Above, the “Bar of Soap” prototype device by Brandon Taylor, Stacie Slotnick, and Michael Bove, all working out of the MIT Media Lab. Its function is not to do anything, but to instead anticipate what you would want to do by dint of how it is held. Hold it like a phone? It guesses phone. Hold it like a TV remote? Its internal accelerometers indicate “TV remote.” On its own it’s useless, but as the ability to detect its user’s intended use improves—earlier versions were in the 60-70% accuracy range if I’m reading the data correctly—it may find its way into a multi-purpose gadget in the future.
Is it just me or does the picture looks like it came out of an ’80s-era copy of Omni?
Project Page [Media.MIT.edu via Oh Gizmo via Architechtradure]
Leave it to the Media Lab to come up with something that’s both extremely high-tech and profoundly useless.
Ah,Omni–Bob Guccione’s attempt to put out a magazine that didn’t involve underage models and Vaseline.
File this one under “Solutions to problems that don’t exist.” Is it really that onerous to have to tap the camera icon on your iPhone if you want to take a picture? What if you want to take a picture holding the device with one hand? If you stick it between your legs, does it turn on vibrate mode? sheesh.
Man, and I just thought it was a device to tell you how you are using the soap wrong, jesus these guys are smart.
Oh, my God, it’s a Twonky!