jodi forlizzi conducted an ethnographic study about vacuum cleaners called a ‘product ecology,’ essentially an object-centered analysis of how people adapt to new types of things, in this case robotic vacuum cleaners as compared to conventional ones. she gave some families roombas and others regular stick-type vacuum cleaners, and she observed significant differences in how […]
Category Archives: evil robots
sore loser
jay silver made this fake product for our technology informatoin and social control class with chris c last year. it’s a board game that reflects teenage boy antisocial angst and self-destruction. each player puts his hand in the cardboard mouth and his cell phone on the board. if the cell phone doesn’t ring the player […]
Also posted in livingbreathing
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voodoo chat
schulze and webb’s availabot is an ambient reminder of whether your friend is logged in to chat. it’s a good idea to take non-essential functions off your computer desktop, but it’s too bad you have to connect the doll via USB and keep it on your physical desktop. i’ve always imagined a set of dolls […]
Also posted in livingbreathing, possessed products, surveillance, tangible, visualization
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cuddlebot
i shot this video of dan stiehl presenting his ‘huggable’ robotic companion teddy bear at the aarp conference in boston two weeks ago. this project is another attempt at making companion robots that elicit positive emotional response, what makes this one unique is its execution. the bear looks and sounds like a real creature, even […]
Also posted in fabrication, livingbreathing, soft/glowing, surveillance
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skinnybot
i saw cory kidd’s new version of ‘autom’ the robotic weight loss coach at the AARP conference in Boston last week. he is starting the first sociable robot company, intuitiveautomata based on this (his PhD project). from the website: The future is here! Intuitive Automata Inc. is bringing about the robot revolution by creating robots […]
Also posted in livingbreathing, marketing, product design
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hoverspy
honeywell’s micro air vehicle can hover in place, fly at 50 knots and be carried around in a backpack. finally, ‘hovering’ technology has arrived – albeit in purely evil form. via did
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product anatomy
now that the craft of technical drawing has been replaced by computer-aided drafting, there’s something uniquely human about painstaking hand-drawn illustration, elevating it to an almost-art and imbuing the drawings with personality and worth they didn’t have before. these painstakingly rendered anatomical drawings of a furby are part of kelly heaton‘s work which culminated in […]
Also posted in open objects, possessed products, visualization
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ms martini
robo-bar is a fully automated bartender. talk about sociable robots! not only does she get you drunk,she wears a bartender uniform and has a real human face on a computer screen head. thirsty?
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