Ikea has for some time sold a white plastic box filled with christmas-tree lights, that hangs on the wall.  I have for a couple of years now thought about replacing these with a matrix of individually-controlled RGB LEDs.  This simple device could be used for so many things:

• This device could be used to show aiosphere network function, with different colors for gateway and wireless end points.
• It could show a clock, in a variety of forms.
• It could be used as an extremely low-res still-image display (or video, but Zigbee is not a good network choice for this).
• It could be a lamp.
• It could be a color-organ or mood lamp.

One use of the eStarling frame would be to prototype the Twitter Sampler aio.

The basic idea is a widget that sends your friend’s Twitters to an ambient display.  In keeping with the principles of the aiosphere, this object should not look like a computer display.

I imagine a graphics system with 1. a background image of coarse-weave fabric, and 2. a text overlay system which uses an embroidery-like font.

The display would be framed in an ornate wood picture frame.The result would be a dynamic ‘needlework’ sampler. If you’re not familiar with this historical practice, this Wikipedia article is a good start.

In final form this device would follow aiosphere principles and send very small amounts of data, offloading processing complexity to the devices at either end.

For a proof of concept one could write PC-side code that adds text to an image and emails it to the eStarling.

Not really an aiosphere project because of the bandwidth, but worth mentioning.  eStarling makes some cheap wifi picture frames that you can even email pics to.  Such a system is a great foundation for intriguing time-based systems.  A remote cam somewhere, set up to periodically send an image to the frame, makes a wonderful real-time window onto another place in the world.  Imagine a gallery of frames, all windows onto other places in the world?

I imagine outdoor shots, so it could get complex and expensive.  But to test such a system, why not use Panasonic’s low-cost net cam, which can email pics?

A text-based aio similar to a digital picture frame, with hefty onboard processing, receives and your friend’s twitter posts as individual quotes, rendered as if it were a traditional needlepoint sampler.