We should see a lot more rapid-prototyping tools like the ones used here in the future. They will make it easy and cost effective to create one of a kind and small runs of interesting (and more useful that this one) items. Last year, Wired ran an article on the subject with the author designing and ordering a custom made guitar body on-line.
[Availabot is a] presence-aware, peripheral-vision USB toy… and because the puppets are made in small numbers on a rapid-prototyping machine, it can look just like you.
[…]
Each Availabot is customised and that’s what we really love about it. To make the puppets, we use a combination of standard body-parts and rapid-form prototyping. This means that the head – and any other parts of the puppet – can be made to look just like you. We’ll see how far we can take this in the commercial world.
Ummm, no video.
Works fine for me, and back on topic, what a hilarious little invention.
yech, it looks as creepy as an USB dildo (http://www.blowfish.com/catalog/toys/vibe_dildos.html)
Well, I guess, Angel, if you can’t tear yourself away from the computer to take care of business… BTW, I noticed they have a podcast. Now that’s a subject heard on neither TWiT nor Cranky Geeks, as far as I recall. Perhaps it’s time, eh John?