Lift the stopper from one of the three antique-style colored glass bottles and hear a jazz ensemble riff spill out, as if the music had been freed, genie-style. Across the room, touch any of a dozen doughnut-sized plastic bubbles to see a ripple of light spread through the crowd like a rumor. Downstairs, stick your personal mug underneath the coffee machine spigot and hear your favorite station lock in on the attached radio.

Are we having fun yet? If not, there's plenty more to amuse here at the MIT Media Lab, including festive holograms, dancing microrobots and computerized jean jackets. Even better, all of these gizmos demonstrate unique approaches to technology that, the lab's faculty assert, will eventually be widely embedded in the world around us.