14 DAY TRIAL // When we talk about smart technology, the topic usually ends up being about a smartwatch, a smarpthone or something else that's ultimately just the concept of a PC adapted for a different form.
From time to time, however, someone manages to invent something truly unusual. Off-the-wall even. We are happy to inform you that something like that has just happened.
The attached gallery shows a book, but it's not so much the book that is important as the book's cover. The cover knows you.
Or at least it can figure out if you are judgmental. If so, it can refuse to open, thus sparing the text from being exposed to and “defiled” by disbelievers.
The technology is not nearly as advanced as the laconic description makes it sound, but if you were looking for something uncanny, then you need look no further.
The Cover that Judges You
This book cover was invented by a group of artists at Amsterdam creative studio Moore and includes a very specific stylization on the front side. This is a stylization of the face.
More importantly, there is a camera included in the top of the cover (or you can call it sleeve, since it is designed to slip over normal book covers of appropriate sizes).
Based on a facial recognition software installed on an out-of-the-way Arduino device, the cover compares your face to the representation drawn on the front side.
If your face is not as neutral as the stylization, the book cover will refuse to open to you, on account of you being judgmental.
Obviously, this is an easy system to fool, but only if you are aware of it. There are also disadvantages: the book will refuse to open even if you are excited, happy, amused or experiencing any other not necessarily discouraging emotion.
Still, as far as artistic concepts go, this is one of the most novel we've seen to date. No wonder The Cover that Judges You has been selected by the Moore artists as a prototype for the 2015 edition of the Art Directors Club Netherlands annual event.
Availability
Since this is just a contest piece, odds are high that no one will actually pick it up to sell it like all those other knicknacks. Still, if the artists manage to make it cheap enough, it could sell as a souvenir quite readily.
