Hasta La Gadget!

We have seen twittering toasters, toilets and robots. Now an old-fashioned cuckoo clock gets a makeover so it can wirelessly connect to the internet and display status messages from Twitter.

Haroon Baig, an interface and interaction designer, added a display on the front of a cuckoo clock so it can announce Twitter updates with the charm of a mechanical cuckoo popping out of the timepiece.

Baig modified the innards of the clock, which has a touchscreen display with a controller board and a Wi-Fi dongle. It also uses Chumby, a hardware open source platform with a Linux operating system.

A custom-built widget connects to the Twitter API and receives new tweets. The mechanics of the cuckoo is controlled by the Arduino Board.

The clock can monitor any twitter stream or search. But it has been configured to react on self-referenced tweets. If any tweet mentions “TwitweeClock,” the tweet displays on the built-in screen and triggers the cuckoo mechanism.

As Baig’s video shows, its a fun mod to do. The Twitter-enabled cuckoo clock’s tweet can be found at @twitweeclock.

Twitwee Clock from Haroon Baig on Vimeo.

A close-up of the innards of the cuckoo clock:

See Also:

• Toaster, Toilet Lead Appliance Invasion of Twitter
• Clive Thompson on How Twitter Creates a Social Sixth Sense
• With Tweetie Acquisition, Twitter Locks On Mobile
• Listen to ‘World’s First Twitter Album’

[via Make]