Open Informant takes on surveillance in a networked age

Open Informant – powered by an Arduino Pro Mini (Atmel ATmega168) – is a wearable badge with an e-ink display that “attempts to confront the unsettling realities of surveillance in a networked age.”

Designed by the Superflux crew, the device was recently exhibited at the Wearable Futures 2013 Conference.

“Open Informant is [both] a phone app and e-ink badge. The app searches your communications for NSA trigger words and then sends text fragments containing these words to the badge for public display,” a Superflux rep explained in a recent blog post.

“Using the body as an instrument for protest, the badge becomes a means of rendering our own voice visible in an otherwise faceless technological panopticon. By openly displaying what is currently taken by forceful stealth, we question the intrusive forms of mass surveillance adopted by democratic nations on its own citizenry, and in the process, shift the conversation around wearables from being about you and your body as machine, to the culture of machine intelligence and algorithmic monitoring.”

According to the Superflux rep, the aesthetics of the wearable device are purposefully embedded in popular DIY Maker culture to encourage greater adoption and use. As such, all aspects of the badge’s design and construction are available on Github for DIY Makers to use and mod.

It should be noted that the Open Informant was recently featured on the official Arduino blog.

This pop-up electronic DIY book is powered by Arduino

A Maker by the name of Antonella Nonnis has created a unique interactive electronic book powered by two Arduino boards. The book, titled “Music, Math, Art and Science,” was inspired by the work of Munari, Montessori and Antonella’s very own mother.

“The book contains movable parts and uses the electrical capacitance of the human body to activate sounds and lights and other sensors like a button for the math page,” Nonnis explained in a recent blog post.

“The pages [were designed] using recycled materials that I collected during years in London (paper, fabrics, LEDs, resistors, wires, foil paper, glue, cardboards). It [is] powered by two Arduino Diecimilas (Atmel ATmega168): one controls the paper pop-up piano and the other controls the arts and science page. [Meanwhile], the math [section] runs autonomously with 2 3V cell batteries.”

The two Arduinos can be powered with 2 9V batteries, although Nonnis says they are more stable if run off a USB via a PC.

The above-mentioned book was given by Antonella as a birthday present to her 6-year-old niece Matilde. Additional information about the DIY pop-up can be found here on the official page of Antonella Nonnis.