Tangible Media Group has created a shapeshifting display that lets users interact with digital information in a tangible way.
As previously shared on Bits & Pieces, MIT Media Lab’s Tangible Media Group has devised a morphing table with several ATmega2560 MCUs under the hood. The installation was recently exhibited at the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, and can be seen in action below!
inFORMis described its creators as a dynamic shape display that can render 3D content physically, so users can interact with digital information in a tangible way. In order to make that a reality, the table is equipped with 900 individually actuated white polystyrene pins that make up the surface in an array of 30 x 30 pixels. The interactive piece can display 3D information in real-time and in a more accurate and interactive manner compared to the flat rendering often created by computer user interface.
This was all accomplished by tasking a Kinect sensor to capture 3D data. This information was then processed with a computer and relayed over to a display, enabling the system to remotely manipulate a physical ball. Aside from being able to produce a controlled physical environment for the ball, the pins are able to detect touch, pressing down and pulling.
An overhead projector provides visual guidance of the system, with each pin capable of actuating 100mm and exerting a force of up to 1.08 Newtons each. Actuation is achieved via push-pull rods that are utilized to maximize the dense pin arrangement — making the display independent of the size of the actuators. The table is driven by 150 ATmega2560 based Arduino PCBs arranged in 15 rows of vertical panels, each with 5×2 boards. The boards then communicate with a PC over five RS485 buses bridged to USB. Meanwhile, graphics are rendered using OpenGL and openFrameworks software.
“One area we are working on is Geospatial data, such as maps, GIS, terrain models and architectural models. Urban planners and architects can view 3D designs physically and better understand, share and discuss their designs,” the team writes. “Cross sections through Volumetric Data such as medical imaging CT scans can be viewed in 3D physically and interacted with. We would like to explore medical or surgical simulations. We are also very intrigued by the possibilities of remotely manipulating objects on the table.”
Its creators are hoping to spark several collaborations with everyone from urban planners and architects, to designers and modelers, to doctors and surgeons. The display could be used as an alternative to 3D printing low-resolution prototypes as well as rendering 3D data — ranging from construction plans and CT scans — that a user will be able to interact with by physically molding the pins.
The wizarding world of Harry Potter won’t be the only place you’ll find enchanted objects.
According to MIT Media Lab researcher David Rose, the term “enchanted object” is used to describe any everyday object with extraordinary functions.
“We are now standing at the precipice of the next transformative development: the Internet of Things. Soon, connected technology will be embedded in hundreds of everyday objects we already use: our cars, wallets, watches, umbrellas, even our trash cans. These objects will respond to our needs, come to know us, and learn to think on our behalf.”
Entitled “Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire, and the Internet of Things,” Rose’s latest book depicts the blueprint for a better (or shall we say ‘smarter’) future, where efficient solutions come hand in hand with technology that delights our senses. Not only are these innovative things fun and alluring, they may hold the key to better satisfying our needs and improving our lives.
“The big lesson here for companies is that they need to embrace and start designing for this world of enchanted objects,” Rose said in a recent BI:Tech interview. “It will mean a key change for how we interact with technology, and it’s a great opportunity for all of these traditional product companies.”
As we prepare for this embedded future where microcontrollers will give once-ordinary objects super “powers,” we’ve decided to explore some of the items currently in existence today. From a pill bottle that can alert you when you’ve skipped your medication to an umbrella that says whether it’ll rain, these gadgets provide us with a glimpse into smarter society — one where fairy tale enchantment becomes a reality.
“The Internet of Things may hit a roadblock: namely, the lack of secure communications between objects and individuals could lead to a situation in which data is being shared without explicit consent and exploited for malicious purposes,” element14 adds. “Therefore any Internet of Things challenge we will undertake in the future will have a security aspect: we will want to see that appropriate security measures have been built into the solutions. Bonus points will be given for clear demonstrations of this in the finished project.”
They couldn’t be more correct. When the world around us becomes increasingly more connected, each and every thing will also need to be secure. Without security, there is no way to trust that the authenticity of things and integrity of its data. Due to the drive for bigger data, the cloud and smart communicating, things are becoming ambient; and, because those things all require security, security itself is becoming ambient as well. Fortunately, as Atmel’s resident security expert Bill Boldt explains, there’s an easy way to spread protection to each of the nodes: CryptoAuthentication.
These so-called enchanted objects are broken down into six caterogies, each based upon human desires. The segments include omniscience (the desire to know all), telepathy (the desire for human connection), safekeeping (the desire to protect), immortality (the desire to be healthy), teleportation (the desire to move effortlessly) and expression (the desire to make).
