Augmented Nature: Activated, Actuated and Animated Small Natures with Pervasive Computers

This paper proposes our novel way to design new-style "nature-mediated" interactive gadgets. It can also be called “computer-embedded small natures”. We adopted small, natural and inorganic earth materials such as rough stones (on the street) and raw shells (on the beach), and embedded small micro-controllers into them for giving interactive functions. While surfaces of them are genuine/ original stones and shells, embedded microcomputers generate responses to humans’ physical actions with electronic light and sound. This mechanism consequently can “augment” relationships between human and natural things, and produce joyful experiences. We believe our concept can open the way to the next-design paradigm and applications with pervasive computing technologies.