Pileus is an umbrella connected to the Internet to make walking in rainy days fun. Pileus has a large screen on the top surface, a built-in camera, a motion sensor, GPS, and a digital compass, and it provides two main functions; A Social Photo-sharing and A 3D Map Navigation.

The photo function is connected to a major web service “Flickr”. A user can take photo with a camera on the umbrella, and pictures are uploaded to Flickr in two minutes with context tags via a wireless Internet connection.

User can also enjoy theirselves watching photo-streams downloaded from Flickr (and video-stream from YouTube on an advanced proto) with simple operation of wrist snapping.

3D Map Navigation is powered by “Google Earth”. Detecting a location data from GPS, it shows a 3D bird view around the user.

User can walk-through a city comparing the 3D views and real sights, and the map is always updated by GPS and a digital compass. As it has a large screen, it create virtual reality but not immersive.

Now these two functions can be switched by simply fliping a switch. As a future direction of its development, putting a context data on the Internet (e.g. geo-tags on photos), it will be able to provide social local-navigations, social local-ads, and real-time in-place communications.

The product aims to provide an augmentation of everyday life synchronizing information on the Internet and the real place.

By Sirius on 22-05-2007