Cool Hunting

ITP Winter Show
Mark your calendars because next Sunday and Monday is the Interactive Telecommunications Program Winter Show. The student work presented will include interactive art and sound, assistive technology, wireless devices and physical installations. ITP is a fantastic program that pushes the boundaries of technology mediated interactive experiences. It's also near and dear because some of us here at CH (myself included) graduated from there or...

Monome
Since the multi-use controller Monome first came out a few years back, it's slowly gained a cult following thanks to its attractive and flexible design. If you're unfamiliar with the device, the Monome is an ultra-tactile, interactive and adaptable MIDI interface that takes advantage of open-source software to manipulate any number of musical parameters. With a pleasing grid-based design, the programmable buttons function as...

ITP Spring Show 2006
Each ITP (Interactive Telecommunications Program) expo seems bigger, crazier, and more well-produced than the next. Last week's show was no exception with projects like the De-Painter, a machine that uses viewers' movements to generate paintings, and a Bluetooth person-tracking system called BlueWay. The digital readout pictured above left is Robert Seward's trippy Consciousness Field Resonator that takes the concept behind Princeton's Global Consciousness Project...

Kelly Dobson's Blendie
I know I wasn't the only kid humming along with the household appliances trying to find the right harmony to make my head vibrate. Right? Um, anyway, MIT Media Lab's Kelly Dobson must have because one avenue of her work takes that interaction and flips it around. Blendie is part of her series called Machine Therapy which was undoubtedly influenced by her childhood spent...

Nokia N92
In 1999 I wrote a graduate thesis (NYU, ITP) on form defining function in mobile devices. My collaborator Kent Hollrah and I even went so far as to mock-up a prototype we called The Stack. It was made of multiple display panels that were hinged in a manner that allowed it to be folded into four different shapes; each used for a different purpose—phone,...

Peyton's Podcast
Our friend Svenja noticed in this week's episode of the WB's 'One Tree Hill' that Peyton, one of the main characters, recorded her thoughts on a podcast. In the show's credits, after the usual 'songs you heard in this episode' promotion, viewers were invited to link to iTunes. There, as this week's feature, you can subscribe to a season of Peyton's teen angst. We'll...