At the spring arts ITP show the other day, designer Christian Cerrito had a demonstration which will have had bristlebot designers everywhere smacking their foreheads in a "My god, that's obvious!" manner. He used a big tray, a bunch of the simple and strangely lovable DIY bristlebots and a few gobs of paint and…

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…

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;…

We caught a quick glimpse of the Soft Pneumatic Exoskeleton before, but here inventor Che-Wei Wang demonstrates it on himself, explaining how the system gives added power to limbs at key moments. He can power it with a mini scuba tank or one of those CO2 cartridge for pellet guns, but the usage is limited by the…

The Wii-volution is in full effect at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program—a perfect example is this physical virtual foosball game called Ukikit. You Velcro a pink strap to your foot, and an iSight camera tracks its movement while a sonar sensor tracks your proximity. The data translates into swivel kicks and…

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.

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.

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,…