Nordic Exceptional Trendshop 2006

The Smoke Doll

60-70% of children treated for breathing problems are having this disease as a consequence of inhaling passive smoke. The Smoke Doll is a doll designed to enhance your awareness of the things that you exposes your child to.



The physical behaviour of the breathing of the doll is depending on the amount of passive smoke it is exposed to. Over time the inhaled smoke destroys the dolls breathing until it becomes irregularly coughing and finally stops, simultaneously with the appearance of real nicotine stains on its outside. In this way you are not only aware of what your child is exposed to in your own home but you could also imagine that some parents would not allow their child to play with friends in a home with a very ill Smoke Doll.

Link: Smoke Doll

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