First presented to the public during a TED conference by David Merrill from the MIT Media Lab, Siftables are interactive computers in a nutshell. These cookie-sized computers have motion sensing, neighbor detection, a graphical display and wireless communication. They interact with the user and respond to each other when piling, grouping or sorting them.
Each siftable consists of a screen, four infrared communication modules, an accelerometer, bluetooth radio, battery, memory and the housing itself. This architecture gives it a gaming-like character and simple math and word games are easy to program in these little fellas. Great to carry around during the holidays!
Besides interacting with each other, they can also interact with external screens and can therefore serve as control devices. Think Nintendo Wii style in this setup.
I think this is computer interaction how it should be. Human beings simply like to interact with their physical context. However, with most computers nowadays basic human skills like grasping and manipulating objects remain unused. With Siftables you can finally forget about your mouse and keyboard and start playing around.
When it comes down to the field of Meta Products, I think the nice thing about Siftables is that they are so generic, that they can operate as both a class 1 Meta Product and a class 3 Meta Product. In order words, you can either control web content by manipulating the Siftables themselves (from physical product to online interface), or you can control how the Siftables behave by downloading web content into their built-in cpu (from online interface to physical product). This makes Siftables the ultra flexible Meta Product. I expect great added features in 2010.
Tags: Meta Products, Toys & games
Meta Products – Building The Internet of Things
This is an amazing little device, i can’t wait to get a set and start using it. The possibilities are endless.. especially in a school / educational system / environment! Anyone know when the release date is for these?