Hello, Operator! is the creation of Mike Lazar-Walker, who works as a research assistant at the Playful Systems group of MIT’s Media Lab. The game is designed to simulate the minute-to-minute tasks of a 1920’s-era telephone operator. The software for the game was written in an abstracted manner so it could be run on any hardware—a Mac mini, an iPad, or on the hardware panel that he fabricated on his own to better simulate the experience.

Hello, Operator! is the creation of Mike Lazar-Walker, who works as a research assistant at the Playful Systems group of MIT’s Media Lab. The game is designed to simulate the minute-to-minute tasks of a 1920’s-era telephone operator. The software for the game was written in an abstracted manner so it could be run on any hardware—a Mac mini, an iPad, or on the hardware panel that he fabricated on his own to better simulate the experience.

A reverse geocaching box works similar to other geocaching devices. It will guide you to certain coordinates on earth and instead of finding a geocache located at those coordinates, you carry the box with you, and it opens for you at a predetermined destination. This is also a great way to do a scavenger hunt (making someone go to multiple locations before the box opens).

any designer now has the ability to quickly experiment with new product designs using low-cost 3-D printers. These printers can churn out objects to make prototypes quickly — a fork, wall hooks, mugs, a luggage clasp — by printing thousands of layers of wafer-thin slices of plastics, ceramics or other materials. Products can be made quickly in contract assembly plants overseas, usually in China.

All of this has given designers and engineers a fast-forward button advancing this technological flip-flop.