Sifteo interactive computer blocks started out as a graduate project at Stanford called Siftables, migrated to the MIT Media Lab, and unlike just about every other amazing gadget with that kind of back story, are now for sale.
Sifteo blocks are tiny little computers, complete with their own CPUs, 128 x 128 displays that are also buttons, Wi-Fi, three-axis accelerometers, and rechargeable batteries which last about four hours. They only weigh 35 grams each, making them easy to pick up and mess with, which is the whole point: each block can communicate with the other blocks, and by putting them together in different patterns and combinations, you can play all kinds of different games. Watch the video to see how it works:
You can buy more cubes to expand your gameplay, revealing new features and challenges and allowing you to play with more people at once. The games all come from an online app store, and you can download them on your computer and transmit them wirelessly to the Sifteo cubes. It's all very developer-friendly, so you can expect people to get super creative and come up with some wild new stuff pretty quickly.
So, want a Sifteo pack? Too late! Their first run sold out in just a few hours, and they're waiting on user feedback from this batch before kicking up production sometime early this year. The charging dock plus three Sifteo cubes (which is enough to play most of the games on their app store) will run you about $150, with additional cubes going for just under $50 each.
Also, Sifteo apparently has nothing to do with Scrabble Flash and its 'interactive SmartLink tiles,' and they don't like to talk about it. Shady.
Check out a few more pics of Sifteo in action, in the gallery below.
Via Sifteo
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