The new series of the brilliant Gadget Show started tonight on Five. The show format is really like BBC’s Top Gear car show. This week they pitted the Atari 2600 against the Nintendo Wii to go onto the wall of fame (A bit like the cool wall in Top Gear). The Wii won, but really the Atari 2600 should have been the one on the wall. (To answer @andypiper’s correct prediction 🙂 )
One of the brilliant pieces on the show was the Festo robotic penguins. (thanks @OliverSzondi for that link)
Using nature as inspiration, and applying the science of engineering (physical and software) produces some very intriguing results. As a fan of both genetic programming and nature inspired code such as flocking so see it embodied in a physical device was fantastic.
They also covered telepresence, showing all sorts of real/virtual connectivity as they attempted to build a full size banger racing telepresence car. All this was very entertaining, though clearly is more of a regular day at the office for Feeding Edge 🙂
What is clear is that all the things the gadget show look into are very real and very now. Maybe there is space in the schedule for a future thinking gadget show? (We used to have tomorrows world). Start with the existing gadgets and then extrapolate forward a few years to show where it will end up. Happy to volunteer my services to any TV execs out there too.
Also worth following @JasonBradbury on twitter BTW.