Friday, February 13, 2009
David Merrill: Siftables, the toy blocks that think
When I was a kid I used to have a electronic blocks, so I can build all kind of things like radio or buzzer.
Now as technology advance we put more electronics in single block and play is more fun.
siftables
I would suggest a cheap knock off here : before price on these blocks go down ( I bet one cost quite a bit now, so having collection of 20 will be like ... a lot of money even if one is only 20$ , that I believe for now is more like 500$ or so, but eventually it will be cheap, I hope )
There are similar toy already exist in Japan : I saw it in Tokyo Hands. It is a blocks that have a person inside. You can connect blocks and make kind of house and stick man can go see each other ;-) It is black and white and has less capabilities, but still cost like any electronic toy would.
So, idea, is simple: use a good old "do-it-all" computer. and camera and ... duh ... projector. Well, it is not perfect and not as seamless of course, but ... much more affordable. The key here is to color blocks the way it will be both easy for computer camera to detect ( may be we need IR camera and light ) and for projector to reflect. There are a cool very small ( pocket ) projectors now that are very low power, but seems perfect for such applications and you can probably hang it low over table on some kind of tripod.
Well, so it is posable to build both blocks, but the issue remains: after we all saw a nice demo, not it is time to write a real s/w that do some thing ( funny, or educational or practical). This is a critical point where most fails. Even iPhone with tons of it applications, still in position of very low utilization of it capabilities for majority of applications.
Alternatively we may think about applications first, then invent a device that will allow implementation: it can be done in parallel, but no matter how cool technology is it will remain a toy at best ( M$ surface ?) till it will be widespread and build upon ( like iPhone) :-) my 2 cents and yeah ... these cubes are cool, I want some !!! ( and SDK to program for!)
Now as technology advance we put more electronics in single block and play is more fun.
siftables
I would suggest a cheap knock off here : before price on these blocks go down ( I bet one cost quite a bit now, so having collection of 20 will be like ... a lot of money even if one is only 20$ , that I believe for now is more like 500$ or so, but eventually it will be cheap, I hope )
There are similar toy already exist in Japan : I saw it in Tokyo Hands. It is a blocks that have a person inside. You can connect blocks and make kind of house and stick man can go see each other ;-) It is black and white and has less capabilities, but still cost like any electronic toy would.
So, idea, is simple: use a good old "do-it-all" computer. and camera and ... duh ... projector. Well, it is not perfect and not as seamless of course, but ... much more affordable. The key here is to color blocks the way it will be both easy for computer camera to detect ( may be we need IR camera and light ) and for projector to reflect. There are a cool very small ( pocket ) projectors now that are very low power, but seems perfect for such applications and you can probably hang it low over table on some kind of tripod.
Well, so it is posable to build both blocks, but the issue remains: after we all saw a nice demo, not it is time to write a real s/w that do some thing ( funny, or educational or practical). This is a critical point where most fails. Even iPhone with tons of it applications, still in position of very low utilization of it capabilities for majority of applications.
Alternatively we may think about applications first, then invent a device that will allow implementation: it can be done in parallel, but no matter how cool technology is it will remain a toy at best ( M$ surface ?) till it will be widespread and build upon ( like iPhone) :-) my 2 cents and yeah ... these cubes are cool, I want some !!! ( and SDK to program for!)
Labels: Siftables, the toy blocks that think
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