Like Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Always seem to forget to take that pill in the morning or before bed? This smart cap will remind you to take your medications by lighting up, making chirping sounds, and eventually sending you a text message. You can share your medication data with a remote loved one, a professional caregiver, and even your pharmacy. No more calling to refill those prescriptions!
Created at the MIT Media Lab, the Google Latitude Doorbell chimes a tune when a family member is approaching the house. Each family member has their own tune. Have some fun with it: Imagine setting it to play “Master of the House” from Les Misérables as you approached the door, or the Jaws theme song for your mother-in-law.
When you think of David Rose and ambient object, this “magical” orb is often times the first thing that pops into mind. This device tracks real-time data for the stock market, pollen count, traffic congestion, and more, and glows specific colors to let you know if the data looks good or bad.
Feel like you’re walking on sunshine? This small will let you know whether you’re actually taking in enough bright light during your day, in order to help you improve your energy levels, sleep cycle, mood, and so much more.
Let’s face it, energy bills are the worst — especially those living in extremely cold climates in the winter and warm in the summer. To better help you save a buck or two, the Energy Joule can track energy costs by glowing red if prices are high, yellow if prices are average, and green if prices are low.
‘Like!’ This innovation is bringing coffee talk into the digital era. The incredibly social-savvy table listens to your conversations and displays photos from your Facebook page whenever they are appropriate to the conversation. Think Mark Zuckerberg meets Minority Report.
Never quite sure as to which outfit to buy? Ladies, you’re in luck. This smart mirror records the outfits you try on, so you can compare them and decide what to buy or wear. Never have to go back and forth again.
Amazon Trash Can
Forget to replace the toilet paper? Run out of milk? Need laundry detergent? This trash can can now scans any object you’re disposing and automatically reorder it from Amazon.
This gives a whole new meaning to ‘musical chairs!’ The Pandora Chair is designed to play music based on your level of incline. Envision the possibilities: Sit back, relax and enjoy the tunes of the caribbean. Or, sit upright, intensely focus on your work while listening to some “Eye of the Tiger.”
As our days get too busy, it can quickly become too difficult to manage our liquid intake. Luckily, a smart cup can do that for you — it knows what kind of fluid you’re drinking and track how many calories and how much sugar, fat, protein, sodium, and caffeine are in that beverage.
Tired of always having to grab the computer, flip it open and sign into Skype? Thanks to this project from MIT Media Lab, all you have to do is simply open a wooden door to telconnect with a friend or loved one. No more setup, bad lighting, or those irritating headphones.
NOTHING, we repeat NOTHING is worse than losing your luggage while traveling. This smart luggage tracker can slide right inside your suitcase and inform you of its whereabouts using its companion app, which connects to the tracking device.
Are the culprit in your household’s excessive energy consumption? This innovative clock shares real-time feedback on the amount of energy your home is using. It learns your consumption habits, then offers some subtle feedback on how you’re tracking against yourself.
As we inch closer to a Jetsons-like future, of course there will be smart locks! Easily lock and unlock your door with your smartphone, after snapping pictures of visitors at your door and automatically sending real-time picture alerts to your device.
Yes, this is exactly what it looks like: a WiFi-enabled rabbit. Unlike Peter Cottontail, this device tells you the time, a recap of the week, RSS news feeds, a report on the air quality or traffic, an MP3 alarm clock, a weather forecast, a stock ticker, and even e-mail alerts.
In essence, the Good Night Lamp is a physical social network. The lamps, which come in a set of two, work in unison. Turning on the larger one not only emits light but triggers on the little one as well. This connectivity allows you to keep in touch with people all over the world without having to pick up the phone.
Tagg is a GPS device that attaches to the collar of your dog. The system enables pet owners to define a safe zone around there home and instantly receive text and email alerts when the pet leaves that zone. What’s more, the wearable also monitors their activity and fitness by measuring the amount of activity in their day.
Boston-based startup Rest Devices has developed a smart baby onesie for parents. Founded by a group of former MIT students, Mimomonitors the respiration, skin temperature, body position, sleeping and activity levels of infants. Meaning, those with newborns will soon no longer have to worry about getting up and frequently checking on the baby throughout the night, instead only when necessary.
The Nest Thermostat doesn’t need to be programmed, and is equipped to learn and remember your temperature habits. Meaning, the device turns itself down when you’re away to help save energy and can change the temperature from anywhere using your smartphone, tablet or laptop.
The smart fork, which was introduced at last year’s CES, uses electronic sensors to monitor your eating habits. Designed by HAPILABS, the ARM Cortex-M0 embedded utensil tracks the number of bites, intake speed as well as notifies you to step away from the dinner plate. This information is then uploaded via USB or Bluetooth to an online dashboard to analyze your progress.
