I’ve always been into multi-functional furniture: like the wave-activated lamp that used to sit on my bedside, lighting the room, and scaring away any potential mates. So I desperately want this LED-powered lamp, which not only looks cool, but tells you in a glance what it’s like outside.
Project Aladdin — yup, that’s right — is a DIY project from Austin-based Java engineer Alex Manusovich. It’s got 12 lines of colour-changing lights, glued to a 3D printed frame, and powered by a Raspberry Pi.
Each line of lights represents an hour of the weather. Temperature is represented by colour, with wind and precipitation shown by an animation running back and forth along the line. If that doesn’t inspire you to finally sit down and teach yourself Java, I don’t know what will. [Hackaday]