Smart Smart Smart

Leo, a student in the media department of MIT, gave a lecture to the class. Going into the lecture, I was not sure what it was really going to be about… but it was fascinating!! I mean, I do read quite a bit about tangible media (such as the i-phone), but to look at the advance of technology and communication as a whole can be quite eye opening.
First, he spoke of tangible media. He spoke of ubiquitous computing, where computers almost completely disappear (paper that erases itself, objects that move, etc). Leo then broke this into four different sections: tangible interfaces, ambient displays, augmented reality, and wearable computers.
In the tangible interface category, he introduced one of his projects at MIT called the I/O brush. It gives the illusion that you can take any pattern from the real world and paint it onto a TV screen. In actuality, it scans the pattern. There is a little camera hidden inside of the paintbrush, allowing you to use any color you want, instead of limiting people to the palette of photo shop. Crazy!
In the ambient displays category, the example that caught my eye was the “livewire”. How do you show things that we can’t see? This was a way of using background devices to give information. I was really interested in the umbrella. When the weather forecast predicts that it is going to rain, the handle of the umbrella glows blue, so that you remember to take it with you (and to make you aware of the rain in the first place).
Someday… there will ONLY be computers that fit in our pockets and everything around us will have something to do with technology…

I found this lecture to be extremely interesting. Since it, I have checked out the websites that were given to us. It’s pretty amazing just how advanced things have become.
Infact, the other day I saw a preview that the Mac table (used with ipods) was going to be on Good Morning America. I was excited that I knew about it.