The Play’d is “a soft, thick blanket, developed for very young children that doubles as an interactive play environment.” It is made of squares of differing materials, each with a sensor hidden underneath, for the toddler who knows where their safety blanket is. The blanket can produces light, sound and vibrations. A sample application is when a kid is in its “rolling phase”: lights and sounds can be used to lure a child to roll in a certain direction.
The Play’d netted its inventor, computer scientist Viktor de Boer, first prize in the Nieuwe Ideeën Prijsvraag (New Ideas Competition) of Science Park Amsterdam last Tuesday. Second prize went to Vanessa Evers for her robot “that supports human-robot interaction research.” I am not quite sure what that means, but I do see a pattern of robots trying to get to know us here.
Photo: Viktor de Boer. Link: Sargasso (Dutch).
Last Wednesday a car thief in The Hague was in the possession of 10,000 euro without even knowing it, 
A judge in Haarlem ruled last month that acupuncturists who are also certified Doctors of Medicine qualify for a tax exemption that other acupuncturists must miss out on, 
It seems Endless Ideas, Dutch manufacturer of the E Ink based BeBook electronic book readers, has announced a sub-200 euro e-book reader. “Who will break the 200 euro barrier?” the company mused philosophically on Twitter last week. 