OATs is a small add-on device that gives everyday objects expressive characters based on sensor readings. On the researchers' project page, an office refrigerator gets bored when unused, while a space heater becomes frustrated when it heats an empty or overly warm room.
Users describe the object and select sensors such as temperature, motion and light to set up its character and behaviors. The project comes from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
Smart devices were supposed to make life easier. Now we may need to keep the refrigerator entertained.
Uploading files to an e-paper reader felt needlessly awkward, so Nishant Joshi made an Xteink X3 appear on a computer as an ordinary network printer. Select it in the macOS print dialog, send a document, and the page appears directly on the reader's display.
Because the ESP32-C3 cannot hold a full high-resolution print job in RAM, the firmware processes incoming pixels row by row and writes them straight to the screen. Finished pages are also saved to the SD card, making a folder the printer's equivalent of an output tray. E-paper has become so paper-like that its interface loops back around to printing.
E-paper imitates paper long enough and eventually someone says “fine, I'll just print to it.” Digital reading has completed a very tidy circle.
Smart devices were supposed to make life easier. Now we may need to keep the refrigerator entertained.