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10 weird iPhone attachments

7. The Magic Cube

  • By Steph Solis

If you thought holograms were only meant to bring celebrities back from the dead, think again.

With a flick of a switch, the Magic Cube gives you the hologram of a keyboard and a virtual, multi-touch mouse.

The Magic Cube, created by Celluon, Inc, is a portable, full-sized projection keyboard that works for Bluetooth HID devices like the iPhone, iPad, and Android phones, according to the Celluon website. It is also compatible with Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, and 7 via USB. 

The Magic Cube projects a keyboard in front of you and detects your keystrokes, according to a demonstration video. The cube’s central optical sensor works with an invisible infrared layer to determine the 3-D position of your fingers as you type.

The Magic Cube includes a built-in lithium polymer rechargeable battery, and it has a power-save option so you can turn off the laser projector and activate the sensor with a slight gesture when you want to turn it back on.

Naturally, typing on a hologram will take some getting used to. The demonstration video suggests resting your palms on the work space and elevate your fingers just above the projected keys while typing for the best results. Each key will generate a different sound as you type onto the hologram.

The Magic Cube is available in silver, red, white, or black for $149.99, excluding shipping.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

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If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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