Pileus

Pileus is basically an umbrella with an ability to surf the internet. The 10 Laboratories of KMD led by Sho Hashimoto and Takashi Matsumoto in Japan developed it. The team is working on Ubiquitous Content project which expands the styles of media we have right now. Today’s Media contains movies, video games, animations etc. and all these come in ‘box’ containers. What this project is trying to do is changing the container. In this case, the container is an umbrella.

This umbrella has a special device attached to its handle. Not only the user can log on to internet, s/he can take pictures and videos. Recently, they built a new one with GPS system, allowing the user to find his/her way through rainy days. They are using Web 2.0 and technological vista to combine handy hardware and internet.

These days, cell phones are becoming smaller and smaller everyday yet more functions are added. However, this team is looking for other mobile objects to provide web services. Their project, including other mobile objects they are working on, will significantly improve our daily lives. Smaller cell phones with multiple abilities attached have huge impact on our lives and this will do he same. I read the article five times but I still don't get how they were able to complete this project, though.


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Pileus http://www.pileus.net/
Interview wih Takashi Matsumoto http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/003743.html#more