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.

Comments

prior art

[trb]

my boss changes color to display information at a glance.

unfortunatly

[holzp]

the one monitoring their web traffic just exploded.

I know what I'd display

[addie]

1- Number of support calls answered today
2- How much money earned today
3- Depressing ratio between the two

7 million colors

[ayahner]

Wow. This is it. The latest and greatest information display of all time.

It's a single pixel monitor for crying out load!

What the hell are people thinking?

If you really want that functionality, just plug in a monitor using a second cheapo vidcard. Much more expandable...

That's been around for years.

[mikeophile]

For instance, when I was almost side-swiped by a semi truck, my car seat turned yellow.

Moments after seeing flashing red and blue lights in my rear-view window with a pound of a sticky, green, and illicit herb in my trunk, my seat turned a deep shade of brown.

The analog olfactory indicators were an added bonus.

Re:Ye Olde Weather Ball

[pavon]

That's kind of like the weather rock we used to have:

If it's wet - it's raining.
If it's swinging - it's windy.
If it's white - it's snowing.
If it's gone - you'd better get going.