October 24, 2003

phidgets: playing with tangible bits

"At the seashore, between the land of atoms and the sea of bits, we are now facing the challenge of reconciling our dual citizenship in the physical and digital worlds. Our windows to the digital world have been confined to flat rectangular screens and pixels, or 'painted bits.' While our visual senses are steeped in the sea of digital information, our bodies remain in the physical world. The vision of Tangible Bits is to provide seamless coupling between these two very different worlds of bits and atoms." Hiroshi Ishii, Head, Tangible Media Group, MIT Media Lab Alright, that's it for me. It's time to expand the toolset - just ordered a phidget starter kit. wohoo! Why not mindstorms? well phidgets seem to have a very well documented API, and a very nice student community behind it, plus, they are super cheap! just wait till I get my hands on these;)