Comments and Questions on the May 2009 GDS Chellenge

This is my first time ever hearing about siftables. Does that disqualify me. Would it require me to somehow get get a hold of these things. THey looks so cool. It's an interesting challenge.

I don't have sound so the video isn't very useful. What do siftables do?

Note that the accelerometer not only detects motion, but the direction of gravity. A Siftable can tell when it's flat, tilted, upright, or face down. One part of the video shows them being used as virtual paint buckets: if one shows red and another blue, by bringing the red one near the blue and tilting it as if pouring, the red one will acquire blue and become purple.

First off, I think I'm more interested in getting hold of some of these and playing with them, finding out about them for myself, before attempting to create a game. How can I really understand the thing if I'm not familiar with it.

I think this challenge is interesting, but I don't know if it's realistic.

This is an interesting challenge. Blurring the line a bit between computer and board games, but that line is already blurring with so many board games getting ported over to Xbox live, or that german boardgaming site that I can't remember right now.

I remember seeing these in a TED video not too long ago and they are pretty neat.

I'm thinking the real tough part will be to make something that is clearly a board game, or at least have a distinct board game feel.

Usually with the GDS you are free to interpret the theme however you like.

Or were you talking about a game that can only be made with tech that doesn't exist yet?

Actually, some of the siftable sort of principles or how they interact are in tune with a game I am already working on. It's an idea of how my cards work in "Beyond the Wheel" and how they will butt against eachother. I have already discussed this a little in my Journals. I admit the siftables are fun, but remain unimpressed on the grounds of the science of infrared and how frequency operates is a fascinating science, but......lets put it this way, and I know I am the party pooper many times but I am also the breaker of ordinaryness, the man who created this is brilliant obviously, but who is the market for this technology? Consumers, who aplawd (clap) for that which entertains them and makes there life easier. Not questioning the mechanism or science of how it is possible. I still hold this theory that if someone braught out a time machine or a "Your vary own UFO", consumers wouldn't question why or how it is possible, just that it provides a convenience for them.

What is the point? The part that troubles me especially about that video is the marketing bs that "look what infra red can do....improve spacial skills......" Oh what I have seen children do! I am not impressed and all computer technology that exists does not match the possibilities of what the human brain can do. The brain is the greatest computer. I am troubled that humanity is made to forget this and some how beleave that they are dependent on technology. That the technology makes there life so easy that they never fully develop there brains potential or releave them more and more of using there brain. I can't help but point this out when I watch this video, because it looks from the reactions like this man proved the world was round or something, and then I know so many extraordinary examples of using the brain for beyond the ordinary things, of which due desurve a chorus of aplaws, however I know that is just the reality of liveing in a zom-b-movie. I'm serious. This stuff troubles me. I wish the day that the world was different and standards of greatness were much different and this would not be contravercial to write this stuff or necessary.

Perhaps due to the similaritys of some ideas I have had with card board, I will either go ahead and work on some ideas for this, or it is simply encouraging me to not forget about my game and keep working on it. I do find siftabls they seem fun, but the presentation seems cheesy. Of course I'm probably the only one on this forum probably who sees it the way I do. Not that I care of course....because I love the way I think.

Completely awesome tech. I need to get my hands on these things when they're released! Great challenge, Seo!

Very cool technology and an interesting challenge Scott.

I wasn't sure from the video does a PC have to be near by or once the shiftables are configured they are very stand alone and can take them anywhere? Like you could program them at the board game factory and then sell them at board game stores to people that dont have computers?

Aslo do they produce sound on their own or was that comming from a near by PC?

- Dwight

From http://siftables.com/

"What are Siftables?
"Siftables are cookie-sized computers with motion sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display, and wireless communication. They act in concert to form a single interface: users physically manipulate them - piling, grouping, sorting - to interact with digital information and media. Siftables provides a new platform on which to implement tangible, visual and mobile applications."

Fixed, thanks.

OK, this time I think it is fixed.

Is a solitaire game entry allowed?