Monochrome dreams!?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3353504/Black-and-white-TV-generation-have-monochrome-dreams.html

I read this very interesting article that was on the ucd wiki website. As far as I remember, I've never dreamt in black and white before! If the research is to be believed then I'm amazed, but then again, it could be that,

"media exposure somehow alters the way the mind reconstructs the dreams once we wake."

Again, I find this really interesting. Either way, media is affecting the way we dream. If that is possible, the more we are surrounded by media the more it will affect us. Right now, I can't imagine living in a world without everything being connected and portable, even though I grew up in the 90s and still remember the days when there was no internet and few portable media devices.

Imagine what it would be like for someone growing up in this era? How would the person be affected by all the media surrounding him/her? What would their thoughts revolve around? Is the media overtaking us, and are we forgetting other things in life? Are we spending all day in front of a computer, the television, our iphones? What will the people of this era dream of?

Arduino

Examples

Here is an arduino being used to connect a touch sensor and servo motor.

Arduino

Arduino - What is it?

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software on running on a computer (e.g. Flash, Processing,MaxMSP).

The boards can be built by hand or purchased preassembled; the software can be downloaded for free. The hardware reference designs (CAD files) are available under an open-source license, you are free to adapt them to your needs.

from http://www.arduino.cc/

How is it used?

The Arduino can be connected to the computer via its usb port. It has digital and analog pins. These pins can be used to connect to software running on a computer as well as directly to things such as a variety of sensors. To my understanding the board can be programmed using the Arduino programming language and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing).

In my final year project, i used the Arduino as a touch sensor, whatever information it obtains through the pins (i used bare wire and connected them to the pins, to get readings in capacitance through a script in processing) gets transferred into Processing on the computer and finally onto MaxMSP which produced certain effects. That was how I used the arduino, by connecting it to a computer. However it can also be directly connected to sensors such as, touch sensors, heat sensors, motion sensors, color sensors, light sensors, pressure sensors, magnetic sensors.

RFID - How it works (and the dangers)

- companies and the government can easily hide the RFID chips

- it is perfectly legal for a company to place an RFID tag, for eg in your shoes in between the layers

- sell that pair of shoes, and use it as a tracking device!

- people can be numbered and tracked even babies at birth could be implanted with RFID chips

- if every move that we make can be detected and logged, what would happen?

- who would hold the power?

SOLUTIONS?

- labels for products with RFID tags

But these chips are so small, how would anyone know?

Although thinking about the usefulness of this technology excites me, there are so many possibilities with this technology, it also scares me in that governments and companies could have such power.

IBM RFID Commercial - The Future Market

The future of marketing, I found this commercial really funny but the point was the message it was sending across. How convenient! Everything is RFID tagged. I suppose this would mean that the person would have an RFID tag implanted?

To me the positives are obvious, no need to queue, its super convenient. Fantastic. In a supermarket, yes.

But what about other things? If these tags are used for anything and everything. Companies and governments would be able to track whatever we are doing and wherever we are. What would happen to our privacy?

iBar - largest multitouch touchscreen

This is the surface of an interactive, 10 meter long bar. Every glass, cup, cellphone, car key, businesscard or even fingers will be recognized.

Could these kinds of projects change the way we interact in the future? It is nice to see and it has a very cool effect. But what if we lose our natural ability to interact and communicate as we move into the future and get more and more used to these kinds of technology.

Right now we are only using it as a fun thing and it play around with, but what if in the future we use it to interact with each other and lose touch with our nature. It is a crazy thought but something I somehow see happening, especially with the generation that is growing up in todays digital era.

On the brighter side of things, I like this project as people can interact with each other, anything that is placed on the bar top is recognized. In the next video I'm going to post, microsoft takes it one step further.

Interactive LED Coffee Table

Found this video about an interactive LED table. What sprang to mind was how useful is it? It reacts to motion and looks cool. I suppose aesthetics play a very important role. Even though it is not of much use, people (including me) still think it is a cool thing to have. Most people don't own things like that. Maybe that is why its still 'cool'.

In the future as technology progresses would things like this still be interesting and 'cool'?