Nordic Exceptional Trendshop 2006

The Hug Shirt

The Hug Shirt by Cutecircuit enables you to share the sensation of a hug with your loved ones whenever and wherever you feel like it. Sensors embedded in the shirt of the sender feels the strength of the touch, the skin warmth and the heartbeat rate of the sender and then send this information to the actuators in shirt of the recipient. This is done by use of Bluetooth applications and your mobile phones. The shirt comes in many different colors so that you can match the style of your shirt to the rest of your outfit.

Link: Hug Shirt

Ion Polymer Microbatteries

What if you need power on the spot? Print a battery!

The electronics in our everyday life keeps getting smaller and we also need to develop comformable micropowered systems with long operation times and field recharging abilities to support the increasing demand for technological moveability.

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have actually done just that. They have developed a dispenser system that is able to print with tip diameters ranging between 100μm and 1mm. Thus the system is able to print e.g. micro particles and nano particles in polymer binders onto a substrate. The dispenser seems very promising and is likely to soon replace the ordinary micro battery. This means that the functionality of e.g. wireless sensor networks and micro-robots is drastically enhanced.

Link: Microbatteries

FIRE project

Utilizing the WIT technology described in the previous post is Fire Information and Rescue Equipment (FIRE) a project made in co-operation with Chicago Fire Department. Fire fighting is an extremely demanding job. Lots of decisions needs to be made in a small amount of time and the decisions are often based on very little information.

The FIRE project tries to address all these challenges by applying and designing new technologies to ease the everyday life of a fire fighter. Especially seen in the light of the catastrophe at World Trade Centre the focus of the project is on communications enhancing tools that are designed to improve safety, efficiency and effectiveness of emergency responses.

Link: FIRE

WIT System™ (Wireless Information Transmission)

Wireless Information Transmission is a new system of tiny sensors that eliminates extensive wiring of different monitoring equipment by creating a mesh network and uses an energy scaverging technique that powers the sensors with heat from the environment.   

The sensors can detect everything from light to vibrations and can be scattered across large areas for monitoring movements of any kind as long as the source of energy e.g. is present.

Link: WIT

GumSpots Positioning System

GumSpots is a mobile communications platform with a focus towards real world events. They have developed a number of technologies that can be combined to create a wide variety of mobile applications opening new avenues for branded experiences.

GSPS (GumSpots™ Positioning System) is one of the many possible services accessed via the GumSpots™ platform. GSPS was originally based on recognizing patterns of gum on city sidewalks and from this concept they developed a patent pending pattern recognition system that can be used for mobile marketing and for creating street games. To use GSPS one would take a photograph of a GSPS pattern with a camera phone and submit it to the GSPS service. The GSPS service would then determine the action associated to the pattern and can return data such as an image (or files such as ringtones and videos) and location based media.

Gumspots™ features an integrated patent pending Mobile Map and Messaging system (MMM), which enables the fast creation, and deployment of location based services such as city maps, university guides, real estate listings, social facilitators, self-guided tours and more. Gumspots™ provides a customizable visual interface enabling a user to access a wide range of seamlessly integrated services. Gumspots™ will thus provide users with the unique ability to customize their mobile device to their particular lifestyle and add services that are of interest to them.

Link: GumSpots

Floc Board

Kasper Kofod Head of the Mobil Indholds Lab (Mobile Content Lab) at the IT-Univerty, Copenhagen, Denmark have lots of projects going on. His latest is the Floc Board system which is is a dynamic digital board, which let you post text and images to a large screen by sending an SMS or MMS.

It can be used for social purposes, sharing ideas, images, for receptions, high schools, universities, cafées and clubs, as a shared interface between offices in different locations, for posting questions to speakers at conferences etc. All you need is a projector or a big screen, a browser and some thoughts and images you want to share with people around you.

Post your text and images to the board by sending an SMS or MMS to 1231 with the text: board next [and then your text and images].

As it is now, only phones registered in Denmark can post to FLOC Board. So if you are not Dane, this is your chance to pass up a Dane and have her/him post your text and images to FLOC Board for you. This is social media, the local way.

Link: Floc Board

 

Mixed Reality Interface

Thomas Kienzl (Architect MAA) of the Austrian KOMMERZ design company where  they have a design philosophy that: Architecture gives form to spaces - to real spaces as well as to virtual spaces. And from that frame work, KOMMERZ develops and realises high-quality products in the areas of visual media and in the fields of space-, object- and communication design.

With Mixed Reality Interface physical and digital realities are connected in a seamless web. This approach is a way of creating new platforms for learning, experiencing and sharing information. MRI is an input device that makes it possible for the user to intuitive navigating in different computer applications. This way the potential client can get hands on experience of a new design in the early stages of the design process long before the prototype is developed. Digital content is linked to physical objects so that the very rough physical models you can grab on the navigation surface appear very nice and smooth on the screen. In this way the potential client can physically move the model of a camera around to see the new architecture project at the precise angle that he/she wants instead of watching a predefined guided tour through the new building.

Other applications can be found in the fields of infotainment and multimedia and e-learning. Here, the targeted user groups are minors and elderly people that have special needs.

Link:MRI

HiTV

Jackie Lee the creator of Lovers Cups will also be amazing the exhibition audience with the HiTV a Context Aware Computing project out of MIT Media Lab.

When you are watching television and gets angry with the speaker because he is boring or says something wrong your only way to give affective feedback is to either switch channels or simply turn off your television. The concept of HiTV enables you to interact affectively and hence receive feedback from your television. This can be done by throwing a soft rubber ball at the television screen, which makes the boring television speaker visually distorted and screaming out loud.

The soft ball is like a graspable interface with build in sensors that can detect people interacting with it – for example whether they are throwing the ball at the screen or patting it. A signal is sent from the ball to a signal box in the television by RF. Given these interactions with the ball the user gets both visual and audio feedback. The signal box can also be connected to a network system so that you can share your emotions with other people.

Link: HiTV 

Imity

Imity uses your mobile phone to sense other mobile phones that you meet on your way. The information that the mobile phone picks up is then sent to your private Imity account on the web.

Imity reflects social situations to go and makes it possible to see where your friends is located at the time or if there is any local events coming up. Then when you are attending a specific event you can see what people is there and then take pictures to remember the moment. Afterwards you will be able to see whom you met and maybe ask the girl out that you were around the most. You will also be able to get your hands on event-specific goodies such as mp3s from concerts etc.

And I know they are working on some mixed reality with this software technology, so 2nd Lifers watch out!

Link: Imity 

Plundr: Laptop Location Based Game (Area/Code)

Plundr is a new location-based game of piracy and trading of goods on the high seas created by the company area/code. Plundr is designed to be played on laptop computers by players who are navigating through space in the ‘real world’ while connected to the internet. The game play takes place on different virtual islands that each corresponds to a real-world location where you can buy and sell goods; prey on Merchant Ships and battle nearby players. You begin your journey as a bilge-spewing land-lubber in a leaky tub and then you can search the ocean for unsuspecting ships to plunder so that you can upgrade your ship and amass a fortune in black market goods.

And Co-Founder and Managing Director of area/code Kevin Slavin have also promised to amaze the audience with a lighting talk about the Plundr game.

Link: Plundr