The future for anyone who wants to tell their own story has never looked brighter. That is because of the Atmel | SMART SAM9G25 powered Narrative Clip — a tiny, automatic 5-megapixel camera paired with an app that offers users access to a “photographic memory” which is both searchable and shareable. Clip it onto your shirt and let it snap away, recording all your daily activities in 30-second increments.
According to MIT Media Lab researcher David Rose, the term “enchanted object” is used to describe any everyday object with extraordinary functions. “We are now standing at the precipice of the next transformative development: the Internet of Things. Soon, connected technology will be embedded in hundreds of everyday objects we already use: our cars, wallets, watches, umbrellas, even our trash cans. These objects will respond to our needs, come to know us, and learn to think on our behalf,” Rose notes in his latest book.
Entitled “Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire, and the Internet of Things,” the book depicts the blueprint for a better (or shall we say ‘smarter’) future, where efficient solutions come hand in hand with technology that delights our sense. Not only are these innovative things fun and alluring, they may hold the key to better satisfying our needs and improving our lives. “The big lesson here for companies is that they need to embrace and start designing for this world of enchanted objects,” Rose said in a recent BI:Tech interview. “It will mean a key change for how we interact with technology, and it’s a great opportunity for all of these traditional product companies.”
Rose believes that the IoT will be fully realized in the near future. To prepare for it at this moment, he is developing technology that analyzes photographs. The die-hard Maker emphasizes that cameras will soon be everywhere, capturing photos of everything. “We’re already seeing this materializing. DropCam allows people to stream videos of their homes and the Narrative camera records everything you do in a day. The photos recorded by these devices are not attractive or artistic, but the meta-data within them is stunning,” he told Fast Company.
As we prepare for this embedded future — where versatile microcontrollers will give once-ordinary objects super “powers” — let’s explore some of the coolest, most enchanted objects currently in our world today. From a pill bottle that can alert you when you’ve skipped your medication to an umbrella that says whether it’ll rain, these objects provide us with a glimpse into smarter society — one where fairy tales actually become reality.
Always seem to forget to take that pill in the morning or before bed? This smart cap will remind you to take your medications by lighting up, making chirping sounds, and eventually sending you a text message. You can share your medication data with a remote loved one, a professional caregiver, and even your pharmacy. No more calling to refill those prescriptions!
Created at the MIT Media Lab, the Google Latitude Doorbell chimes a tune when a family member is approaching the house. Each family member has their own tune. Have some fun with it: Imagine setting it to play “Master of the House” from Les Misérables as you approached the door, or the Jaws theme song for your mother-in-law.
When you think of David Rose and ambient object, this “magical” orb is often times the first thing that pops into mind. This device tracks real-time data for the stock market, pollen count, traffic congestion, and more, and glows specific colors to let you know if the data looks good or bad.
Feel like you’re walking on sunshine? This small will let you know whether you’re actually taking in enough bright light during your day, in order to help you improve your energy levels, sleep cycle, mood, and so much more.
Let’s face it, energy bills are the worst — especially those living in extremely cold climates in the winter and warm in the summer. To better help you save a buck or two, the Energy Joule can track energy costs by glowing red if prices are high, yellow if prices are average, and green if prices are low.
“Like!” Developed at the MIT Media Lab, this incredibly social-savvy coffee table listens to your conversations and displays photos from your Facebook page whenever they are appropriate to the conversation. Think Mark Zuckerberg meets Minority Report.
Never quite sure as to which outfit to buy? Ladies, you’re in luck. This smart mirror records the outfits you try on, so you can compare them and decide what to buy or wear. Never have to go back and forth again.
Amazon Trash Can
Forget to replace the toilet paper? Run out of milk? Need laundry detergent? This trash can can now scans any object you’re disposing and automatically reorder it from Amazon.
Created at the MIT Media Lab, the chair plays various music based on your level of incline. Envision the possibilities: Sit back, relax and enjoy the tunes of the caribbean. Or, sit upright, intensely focus on your work while listening to some “Eye of the Tiger.”
As our days get too busy, it can quickly become too difficult to manage our liquid intake. Luckily, a smart cup can do that for you — it knows what kind of fluid you’re drinking and track how many calories and how much sugar, fat, protein, sodium, and caffeine are in that beverage.
Tired of always having to grab the computer, flip it open and sign into Skype? Thanks to this recent creation from MIT Media Lab, all you have to do is simply open a wooden door and connect to a friend or loved one via Skype. No more setup, bad lighting, or those irritating headphones.
NOTHING, we repeat NOTHING is worse than losing your luggage while traveling. This smart luggage tracker can slide right inside your suitcase and inform you of its whereabouts using its companion app, which connects to the tracking device.
