MIT media Lab | | atractivoquenobello

FORM 1

26 September 2012

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I’m wondering how many 3D printers we’ve already come across this year… you have the “non-professional” toy-making machines like iModela… and then you have these pro-oriented models that very few can afford…

And because everything that the “MIT media Lab” stamp touches transforms into gold the recently created studio Formlab (basically a group of ex-MIT labbers) won’t be needing any of the 29 days left to achieve their funding goal for their first project: Form 1.

Formlabs Form 1 - 3D Printer — Formlabs Form 1 – 3D Printer

They’re promising to deliver the most “affordable” 3D printer that delivers professional results (read.. it uses the stereolithography technology) but won’t cost you both of your livers… for 2200$ you’ll have access to the most basic of kits… certainly not cheap. But putting things in context, this is just the beginning of a new market which shall inevitably bring a quality 3D printer into every house one day.

Not yet with Form 1, but this adventure which started over a year ago looks promising… especially if we consider that they should have enough money to produce a large range of colors… and that the little campaign video looks smarter than the iPhone 5 campaign. More info this way, and on their webpage.

Formlabs Form 1 - 3D Printer accessories — Formlabs Form 1 – 3D Printer accessories

MaKey MaKey

15 May 2012

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When someone like Jared Tarbell supports a project on the mini-on-line VC program “Kickstarter”… and you receive the notification in your inbox, the first thing you do is try and remember if you gave KS permission to send you those kind of e-mails on top of their weekly newsletter. And then you may think… wait… Mr Tarbell supporting a project by MIT Media Lab PhD students? We have to check this one out!

While we’ve already seen a quite a few conductive adaptive projects we hadn’t come across an affordable DIY kit like Makey Makey (which they call “Invention kit”), this is where all the merit goes to: creating a plug&play 30€ kit for creatives and educators.

The Kit (as a good open-sourced hardware device) is based on Arduino … but it’s aimed precisely at those of us who haven’t learned or don’t have time to enter the platform world; everything courtesy of Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum who’ve been working on their little baby for over a year and who’re now looking for generous funders to design & build the 4th version of MM.

The project, as it usually happens with these sort of “open” ideas, it’s been funded pretty much instantly after being posted, so as they usually say… more $$$ can only make the Kit v4 look cooler. 28 days left to go… and 28 days left to grab 1, 5 or 30 MakeyMakeys… up to you. More info this way.

Oh and as a quick reminder for those living around the San Francisco area… they Makey Makey will make it into the Maker Faire next Saturday & Sunday.

a Kinect-ed Teleconference

10 April 2011

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The wonders and versatility of the Kinect technology (well, home hacks) keep amazing us, this last one comes from that new fabric of interactive dreams called MIT Media Lab (remember their recompose project?), who, despite maybe not being way more innovative that other media labs around the world they certainly come up with great ideas (and market & communicate them much more efficiently).

Four key people behind the project: Lining Yao, Anthony DeVincenzi, Ramesh Raskar & Hiroshi Ishii; and what have they come up with? The future of Teleconferencing.

A good bunch of practical tweaks to the current & traditional system mixing several solutions (Kinect + Augmented reality…), that should make Cisco Systems or Polycom rethink their current offer.

What we can do if the screen in videoconference rooms can turn into an interactive display? With Kinect camera and sound calibration system, we can easily access the spatially calibrated depth and audio information. We introduced four features, which are “Talking to Focus”, “Freezing Former Frames”, “Privacy Zone” and “Spacial Augmenting Reality”.

Being a regular videoconference user I have to say that some (if not all) of the above presented services (add-ons?) are highly practical (especially between corporate with affiliate meetings or dealing with other countries) and we’re really really hoping they’ll come out to the market very soon (Microsoft plz?).

Much more info (and way better explanations) on their dedicated “Kinected conference” page.

Recompose

5 March 2011

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The people @ MIT Media Lab can’t keep their hands and brains relaxed, not even for a minute. And here’s the latest interactive gesture project whose idea will probably be applied to many surfaces in the coming years.

Continue reading Recompose