Personal Information Architecture Ideas from 1996

Socks That Think

Your dryer can automatically sort your socks. Also, we can develop a soft mesh for wear-resistance.

Smart Flower Pot For Less Than A Quarter

A flower pot which could monitor fertilizer, moisture and light needs and keep stats on your green thumb/brown thumb prowess. But the true challenge is adding no more than 25 cents to the cost of each pot you outfit with these capabilities.
This was later explored in a different way by RoboCrop.

Smart Table and Silverware

Imagine being able to just throw the silverware on the table and have the table set itself! We threw around ideas with magnets and servos. However, according to an October 2000 WIRED article, Dan Reznik, a Brazilian computer science Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Berkeley, has developed a table which does this.

SmartTools

Tools which can organize themselves. A ratchet wrench which can find the correct sized end. A hammer which will only hit the nail in the wall and not on your thumb.

Daily Embroidery

Embroidered toys...embroidering designs on your clothes in the morning. A dye-on-the-fly T-shirt making machine or loom. Maggie Orth has since taken embroidery into exciting new places.

Magic Mirror

One's mirror as an interface and control for the home. Michael Cyrulnik worked on this for his UROP in 1996-1997.

Smart VCR

Access the internet via Software Agent Technology and your home VCR. Being able to edit and order with your VCR. On demand ads - which has been achieved by the Object Based Media Group here at the Lab.

Smart Lipstick

Kiss a napkin...give out your phone number.

Smart Building Blocks

As you build a structure with the blocks, your computer can fetch information on an historical building it resembles - like the Parthenon or the Paul Revere House. Let kids learn more with a hands-on interface instead of a keyboard and mouse. Let this expland to virtual origami...tag...anything you can imagine. Adam Smith is currently working on a language for kids to add their own computer layers to conventional toys.

Jackets

Seeing-eye jackets? Message Jackets? Whatever we can imagine, we can do.