However, it looks more dorkbot than terminator in the harsh light of, um, light. [Blindsight, Andrew Styer at ITP]

It uses a MIDI input device and plays twelve different tones, though it can be tuned so it can play different kinds of music. [Irregular Incurve at ITP]

Well, depending on how you define freedom. It is like riding a bike on the sky. But, um, harder. You're actually peddling against your own weight while strapped in at a 45-degree angle, so while Mario's taken the hand-built bike—which is made almost entirely out of scraps found in the streets of NYC—across bridges, he's only been able to ride it for about 25 minutes continuously before freedom takes its toll.

But maybe a warp-drive-powered version is how we'll reach the stars one day. [Skybike at ITP]

The girl who made them was peering inside the boots, which were covered with bark she said she collected over a semester in all the parks in NYC. Sensors inside the boots trigger a slow hum, as if the earth were purring, when a user simply stands in them. If the user picks feet up to move, the speakers inside make the disharmonious sound of roots ripping from the earth. The point is to encourage people to stop and connect with the mother gaia. Or something like that. The girl who made this project was super nice! At one point, she broke her project, and had to run and hot glue it back together. And later, she made sure to spray down the moss so it wasn't thirsty. Ah hippies. I got homesick for California for a bit, there. [root boots at ITP]

Each person playing the game wears a headset, speaking the lines onscreen like a member of the Enola Gay's crew as it progresses. At the end, it plays back a recording of everyone, so you hear it in your own voice.

I suppose that's as close you'd want to get to the experience of ending, saving and changing millions of lives in an instant. [Hidezaku Furuya ITP]

[Che-Wei Wang at ITP]

What the robot's doing only looks random—it's actually based on a reference image or video. Sadly, Jackoon was the only ArtBot of Oscar's on display when we dropped by, not his almost-creepy Theo Jansen-inspired designs. [ITP, ArtBots]

[ITP, Twitter]

You have to inject the perfumes into the ring with a hypodermic needle which is supposed to invoke the "clinical process" of getting ready for a date. The scent is released when you squeeze the side, causing the tiny piezo tubes to contract.

Oh, the feather's just for decoration—I'm not sure it'll help you get laid, either.[Art and Program, NYU ITP]

By sloshing, squishing, pulling, punching, etc...users control games, simulators, and expressive tools; interacting with a computer in a new, completely organic, way. Born out of a motivation to close the gap between our bodies and the digital world, the Mud Tub frees the traditional computer interaction model of it's rigidity, allowing humans to use their highly developed sense of touch, and creative thinking skills in a more natural way.

I can't for the life of me think of a way that this UI becomes anything other than an interactive mutation of the same sort of fun we'd have as children helping mom in the garden, playing on the beach as the tide rolled in high or sitting in a sandbox a little too soon after a heavy spring rain. And that's ok with me.

Imagine using it to model roughs of buildings, the fender of a new car design or any other number of physical representations previously requiring CAD expertise. No longer. Just fire up a mud UI. And start shopping for hand wipes at costco. [Tom Gerhardt at ITP]

If you're in NY, you should go! You missed it today, but you can go tomorrow from 5PM to 9PM. It's right here, 4th floor:


View Larger Map[ITP]