RealFrogger Technology Revealed at SXSW
Among the innovative new technologies revealed at South by Southwest this week, there was no doubt that the most future-forward of them all was the RealFrogger street-crossing device that made its debut on the final night of South by Southwest Interactive. (Disclaimer: Development of the RealFrogger technology was sponsored by iHerald, the rarely-heard-from technology arm of Herald Enterprises Worldwide.)
Developed and implemented by Make Magazine's Phillip Torrone and Limor Fried of Eyebeam OpenLab, RealFrogger enables users to navigate traffic on a busy artery such as Austin's 6th Street without recourse to dodging speeding vehicles oneself. Instead, the traffic is avoided by a Bluetooth-enabled Roomba, controlled via a PC cradled safely in the arms of a user on the sidewalk. [More photos after the jump.]
Final Assembly of the RealFrogger device:
Pre-launch inspection:
Final adjustments:
The impact of the technology on Austinites has already been deep. During the nerve-wracking initial crossing, which took place below the balcony of the Herald suite at Austin's Driskill Hotel, passers-by were heard to exclaim, "Dude, it's Frogger!"
Several bugs remain to be ironed out. But a first test run found the RealFrogger successfully crossing 6th Street at least four times.
In the end, however, the RealFrogger was irreparably injured by a passing white Ford SUV.
Before:
After:
To order your own RealFrogger, contact any iHerald representative, at Herald Enterprises Worldwide headquarters in Second Life.
OMG! Who got the high score? (http://www.jrok.com/sohs/frogger/frogger.html)
My bets are on the MAKE folks.
Posted by: ericg | March 15, 2006 at 12:33 PM
rofl.
Posted by: OneSong | March 15, 2006 at 12:35 PM
I'm tellin ya, real frogger is even better than fucking robots! And it was an outstanding finish to 5 consecutive nights of late-night after after parties at the Herald Suite.
The Herald staff and alumni would like to thank Philip and Limor for bringing the event to the Herald Suite, and to Daniel Terdiman for stopping by to report it for news.com, to qDot for breaking out his teledildonics again, and to our ususal crew of blear-eyed nere-do-wells including Tony and Glenn and Brad and Paffy and Hamlet and Jennifer for joining us in the peanut gallery on the 6th street overlook.
--Uri
Posted by: Urizenus | March 15, 2006 at 03:09 PM
Damn, thats one serious road traffic incident in the making!
Posted by: ninjafoo | March 15, 2006 at 04:33 PM
Heh, now you're making me wish I could have gotten away from class long enough to make it ;-)
Posted by: Matthias | March 15, 2006 at 05:29 PM
Here's a direct link to Terdiman's CNET story, Roomba does Frogger Rumba. He's got a sweet 13-pic spread too.
With such a success I expect the streets will run green at SXSW2007, or maybe the next Herald bash! lol Looking forward to the RealSecondLifer of 2010... BTW as Phillip hinted I think you could totally pilot RealFrogger from inside SL. Make a map inworld that looks like this but maps to the real street and traffic. Like Ender's Game meets Mad Magazine meets MAKE Magazine meets Google Maps :).
Was wonderful hanging out with y'all in Austin for a week. Now to sleep for equally as long...
Posted by: Jerry Paffendorf | March 15, 2006 at 07:56 PM
A memorable event if there ever was one. Who took the photos you guys used here? Terdiman?
Posted by: Tony Walsh | March 16, 2006 at 09:33 AM
These are Walker's photos, Tony.
Posted by: Walker Spaight | March 16, 2006 at 12:51 PM
That thing really doesn't work like that does it? I mean, you're making that up, right?
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | March 16, 2006 at 08:49 PM
This post is useless without video.
Posted by: jeff collins | March 18, 2006 at 01:13 AM