Kokonatchi - a high-tech toy for Twitter users

We will not now talk about the benefits or uselessness of the Twitter service. Many people use it, and sufficient evidence for us of this thesis can be the presence of the corresponding item in the Habr's user profile setting. So, for true fans of the service, students from a pair of Japanese universities, Tokyo and Waseda, created very interesting gadgets, Kokonatchi, which work as a notification about the arrival of a new message on Twitter.

To get started, just connect the Kokonatchi to the USB port of the computer, and the work immediately starts to boil. Kokonatchi begin to respond to messages coming to your twitter, responding differently to different types of messages. The reaction is separated by the operation of the built-in LEDs - different messages are marked with different colors.
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In addition, the toy has its own memory, where you can download sound alerts, including your own composition. Up to 20 words can be loaded into the device's own memory, but there is also a slot for microSD memory cards, where, as you understand, you can download a lot of things. True, the toy supports up to 1000 sound alerts.



The head of the project, Hiroshi Ishiguro, claims that all this was conceived as hi-tech tamagotchi for geeks who no longer think of themselves without a service like Twitter. The project, which is typical, is not just a concept, it is already working to the fullest, and in the fall you can buy yourself Kokonatchi at a price that is not the highest - about $ 45 for one “toy”. It seems that with us it will all be worth three times, if not four, more expensive. But maybe someone has friends in Japan?

In general, it is quite interesting, though not the most practical gadget. But still he is able to lift the mood, and this already says a lot. In addition, if you work in an office, there is every chance of attracting the attention of pretty female employees to your desk.

It would be nice if such a gadget could be made more universal, by “teaching” Kokonatchi to respond to messages in ICQ, on e-mail messages and others. Obviously, this is not so easy, but how much of a functional thing could it be! But this is not bad either, especially if one considers that all of these are developed by ordinary students, and not by respectable IT gurus or the whole department of a large company.





The source is here (carefully, Japanese!).