This Is What It Was Like to Drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan

The historical rupture of the atomic bomb makes the moment it was dropped almost ahistorical—Hidezaku Furuya's videogame documentary forces you to inhabit it as a crewmember of the Enola Gay. It's quite startling. More »

Mr. Miyagi Busted My Balls So Hard

I failed miserably trying to catch a fly with chopsticks in Mr. Miyagi's Fly Catcher Game. Honestly, it's because a fat woman in a green shirt walked by and made it go wonky. [ITP]

Hello From NYU's ITP Spring 2009 Show

The most interesting stuff we see every year comes out of NYU's ITP program's twice-a-year shows, where students exhibit their thesis projects. The gadget industry can't even dream with this much spark and creativity. More »

Channel Jackson Pollock's Drunken Splatters With a Wiimote

The DraWiing Jackson Pollock project uses an IR detector, a projector and a Wiimote to recreate the drip-and-splatter works of everyone's favorite hard-living abstractionist. It's really fun, as you can see. More »

Accelerometer Headphones Control Music Via Headbanging

One of the projects that caught our eye at NYU's ITP winter show last night (the program that brought you Big Screens) were the Head(banger)phones, accelerometer-equipped to change the music as you bob your head.

VoodooBuddy Combines Ancient Curses with Modern Technology

With the VoodooBuddy doll, you can finally stop wondering if your pin-pricks-in-effigy are all for naught. Just fire up the VoodooBuddy website, plug in your boss's (or ex, mother-in-law, etc.) contact info, grab the doll and poke away. Pricking certain places on the doll curses your target, who is notified of their plight via text message and e-mail. Be careful not to curse your enemy too much; if you overload the VoodooBuddy it will take your picture with its built-in camera, send it to your victim, and reverse the curses onto you. The doll was designed by Rodrigo de Benito and Zannah Marsh, two ITP students you clearly shouldn't upset. Great work, guys! [VoodooBuddy; ITP 2008]

Simon Stabs Game Channels Your Inner Bishop

Remember that scene in Aliens with Bishop and the knife? ITP student Aram Chang made a nerve-racking game out of it. In Simon Stabs, you and your opponent take turns sticking a "knife" between your fingers, making a pattern that must be mimicked by the other guy, who then adds to it. You only have a few seconds to stab; one false move and you lose—hopefully just the game and not any fingers. I tested it out, and as you can see from the video, I'm no android. And I didn't even have the added pressure of Bill Paxton screaming like a sissy. In case you forgot how the pros do it, Bishop's clip is below. [Aram Chang; ITP 2008] More »

Rope and Pulley DJ Machine: Move the Beat To Your Body

Today at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Show, I discovered my next workout machine: Michael Chladil's Rope and Pulley. Seriously, gone are the elliptical and the rowing machine—I'm going to install this and do the silly dance you see above every day, until I'm at least as fit as any Wii could make me. More »

Teste Touch: Deez Nuts Are Made for Ticklin'

The Teste Touch, a humongous pair of testicles swinging from the ceiling, were a big hit at NYU's ITP showcase tonight. As you can see in the video, the nuts are designed to reflect a real scrotum, expanding and contracting based on the outside environment. More »

Virtual Pinball Game "Moving Parts" Addictive Even In Cooperation Mode

Today, when we visited NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program spring 2008 show, we were immediately drawn to "Moving Parts," a crazy pinball game that's the brainchild and thesis of physical-interaction designer Daniel Soltis. It's made of real wood, with wooden buttons and plungers, but the board itself is empty, and stays that way. The game you see is merely a projection from above, but man does it feel real. More »

Ambient TV Brings Web 2.0, Derision of Your Friends' Viewing Habits to TV

Oh, these NYU kids and their big ideas. (Disclosure: I was an NYU kid until Thursday.) Myra Einstein's project, Ambient TV, aims to bring Web 2.0 tech to TV and would make a great add-on to TiVo or the upcoming Xbox 360 IPTV setup. While some of the ideas aren't so new—swarm recommendations, so that Lost watchers would be directed to follow fellow viewers to Heroes, for instance—its friend setup in particular seems like a big draw and a natural fit for IPTV. More »

News Brews: Turn Depressing World Affairs Into Coffee

I like coffee. I like RSS. So naturally, I dig Benjamin Brown's News Brews project, which crawls through RSS feeds and takes "the relative frequency at which different coffee-growing regions are mentioned" to determine their respective bean proportion in the blend. More »

Auto-Paparazzi Likes Celebrity Cleavage as Much as You

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Student Projects: ITP Spring Show 2007

It's springtime at New York University, which means the students in the Interactive Telecommunications Program truck out their graduation projects. These range from conceptual artworks (like Andrew Schneider's "Experimental Devices for Performance" shown above) to innovative interfaces and games. This gallery shows just a few of the works on display. Look for more details on the most interesting projects later tonight and tomorrow. –Noah Robischon More »

Solar Powered USB Bikini

NYU's ITP just had their Winter show. Here's the best of all projects: a photo voltaic laced bikini that puts out 5volts by USB. Just enough to charge an iPod shuffle down at the Jersey Shore. –Brian Lam More »

Nintendo Physically Augmented Reality Amusement Park

Our second favorite class from when we were in grad school at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program was taught by game designer Frank Lantz of area/code. The best project—certainly the most copyright infringing one—to come out of his Big Games class this past semester might just be the Nintendo Amusement Park, "a real life obstacle course which a player jumps through using a power assist harness." More »