PIX: Korean LED fun

We're not sure why the girl second from the right is holding a gun, but we do smell a lame corporate attempt to create a youth trend. Companies have been hoping hip teens take to wearable LED displays like moths to a flame (see Nokia's 3220 camerphone with "Xpress-On" ), and the latest to take a stab is Korean-based Xenofreaks. They've just introduced PIX, a device they tout as an "ego visualiser" (which makes it sound way better than it really is) that lets users communicate through a 2-inch diameter, 15x 15 matrix, LED-display. PIX uses images and text that can be static, scrolled, or waved, and if a pair is in close enough range they can communicate with each other via infrared. It's sorta like text messaging, except way more clumsy and potentially embarrassing, not that we didn't bust out the Hypercolor or BK-1s during our salad days.