ForeverGeek » interactive

Interactive LED coffee table could be so much more

andy — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:38:49 +0000

At one level I like the idea of this coffee table. Yes, it’s ludicrously expensive — $1,500 for a small table up to $2,100 for a large one — but it has a certain cool factor to it.

It contains 480 super-bright LEDs and 24 infrared optical sensors to provide visual feedback when an area of the table is touched or an object is placed on it.

Nice concept, but why not allow it to do more?

Could just stick a Microsoft Surface on it, or how about a variant of the Yamaha Tenori-On synth? How cool would it be to sit down and be able to play rhythms and musical patterns at your coffee table? It would definitely be a fun party object.

For the price, I’d rather take a fairly standard coffee table and build in a more interactive surface.

Via

Fontplore: amazing interactive table for searching font databases

andy — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:45:44 +0000

If you work with fonts a lot you’ll know what a hassle it can be to find just the right one.

Enter Fontplore, an interactive application built on a widget-aware table that can be used to search font databases quickly and intuitively.

Moving “navigation” and “action” objects around the table cause things to happen, such as scrolling through, previewing, printing or saving fonts.

Each object has a LED built in which changes color depending on its state.

The whole system is based on the reacTIVision system built by students and staff from Potsdam University, German, and makes use of a lot of open source stuff including MySQL Server, Mathematik, TUIO and PrintPDF.

Visit the web site for a lot more detail.

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RFID tags enable world's first Internet-connected magazine

andy — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:31:55 +0000

Bridging the gap between traditional print media and the Internet at a very opportune time comes AMUSEMENT magazine, claiming to be the first periodical to offer content linked both on paper and online.

Big deal, you might think. Any printed magazine these days publishes its web address and readers can visit online and interact. Sure, that’s true, but what if the magazine had a unique RFID (Radio frequency identification) chip attached to it, and even its own email address and mailbox?

Last week, the quarterly magazine went on sale in various stores across Europe and the US. The RFID tag is attached to page two, and as soon as the reader touches the tag to the scanner, a request is sent to a remote server (Violet, in fact, makers of the nabaztag rabbit) that triggers various unique online content.

In the first edition, for example, appeared a video game designed by the artist Messhof, an interactive multi-user device by Digital Shadow, an interactive installation by Factoid (Pierre Nouvel, Valere Terrier) and The Tone, a 3D video by Gkastere and wallpapers by Philippe Jarrigeon.

The magazine’s editor could even interact with individual readers thanks to their unique email addresses.

Just a paper magazine? Not any more it seems.