Markus Kison's VanityRing is a prototype ring that displays how many hits you get when you search for the name of the wearer. (Or anything else you type into Google, I presume.) Kison says it's an "update of the ring as a status symbol." Now, if it displayed the wearer's Twitter updates, it would be a
real status symbol.
The project page also contains a demo video. From the VanityRing page:
Rings are well known status symbols, and the included jewel's weight in carat is a comparable value for the personal ranking of its owner (the largest two diamonds are in the British crown jewels). The VanityRing doesn't have a jewel, instead it shows the number of hits one gets, when he searches Google for the name of the person who wears it, a more adequate value in our time. It is personalized using a custom software, and after the name is typed the ring will change its display to show the personal "attention carats", while every night, when it is inserted into its docking station the ring is reloaded and updated.
Link (Thanks, Jason Tester!)
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Frankly I think my 30,400 hits are worth more than John Smith's 2,020,000. A better metric would be displaying the number of the first result that's actually you. Lower the better.
Holy damn hell my used ID comes up with 31k hits and all of them I've found so far is me.
My real name .. I'm #1! I rock. ;-)
uh, isn't this an example of cory's "whuffie" concept brought to life? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie)
hell, with both this and "idiocracy" coming to life on a daily basis, i don't know whether to be excited or scared.
Since we're speaking largely about created value anyway, be it the number of personal google hits ("wheeeee") or perceived rarity, the two largest cut diamonds are not owned by the British royals. There's a 555.55 carat, 55-facet black diamond in private hands and the recent the 545.67-carat Golden Jubilee presented to the King of Thailand.
Heh...it's a whuffie ring. I suppose this means we'll all be casting our gazes downward at people hands instead of looking up @ the ol' HUD. :)