Among them was Hiroshi Ishii, director of the Tangible Media Group at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ishii has produced glass bottles that tell the weather report when they're opened. Other bottles that he's developed are capable of playing music, allowing you to be your own deejay, mixing it up with several bottles. Other kitchen items that are being transformed include toasters and blenders that would be equipped with infrared light receivers. Now, why someone would want to use a toaster via remote control is beyond me, but maybe I'm just old-fashioned.
Other inventions that were displayed included a birdhouse that would teach the birds gathering outside your window to sing the song of your choice. Robotic dogs were big too. The 21st century's idea of Rover is one that won't piddle on the carpet or chew up the furniture. Rather, a very obedient, albeit robotic dog complete with it's own unique personality; one that will answer when called. Then there are devices such as the "Prayer Device" that allows you to transmit your prayers up into the heavens. This seems to be more of a direct route than emailing your prayer to a nun who will kneel down and pray for you which was big in the beginning of last year.
Some of these advances may seem frivolous, some fun, but all seem to be pointing in the same direction. The late computer scientist Mark Weisner, states in his book, The Computer for the 21st Century, "Such machines cannot truly make computing an integral, invisible part of the way people live their lives. Therefore we are trying to conceive a new way of thinking about computers in the world, one that takes into account the natural human environment and allows the computers themselves to vanish into the background."
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