This DIY orb by UK-Dave reminds me of the orb made by Ambient Devices. Dave has taken about $60.00 of electronics to create a device that can be remotely controlled from a computer. All the source code for the PIC based microcontroller is available on his site.

“The Orb is my attempt at building an ambient interface. It consists of a number of high-brightness red, green and blue LEDs, a PIC microprocessor and a radio receiver for communication with a computer. The PIC uses PWM to control the brightness of the LEDs allowing the Orb to fade through all the colours of the rainbow. The radio link uses an easy-Radio module to provide a wireless (433MHz) RS232 serial link. This allows software on the computer to control the colour of the Orb based on any events you like, e.g. new email, msn contact coming online, share prices changing, etc.

The housing for the Orb is actually a Mathmos Aduki with its insides removed. It’s perhaps an expensive option for an enclosure but it does look rather nice. Alternatively you could use some other non-transparent plastic enclosure.”