[This project is part of our midterm for Future Gadgets]

We wanted to create a way for people to be able to interact from beyond the grave. We have made a physical object that embodies an individual’s personality (through their cyberself) and is able to interact with the living after their death.

THE CONCEPT

Website Mock-up: http://b.parsons.edu/~asokn558/futuregadgets/Oma/index.html

The concept includes a mock up of an umbrella product website where users sign up and choose who their cyberselves will be given to after their death. The website has already been collecting and tracking everyone in the cyber and real world through their use of Facebook, Twitter, Geolocations, their favorite website, and so one. Once your human body inevitably dies, your friends and loved ones will either be automatically sent the your newly reborn cyberself (in the form of this smaller digitally created, 3D printed physical creature) or they will be able to simply download and 3D print (from the comfort of their homes) their own copy.

This will allow friends and loved ones to still be able to interact with you after death. This physical avatar will allow your cyberself to continue living in the physical world after your death, creating a type of immortality. While you are still alive, you can either choose who is allowed to download your cyberself after death or make it open and allow anyone in the world to. This will essentially mean that there could be an infinite amount of your cyberselves out in the world after you die.

This concept is sort of a play on our obsession with social media and creating online personas that are sometimes more involved than our personas in our real lives. We feel that in the near future the idea of a cyberself and being able to download this into a physical, most likely cyborg enhanced body will actually be possible. However, in our concept, we have chosen to create a world where instead of living on in completely bionically enhance physical bodies after the human body inevitably fails us, we are interested in the need for population control. So, we have come up with a much smaller, compact version of immortality in the introduction of our creepy little creature named "Bo".

MEET "BO"

Technically, this physical object called "Bo" has 3 inputs and 3 outputs connected to an Arduino Uno:

PIR (Passive InfraRed) Motion sensor built into Bo's belly button (that crystal round thingy), when a motion is detected in front of Bo it will trigger a beeping sound.
Pressure sensor/soft potentiometer, triggers light on Bo's head that represents mood/aura reading.
Microphone sensor, within certain range of frequency Bo will vibrate (in the video it does vibrate subtly but it's impossible to see).

Team Oma – Nithya Asokan, Christina Lafontaine, Umi Syam.