13 March 2009

Trendables -- 6 products that can

-able, everyone's favorite "can-do" adjective suffix, is enjoying a revival. 20-some years since its heyday, we've found it stitched to no less than six modern product names, deriving for them a certain adroitness that a lonesome noun mightn't have provided. And two of these products, as it happens, have been demoed at TED.

1. Siftables: The cookie-sized computers with motion sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display, and wireless communication. (See David Merrill's demo of Siftables at TED2009.)

2. Inventables: A subscription service used by consumer product companies who want to create unique products. (Watch Keith Schact and Zach Kaplan show off products from the future.)

3. Instructables: A how-to and DIY community where people make and share inspiring, entertaining, and useful projects, recipes and hacks. (Watch Saul Griffith show hardware solutions to everyday problems.)

4. Mashable: Touted as the world's largest Web 2.0- and social networking-related news blog.

5. Reactable: An electronic music instrument with a slick, multi-touch interface.

6. Lunchables: Children's meal combinations, often called "the taste of elementary school" by the Gen Y cohort.

Give us more examples in the comments, if you are capable.

(Image: Mike Femia)

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23 February 2009

On building blocks: exclusive interview with David Merrill on Siftables

David Merrill is a grad student in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT's Media Lab. He and his fellow students in this group work on new technologies that give us more and better abilities to do things we want to do. At TED2009 he gave a demo of his main project, Siftables.

Today the TED Blog interviewed Merrill to get some details about the Siftables project -- and answers to some questions that many have asked since his demo. Here's a snippet:

I have heard so many people say: "My kids will love these. When can I get some?" The realization has been hitting us over the past few months that the potential for kid-oriented interactions is huge and meaningful.

Find the full interview with David Merrill below the fold >>

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