This toy was linked off BoingBoing. They're electronic. They're programmable. They're open-source, and with their white on black blocky design, they look like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. What else could the geek on your Christmas list want? The best part about giving this gift of geekiness is that you don't have to spend anything, just put this url into their stocking "http://tiletoy.blogspot.com/" and you will fill their heart with joy. Actually that url won't help much just yet because the open hardware specifications have not yet been released. This article claims that both the software and hardware will be available under a GPL license. The hardware spec. is scheduled to be released in late November.I've already got plans for my first tiletoy program. I might even build a simulated version of it because I can't wait for the hardware specs. My idea for an initial project is to simulate a ball bouncing off the walls of a tile. If you connect two tiles the ball will be able to travel throughout both tiles. Three tiles in an "L" shape would cause the ball to bounce around the corner and into the 3rd tile. With enough tiles you could create arbitrary mazes throughout which the ball would travel. I think it would be mezmerizing to have the ball pass from one tile to the other. If you pick up the tile that contains the ball, then the ball is stuck in just that one tile. If this concept of linking the tiles doesn't make any sense to you then you need to check out those links again. All the individual tiles communicate with each other through radio signals. The possibilities are endless. If I do make a demo of my tiletoy idea I'll post a link to the source so you can check it out. What I really need is a tiletoy emulator, so I could re-use the code from my idea when I actually get my hands on the hardware. Well, gotta go find something for the non-geeks on my shopping list, after all there are only 101111 shopping days left until Christmas!
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[...] Tiletoy, for real this timeAwhile back I wrote an entry on Tiletoy, an open project for building some mini networking toys with a sort of retro-chic look. The site had claimed that they were going to release everything under some form of open license so that people could build their own Tiletoys, but the date for releasing that came and went without any news. Today I googled for Tiletoy and look what popped up! Totally awesome! Too bad the site is a flash site. Annoying. I don’t see what they need flash for. Anyway, this is great news, and even after reading their discouraging checklist (which i can’t link to because their site is flash trash so I have to reproduce it here) [...]
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