Information radiators are an interesting, though under-explored area of IoT - probably because they are difficult to make money from in anything other than very custom builds. I've built a few of these over the years - all of which were for custom data sets (often my own amusement).
An information radiator is often a light (but could be any actuator) that "radiates" information outwards by means of encoding information into the light that is emitted. This may be through color, pulse duration, modulation or some combination thereof. An information radiator is usually disconnected from the source of that data which is often abstract in nature.
In this post, I'll show you how to build an "information radiator" with a bit of Python and some LEDs, which you can then use to make your own for your own personal needs.
Full post at Packt: Building an Information Radiator Part 1 Part 2
Information radiators are fun to make, especially with kids or for workshops as there are plenty of data sources you can use; weather, incoming tweets, how full your email is or how often something has happened on your network. If you can get a data source you can make it into a radiator.