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.
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]
newVideoPlayer("waterwall_gawker.flv", 475, 376); 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]
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]
newVideoPlayer("AdobeAD_gawker.flv", 475, 376); 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
Harness the power of the technology that drives the iPhone’s multitouch display as well as Microsoft’s uber-expensive Surface for a few hundred bucks and some elbow grease. Using a projector, a modified webcam and what amounts to a homemade acrylic whiteboard along with some community-made software, you can reenact the iPhone commercial at home. Hit the jump for a sweet action vid and instructional link.
A patent recently filed by Google for an interactive TV service is chock full of new details, but the most interesting is this one: “an image capture device (e.g., digital camera, video recorder, etc.) can be used to measure how many viewers are watching or listening to a broadcast.”
According to the patent, the main point of the system is to identify audio within a TV broadcast and compare it to the appropriate reference material for identification. After that, it aggregates “personalised information related to the media broadcast.”
There was precious little information accompanying this video that landed in our tip box this morning, but as you can plainly see, it’s a light table-like device that immediately scans whenever you set upon it, and it lets you resize, move and animate objects together using gestures.
It looks like there’s a camera above that can immediately take a picture of whatever you set on the table. It’s somehow able to cut out the image as it’s being scanned. Now if they could just tweak that display to be a bit less washed out, they might be onto something here. Excuse us while we have a brainstorm trying to figure out how this thing works. – Charlie White
Interactive Brainstorm Table [Fresh Creation]
Well, not quite a carpet, but of all the interactive floor screens I’ve seen, this makes the rest look like dinky toys. It’s a plaything too, which is great. All about delivering a “social audiovisual immersive experience” for nightclub goers, and an amazing new toy for VJs to work with. If you’re going to be in Tokyo (surprise, surprise), go check this action out.
Visualux [via Josh Spear]