Continuing research into play in everyday situations, I was very happy to stumble upon the Play! range from BCXSY (cooperative between designers Boaz Cohen and Sayaka Yamamoto).
“PLAY! consists of a collection of products that was conceived out of a desire to bring a sense of nostalgia and playfulness into the grown-up environment. Recognizable childhood […]

I’ve just got back from a few days in Milan for the intensive design week. I’m never going to have time to write about any of it, the good or the bad, so instead here are my photos. There is plenty of other blog coverage if you are interested.
I will write about why […]

London based artist Conrad Shawcross creates these fantastic kinetic sculptures that draw inspiration from philosophy and scientific theories.
Shown above is ‘Loop System Quintet‘ (2005):
“Each of the five oak machines in Loop System Quintet - connected by a single drive-shaft - draws a different ‘knot’ of light in space, predetermined by the ratio of the cogs […]

Last week in London, Philips held an event to preview new potential products ‘that demonstrate its sense and simplicity brand positioning’. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to the event, but below are a few products that I find interesting. Many of these follow approaches that I have seen from interaction designers and students […]

Simon Elvins, a graduate from MA Communication Art & Design at the RCA, has created a number of interesting works dealing with print as an interactive interface for sound.

Notation : “This is part of an ongoing exploration into sound, print and notation, and looks at ways of linking sound to the printed page. Using a […]

Sascha Pohflepp got in touch to let me know about his final project at UDK in Berlin, titled Between Blinks & Buttons. Nice one Sascha.
Between Blinks & Buttons are two projects about the camera as a networked object. Through making their photos public on the internet, individuals create traces of themselves. In addition to […]

Reporting on the Royal College of Art Show 2006. Read more on Pixelsumo.

The Sprochs from Daniel Goddemeyer (Interaction Design) are a family of characters that allow you to record a single voice message, then pass it on to someone else. Upon recording your message, you can set the level of effort and care from […]

Reporting on the Royal College of Art Show 2006. Read more on Pixelsumo.

Progress Bar from Eyal Burstein (Interaction Design) are objects that visualise periods between one week and one hundred years, and are used to review the progress of goals, aims, ambitions or any other long-term interest, which might get left behind because of every […]

Sketch & Share by Robert Faludi, John Schimmel & Grace Kim is a collaborative sketch pad toys for sharing drawings and sounds over distance. Developed as part of the networked objects & toy design class at ITP. User scenario:
Children turn on the toy and begin pressing lit buttons to create patterns. Each button press […]

iScratch by Shosei Oishi (a student of IAMAS Japan) is software which enables you to scratch audio files like analog record using iPod’s touch wheel. Shosei re-wrote the pre-installed open source audio play program of Pozilla to be able to scratch audio files, and works using Linux.
I got to try this at the Takeaway […]

Otto (Greek for Ear) is a device that makes hidden sounds audible. This is achieved via a thin polymer piezoelectric contact that senses weak vibrations and plays them as a sound through an integrated speaker. OTTO can be positioned on almost any surface through a combination of suction and magnets. By placing several units on […]

If you aren’t familiar with the beautiful work of Sachiko Kodama then you are missing out. These amazing works use the black magnetic fluid called Ferrofluid. I suggest you take a look at this collection of work.
I have previously seen a number of projects also using this fluid and wanted to share a few of […]

Totems by Krister Olsson, are three 3D forms, reminiscent of impossible sex toys. The project site describes the work :
The forms in Totem were developed by analyzing online pornography viewing habits. Custom software was written to sniff all incoming Web traffic at a discreet location, sorting packets by destination IP address, time, and source […]

Have you heard of Ambient Devices? They make networked objects that kind of glow based on stock-market data or weather information. Tobie Kerridge though has created Life Event, a networked object in a league of its own.
Life Event tracks the status of a prisoner on death row in Texas, using the Justice Department website. […]

Back in 2004 I attended the degree show at Royal College of Art. One of the projects that caught my eye was the Olson Camera, created by Christopher Glastier. Olson, named after the photographer in superman, is a camera for social encouters. You leave the camera on a surface at a party or […]

Fireflies are networked nightlights for a local environment, by John Schimmel. The jars can be placed in different bedrooms or other spots around a home so people can communicate with one another through simply tapping on the jars. For example, if you tap the jar in your bedroom you will pulse the colored fireflies associated […]

Are you stuck at a specific point in your life? Do you feel out of time, re-living the same day over and over again, and nothing ever seems to change? Then the “Birth Clock” is designed for you. It is designed to help you to come to a decision, to help you to change your […]

Reminiscent of the Blockjam interface, TileToy is a modular electronic game by Tuomo Tammenpää and Daniel Blackburn. Currently in prototype form, I can imagine some pretty innovative games where you have a series of Tiles that you have to link up in different ways to play the game.

Royal College of Art students Sohui Won, Daniel Goddemeyer and Michele Gauler have created 3 projects in response to a brief ‘Design a timepiece’.

[from the site] Turning back time is a product for couples. It comes as two keyring clocks which are attached to each other. At the start of the relationship the couple separates […]