2010 but what's curious is that the implementation and the usage scenario are intriguing and beyond classical utilitarian ideas.