STOCKHOLM, Sweden –- In a nondescript office building in Stockholm, some of Sweden's best and brightest spend their time on projects like a game in which you move a ball with brain waves, and robots that mix drinks to match your moods.
To researchers at the semi-private Interactive Institute, these aren't frivolous pursuits. They're part of a unique partnership between scientists, artists, computer programmers and others aimed at creating new paradigms for incorporating technology into daily life.
Not yet three years old, the institute has 170 projects underway, with maybe a tenth of those having commercial potential. If they make money, the institute and researchers will share in the profits. If they don't, well that's the way the brain-wave ball bounces.
"The institute does not have a vision," said Michael Thomsen, the institute's research director. "We don't have one person saying this is the way things are going to go. We have a bunch of people wondering how the hell things will turn out."
By contrast, Thomsen says, the MIT Media Lab -- an early role model for the institute -- has been deeply influenced by Nicholas Negroponte's vision of convergent computers, entertainment and publishing. Unlike MIT, none of the researchers at the Interactive Institute have academic duties associated with their work there.
"There's an explicit orientation (at the institute) toward doing things that are not just technologically advanced or commercially viable, but that also connect to contemporary social needs and problems," said Lucy Suchman, professor of sociology and technology at Lancaster University in England. "That's quite different from the approach in the United States."
A government-backed foundation pays for about $3 million of the institute's $10 million budget. Its other backers reflect its broad charter: There are companies like Ericsson, Telia and Nokia; other foundations; a Swedish labor organization; even Swedish municipalities vying to have the institute to set up a satellite "studio" in their region.
Some applications dreamed up by institute researchers have obvious practical applications. A spinoff company called Wunderkind is making wireless devices that let people know when their buddies are nearby. Another spinoff is creating children's digital museum guides shaped like animals such as cats, dogs and mice.
Other projects earlier in development include a device for sunbathing that turns red when you've been out in the sun too long; little lamps that change color according to how someone close to you is feeling (facilitated by wireless sensors they wear that monitor body heat, pulse and other functions); and smart keys that light up to let you know that you've remembered to lock your house or car.
Sometimes, it takes some creativity just to see those practical applications.
Two of the institute's biggest hits thus far aren't practical at all.
In a game called BrainBall, two people try to push a ball across a table toward an opponent using only their brain waves. It works through an EEG device attached to each person's head, and a magnetic "plotter" that moves back and forth under the table, pulling the ball across the surface. You win by calming your thoughts more than your opponent.
Then there's a carpet based on a design by artist Wassily Kandinsky, who saw colors as closely aligned to emotion and sound. Step on different parts of the carpet/painting and you generate digital sounds ranging from a swelling orchestra to clanking metal. That one's on its way to an anteroom at the Swedish Museum of Modern Art.
One of the institute's most fascinating projects has been a failure so far. The team that designed BrainBall also designed BrainBar, a device that automatically mixes drinks for you based on what your brain waves say you need.
Unfortunately, Thomsen said, BrainBar has been hobbled by a critical technological flaw that even top Swedish scientists have been powerless to eliminate:
"It makes bad drinks."
