It appears wireless technologies are prompting at least one company to explore how we might create environmental interfaces that are neither disruptive nor overly detailed. The Ambient company showcases several items here that fulfill their mission to "embed information representation in everyday objects." These objects--sphere, pinwheel, panel, pen, watch, fob--all use light to transmit a customizable digital information set. You could, for example, set your "Ambient Orb" to glow when there are other members online at Kairosnews, or perhaps you could set the pinwheel to spin when the Homeland Security Advisory System hits yellow alert. Or you could install "Ambient Panels" along an entire wall that would let you "see" the current state of a host of data all at once.

Check out the Ambient web site
or read a story from the New York Times on ambient technology.

Regardless of the individual items this company is producing, I think the idea of "ambient information" is interesting, since so much of the information we collect everyday is in the "background," like how cloud formations, temperature, wind speed, and other factors suggest rain to us, even when we don't measure them or attend to them directly. In the NYTimes article, one person states that the "new paradox of our data world" is that "the way to become attuned to more information is to attend to it less." Considering the increasing amount of information that seemingly is necessary to track, I hope this person's right.