Are the culprit in your household’s excessive energy consumption? This innovative clock shares real-time feedback on the amount of energy your home is using. It learns your consumption habits, then offers some subtle feedback on how you’re tracking against yourself.
As we inch closer to a Jetsons-like future, of course there will be smart locks! Easily lock and unlock your door with your smartphone, after snapping pictures of visitors at your door and automatically sending real-time picture alerts to your device.
Yes, this is exactly what it looks like: a WiFi-enabled rabbit. Unlike Peter Cottontail, this device tells you the time, a recap of the week, RSS news feeds, a report on the air quality or traffic, an MP3 alarm clock, a weather forecast, a stock ticker, and even e-mail alerts.
IoT’s Impact on Human-Tech Relationship
In a recent interview with O’Reilly Radar, Rose explored technology and its implications by first focusing on user needs. He stated, “I am confident that enchanted objects will change how we live. They will change health. They will change transportation. They will change housing. They will change how we understand our own habits around energy and resource conservation, and they will even help us with creativity and expression. I’m confident there’s a promising future in terms of this new way of interacting and positioning ourselves relative to technology. I think one of the biggest challenges is to not think about this as computing. I don’t think there is a ‘future of computing.’”
As O’Reilly Radar’s Mary Treseler notes, designers and entrepreneurs alike must focus on creating products and services that focus on human desires and needs — omniscience, telepathy, safekeeping, immortality, teleportation, expression, many of which mentioned above.
“If you can invent things that resonate with people’s existing drives, desires, fantasies — the ones that we’ve had for a millennium that are revealed through fairy tales and through folklore and through pop culture — you’re much more likely to succeed,” Rose adds. (You can listen to the entire interview here.)
Evident from the ambient objects above, a connected future is well on its way. From lighting to energy, a new generation of smart products set to increasingly power our lives calls for smarter chips. Internet and wireless enabled devices embedded with microcontrollers will give these once-ordinary “things” new science fiction-like future. Evident by the aforementioned examples, David Rose’s concept serves as a blueprint for our next-generational world, one in which is equipped with countless sensors, data and real-time interaction.
You’ve heard of smartphones, smart homes, even smart cars. Now there’s a new addition to the family: smart benches.
That’s the idea behind a new Boston initiative, which is bringing nearly a dozen Soofas to the city. The solar-powered benches — which made their debut at last month’s White House Maker Faire — will be located throughout several parks enabling residents to not only take a load off their feet, but recharge their phones and download environmental data like noise levels and air quality, as well. The ‘smart’ effort is driven by an urban furniture company invented by MIT Media Lab spinoff Changing Environments, a Verizon Innovation Program.
At first glance, the Soofa may appear to be just an ordinary park bench; however, what distinguishes it from the rest is a simple charging station that uses solar power to charge a pair of smartphones at a time.
The ability to accumulate environmental data and remotely translate it into useful information is the backbone of the smart city concept. According to USA TODAY, Richter believes it’s about time we start taking that concept seriously — not just in Boston, but everywhere. “This sort information is what drives — or will drive — the Internet of Things.”
Soofa’s website visitors will have the ability to see just how much solar power is generated, exactly how much shadow falls on the panels, and how many people are charging per day.
“I think that it’s time that we stopped talking about the Internet of Things and just do it,” Richter says. “For us, this is a first step toward connectivity that makes sense.”
Whether you want to learn more about the benches or simply view the data of the first Soofas, you can do so here.
“It sports a deliberately low-resolution screen (8 characters, each a 5×7 matrix of LEDs), a laser-cut wooden enclosure, flexure (living hinge) buttons, and a ~1000-line Arduino program that powers the user interface,” Mellis explained in a post published on the official Arduino blog.
“The phone can make and receive phone calls and text messages, includes a phone book and caller ID, and keeps the time. Everything you’d expect from a 20-year old Nokia! (except snake.) I’ve been using various iterations of the project as my primary cellphone for the past six months or so.”
As expected, the phone is open-source and the design files are available on GitHub (hardware,software), with full assembly instructions stored on David’s website.
“The phone has undergone numerous revisions as I’ve tried to get it into a robust, usable form. Here you can see some of those variations. I started with an LCD screen like those found on old Nokia phones, but it would break after a month or so in my pocket, so I switched to the more-robust LED matrix,” Mellis continued.
“The enclosure has had a few tweaks as well, primarily to find a good design for the flexure buttons. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the current incarnation. It seems to be relatively robust, simple enough to assemble by hand and functional enough to use everyday (although a long way from a smart phone). That’s my DIY cellphone.”
Interested in learning more about the DIY Arduino cellphone? Be sure to check out David’s official page here.
Atmel | Bits & Pieces 