Digital Hourglass sexes up the old fashioned sand

Hourglasses are known mostly for sitting on wizards desks and counting down how long people have left to live, but the Digital Hourglass should be known as one of the coolest time pieces ever. We love old ideas made anew. This is one of those products. The Digital Hourglass is a German design project from Susann Humann and Fabian Hemmert, and was actually made for a course project for “Interface Design”. You get the first prize in that class from us.

The Hourglass is set just like any other you might  have seen in movies. Pick it up and turn it 45 degrees and the digital sand starts-a-rolling. Once it is standing up on a right angle the timer is activated and lasts for an hour of digital flow. They even added a snooze feature. To turn off the hourglass, you lay it at a 45 degree angle, and it folds in on itself, where it then goes on stand-by. Mixing the old with the new is so gadget-licious. — Andrew Dobrow

The digital hourglass [Gamescience.org]