5/16/2007

Watch slide-shows on the umbrella which will stop you getting lost
The Daily Mail, 13:01pm on 15th May 2007…The high-tech brolly allows you to take pictures with a built-in camera. These can be uploaded to Flickr (a photo-sharing website) via a wireless internet connection…the Pileus umbrella also has GPS and a digital compass, which uses Google Earth to help you navigate yourself around the world…more...

Actually, this wireless internet umbrella started out as academic research at Keio University in Spring 2006 by Sho Hashimoto and Takashi Matsumoto who are grad students at Keio University’s Okude Lab and co-founders of Pileus LLC. They view their Pileus Umbrella connection to the Internet as of way of making, “walking in rainy days fun.”

Pileus has a large projection screen on the inner of the unfurled surface of the umbrella, a built-in video camera, a motion sensor, GPS, a digital compass, all of which provides two major functions: Social Photo-sharing and 3D Map Navigation. According to the Pileus website: “these two functions can be switched by simply flipping a switch… putting context data on the Internet (e.g. geo-tags on photos), it will be able to provide social local-navigation, social local-ads, and real-time in-place communications… an augmentation of everyday life by synchronizing information on the Internet and from a real location.”

Watch the YouTube video of the porn umbrella in action on the streets of Tokyo Japan.

And for “Prior Art,” check out YouTube video: Salaryman With Umbrella On His Head.

Porn umbrella photo credits to super-sexy “Bloody Cherry” photobook from J-List.com and Pileus LLC.