Gizmodo: mit media lab

MIT Media Lab: Electronic Wallpaper, Conductive Threads and More

Dan Nosowitz — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:30:00 EST

Diana Eng, who you might remember as Project Runway's premiere nerd designer, took a look at MIT's Media Lab and found some pretty cool stuff, mostly run off of Arduino microcontrollers. Check it out below.

A lot of this stuff is just playful, so some of the clothes don't need to be too polished—but I love that electronic wallpaper. Down with lightswitches, I say! [Fairytale Fashion]

MIT Media Lab's Siftables Are Cool, But Ultimately Useless

Jason Chen — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:30:09 EDT

These Siftables from MIT Media Labs are small Post It-sized displays with processing power built in, allowing it to communicate with other Siftables as well as detect motion and proximity. You'll have to see what that means in the video, as they have different examples of shaking these Siftables, connecting them together, and having each respond accordingly to the one next to it. In its current form it's just a neat toy that doesn't really do much, but if you can adapt this to say, cellphones or MP3 players—stuff people actually carry around with them every day—it might make for some neat interactivity when you and your friends meet up and make your iPhones kiss. [MIT via OhGizmo]

MIT's 3D Installation Pwns Roger Rabbit

Mark Wilson — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 20:18:32 EST

Given that we've covered the topic of real-time 3D animation in 2D video signals before, we must be fairly obsessed with the topic. But placing a 3D CG image into a video signal and manipulating said signal is still, in our book, pretty freakin' cool. Here's a tech demo of 'Installation' by MIT Media Labs. After you are done drooling over their hot camera/display, watch as they place 3D objects into the image and pan around the room. We can't wait until the technology serves its ultimate purpose and Madden places a leaner version of himself on the football field to show "what he would have done" during that last play. [MIT]

Buy One $100 Laptop, Give Two to Kids

Charlie White — Thu, 25 May 2006 08:41:20 EDT

PledgeBank, the site that allows its users to vow to do something and then encourages others to do the same, is where Mike Liveright set up his particular pledge: he will purchase three of the MIT Media Lab's $100 OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) laptops at $300, giving two of them away. He'll do this only if 100,000 others will, too. This way, generous donors can keep one of the laptops for themselves and send two to those who are much less fortunate, presumably children in the developing world.

Liveright has gotten 1526 people to sign up so far, but the project is not endorsed by Nicholas Negroponte's Media Project, the hand-cranked computers are not being offered for sale, and even if they were, there is no specific plan to distribute all these contributed computers. If enough people sign up, though, we're thinking someone will be able to figure all that out. – Charlie White

$100 Laptop Pledge [PledgeBank] (Thanks, Jonathan!)

Lover's Cups

gizmodo.com — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 16:08:53 EST

Jackie Lee and Hyemin Chung of MIT Media Lab have a great project called Lover's Cups, a wireless-enabled pair of drinking glasses. Each cup can tell when someone is drinking from the other; when both are being used they glow to "celebrate this virtual kiss".

Lover's Cups, Jackie Lee and Hyemin Chung [MIT Media Lab]
Long-distance lovers can still drink together [New Scientist]

Fashion From Another Planet

Charlie White — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 14:00:05 EST

Leave it to the brainiac graduate students at the MIT Media Lab to come up with fashions that blend techno-geekiness with other-planet surrealism. Putting together an event called Seamless: Computational Couture, the wigged-out designistas took the meaning of the term wtf to an entirely new level. The curators described the event as a showcase for innovative and experimental works in computational apparel design, interactive clothing, and technology-based fashion. Pictured here are a few highlights. Here s Heartbeat Hoodie, which probably doesn t look as good on a woman without particularly large breasts, but it takes pictures as its wearer s heart rate increases, in what s called a form of involuntary blogging.

Check out some more after the jump.

Dark Watch counts dark intervals of time. In this case, it s programmed to cycle every 261 seconds, the rate at which people are dying in Darfur, Sudan. But what time is it? Who cares? People are dying.

And then there s Exhausted consisting of a pair of vests attached by a bellows-like connector that actually makes whining noises as the two wearers move away from each other. One piece of advice, kids: Don t wear this when it s time to go meet the parents.

Lots more examples here, including streaming video: Seamless