interactive
Toys
Siftables Intelligent Blocks Look Like the Future of Interactive UI Design For Kids
8:25AM Adrian Covert | Shown off at the 2009 TED conference (aka Mosquito Madness), these Siftables blocks are location aware, motion sensitive, touch interactive and work with other blocks to take on a variety of functions. More »
Gadgets
Interactive Toilet Scares Kids into Pooping, Hopefully Not in Their Pants
11:20AM Gizmodo US Edition | Have you ever been scared to use the restroom because you’re terrified something’s going to pop out of the toilet and grab your arse? The Interactive Toilet does that to your children. Sort of. More »
Games
GPS Gaming Technology Lets You Race Against F1 Pros In Realtime
11:20AM Adrian Covert | iOpener’s GPS technology is made so you can take real-time data from an F1 race and use it to race against those same drivers in a video game. By placing combination of Differential GPS and an Inertial Management Unit on a car, it can track its location accurate to 30cm and get the data to gamers in under 5 seconds. iOpener doesn’t plan to develop games themselves, but want to make the technology open to developers, and believe the idea could span across other genres, such as biking or snowboarding. [BBC News via Gizmag] More »
Random Stuff
Army Reimagines Recruitment Centre as an Apple Store-Inspired, Interactive Battle Simulator
8:30AM Gizmodo US Edition | With recruitment levels sagging, the U.S. Army is going the hyper-interactive route with an experimental new store that’s right out of the Apple playbook. That is, if Apple Genius Bar employees greeted customers with Apache attack helicopter simulators, full-scale Army vehicle mock-ups, and wrap-around 270-degree video screens, instead of those paperless receipt scanner things. More »
Robots
WizKid Device Stretches its Neck to be Friends With You
11:33PM Gizmodo US Edition | Wizkid is a technological artwork exploring the human-machine interface, a bit like the eerie-eyeball OptoIsolator or the Mind Chair. Programmed to notice you walking nearby, it homes in on your face, stretching and twisting its neck to point its screen at you. With a bunch of gestures you can tell it to play games or browse information pages, and it even anticipates your desires—perhaps by slipping on some freeform jazz fusion when you walk in the door (hopefully, without then trying to seduce you). Intrigued? There’s more info below the gallery.
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iNo For Your iPod: Interactive Music Party Game
7:50AM Gizmodo US Edition | The iNo promises a “fun, fast, furious game of music trivia as players take turns transforming their personal iPods into an interactive music party.” Users take turns inserting their iPods into the iNo then, using one of the 4 wireless remotes, attempt to outdo each other in a song-guessing battle royal that will undoubtedly culminate in open criticism of musical tastes and or drunken fist-fights. If that sounds like fun to you, and you possess an iPod Nano or 30/80 GB iPod, you can get into the game for $US79.99. [Target via 7Gadgets] More »
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Lenovo Interactive Water Wall Makes Visitors Have to Pee
11:00PM Charlie White | Lenovo installed an interactive water wall at its home office in North Carolina, and it reacts to passersby with an optical tracker, rippling along as they get closer to the projection-based display. Maybe Lenovo was thinking about its waterproof keyboard when it created this installation. We’re thinking they should have installed more than one water sound effect, but even so, it’s a great way to show that the catfish are jumping in North Carolina. [Fresh Creation] More »
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Beautiful Interactive London Bar Still Doesn’t Help You Get Laid
12:02PM Yuri Baranovsky | London’s interactive bar, TwentyFour, promises one thing – if there’s a lack of feminine eye-candy, you can always pass the time by staring blankly at the ever-changing walls. The bar combines thousands of LED colour combinations with walls that are, in fact, projection screens, creating one of the coolest bars I’ve ever seen. Apparently, bar-goers can even change and/or add their own images to the ever-changing environment, giving a whole new beauty to urinating on a wall. The coolest catch is the bar itself – which will summon the bartender when you lay your hand on it. A great idea, except when you’ve got 60 people surrounding the bar hopelessly pounding on it, it kind of kills the effect. Question is, when is TwentyFour coming here? We’ll make better beer, we promise. [TwentyFour via Crave] More »
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Adobe’s Interactive Wall Is Like Minority Report Future Sans Apple and Microsoft
4:07PM Seamus Byrne | See Adobe’s interactive wall, featured in the New York Times and in fact on Giz, fewer than 24 hours ago. See nerds trying to get exercise they wouldn’t otherwise dream of, in the hopes of triggering one of Adobe’s—what was that, infrared?—motion sensors. Enjoy the man-on-the-street critiques of this cutting-edge technology, and most of all, without a doubt—Look, flying toasters! – Video by Nick McGlynn More »
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