Culture
Let This Shape-Shifting Cube Navigate for You
A new haptic wayfinding gadget changes configuration to indicate direction and distance.
Animotus is a palm-sized gadget that hopes to help you get around.
Developed by Adam Spiers, a postdoctoral associate in robotics at Yale, is a touch-based system. Instead of relying on, say, spoken GPS instructions or squinting at a map that charts your path through space, the haptic device changes shape to point you on your way. One portion of the cube twists left or right, indicating directions; the other part slides forwards or backwards, denoting distance.