Analog Approach to Displaying Data

Lurker McLurker writes " BBC News reports that Ambient Devices, the MIT Media Lab spin-off which brought us the Ambient Orb, have developed a new product, the Ambient Dashboard . The orb changed colour to display information at a glance, for example turning red if the stock market is going down. The dashboard has three displays, similar to speedometers or barometers, to show the information of your choice, from stock market volumes to the pollen count." As a proof of concept, this is neat stuff. However they seem awful pricey.

Re:Calm Technology research from PARC

[licem]

It is.. notice that John Seely Brown of calm computing and Parc fame, is an advisor.

Unfortunately, it's really not that new of an idea

[Bowie J. Poag]

..Believe me...I should know. :) I published a paper on the subject back in '97. It's not a new idea by any stretch.

Anyway, Color-reactivity has been around for ages. Even within the scope of involving computers in one form or another.. There are two examples that i'm aware of, both were implemented w/ early 60's technology:

1) I wish I could remember the name. It was basically a computer-controlled art exhibit. They set aside a room in an art gallery with an old IBM 704, rigged the room up with motion sensors and microphones, and used the input levels to drive color wheels and light projectors... So if the gallery was quiet, the walls and all the stuff hanging from the ceiling would turn deep blue and move slowly. If there were alot of people visiting the gallery, the color of the room would turn more pink and yellow. If there was alot of chatter going on inside the gallery, with people talking to eachother, the more psychedelic the room became.

2) There used to be a device back in the early-mid 60's called an Audiovox, if i'm not mistaken...The Audiovox was just a simple amplifier with three colored lights on the front.... Red, Yellow,and Green. It was used to help deaf children learn how to modulate their speech, based upon the feedback the lights produced.... If the lights flickered red, the user would know that their pronunciation was way off. By trying to make (and keep) the green light as solid as possible, deaf children could refine their speech without necessarrily knowing what it sounded like. Neat stuff..

Anyway. Not a new idea. Not even when I had written about it [acm.org].