Siftables

Developed by the MIT Media Lab, "Siftables are cookie-sized computers with motion sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display, and wireless communication. They act in concert to form a single interface: users physically manipulate them—piling, grouping, sorting—to interact with digital information and media. Siftables provide a new platform on which to implement tangible, visual and mobile applications."

Almost endless possibilities, all of which chip away at the wall between programs and users.  Take a good look at the video to see what I mean.  Learn more at Sifteo.com.



One of the first applications I've seen using this sort of physical/virtual control are Musiblocks.  The physical placement and movement of the blocks affects the commands they send to the computer -> the higher the blocks are placed, the louder the volume gets.  Click here to watch a You Tube video of the Musiblocks in action.

Breaking into the 3rd dimension

One of the ideas I continue to roll around in my head is exactly how to break into the 3rd dimension when designing a website. 2D tricks of perspective and shadow can only do so much, but this is taking it to the next level.

In reality the science/math of this is "not that difficult", as long as the computer knows the angle you're viewing from, the proper computations can be made to account for perspective. Since making a splash with this video almost 2 years ago, Johnny Chung Lee's been scooped up by Microsoft to work on their gesture computing project, Natal.