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Carolyn Chan // Is there life on Mars? Is it where mar-keting people go to when they die? Can a social medium channel this for me?
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Envisioning Your Future in 2020
By Sam Martin - April 9, 2010
At the end of last year, Forbes magazine asked frog to help them envision the future in 2020. In December, we held a workshop in San Francisco that brought designers, futurists and journalists together to think about the current state of computing, how we might experience it 10 years from now and, perhaps most importantly, how we might make the transition into these possible futures.
The day-long event led to an extensive online feature: “Your Life in 2020,” a collection of illustrated concepts and videos that envision the future of ubiquitous computing. In that future, your computer is not only incorporated into every aspect of your life but is a part of you. With this in mind, we imagined how future technology would influence the key areas of Social, Travel, Commerce, Healthcare, and Media. Here's what we came up with.
Our Second Brain or "ThingBook"
In the future nearly every visible thing will be cataloged and indexed, ready to be instantly identified and described to us. Want to go shopping? In the future we won't need big retail stores with aisles of objects on display. We'll be able to shop out in the world (see image, above). Do you like that new car you saw drive by? Or those cool shoes on the woman sitting across the room? All you’ll have to do is look at it and your mobile handset or AR-equipped eyeglasses will identify the object and look up the best price and retailer.Bodynet
Like Google for our bodies, future technologies will allow us to monitor our body's vital conditions and compute the outcome of our actions on-the-fly. So you'll know right away what it's going to take to work off that Burger and Coke.
Whuffie Meter
Curious about the future of social networking? Whuffie is a conceptual social Metric based on what others think of you. In the future this Metric might actually be usable as real money. Why not? Celebrities are used to getting things for free based on their popularity. This is the same idea taken to its democratic extreme. Socializing will take on completely new dimensions when we can see everything public about a person right as we are talking with them. Think dating is difficult today? Imagine the hoops we'll have to jump through when everyone in the bar can see your complete dating history the minute you walk into the room.The term “whuffie,” by the way, is a word coined by author Cory Doctorow in his book Down And Out In the Magic Kingdom. It refers to the measurement of respect or karma a person gains or looses in their lives. In Doctorow’s future, humans have implants in their brains that visually project their whuffie, which has replaced money as currency.
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Yelp Monocle
Uses the iPhone’s cam and compass to place Yelp ratings over a live view of establishments. Ideal for identifying five-star dive bars and avoiding bourgie bistros.
iPhone ARider
Streams Google maps from your iPhone to a special eyepiece you mount on your bike helmet. Now you’ll always know where you’re going. (Into a parked car?)
TwittARound
Look through your phone’s camera and TwittARound shows you location-stamped tweets (available from certain Twitter clients) from others nearby.
Wikitude World
Browser
One Roman ruin looks pretty much like any other after a long day of sightseeing. Train your phonecam on the rubble to pull up the site’s Wikipedia entry.
Layar Reality
Browser
Aim the camera on your Android phone at a cityscape and Layar coughs up data — everything from the location of bus stations and skate parks to real estate prices.
Acrossair Nearest
Subway
Lost in a public-transport labyrinth? (Tokyo commuters, we’re thinking of you.) Acrossair overlays directions and line info on the iPhone’s camera view.
TAT Augmented
ID
Using face-recognition software from Polar Rose, this app can scan a stranger’s mug and reveal their contact info and profile stats. Creepalicious!
via wired.com
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Hide and Tweet: Augmented Reality iPhone Twitter App
Twitter recently added a geotagging feature, so it was only a matter of time before someone made good use of it to create an iPhone app that would let stalkers, exes and nosy parents find their Twitter contacts. But Presselite did it with such style that we can just about forgive how creepy it is. The app, called Twitter 360, uses an augmented reality interface to guide you to your Twitter friends based on their geotagged tweets.
Using the iPhone’s camera, the app creates an overlay atop reality on the user’s screen to show Twitter friends’ distances from the user. The friends’ avatars are displayed along with an arrow pointing in their direction. The app also works with Google Maps, giving a detailed map of all Twitter friends along with their locations. While it does seem to make stalking way too easy, we can see some benign uses for this technology, like picking out friends in a crowd or finding your way to the bar you’re meeting a buddy at.
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via gajitz.com
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The latest interactive technology will change online media, shopping and entertainment as we know it. The December 2009 issue of Esquire magazine cover features Robert Downey Jr. But beyond this 2-D realm, it offers an “Augmented Reality issue” experience for readers—downloadable software makes Robert Downey Jr. pop into 3-D life onscreen, interactive with the physical magazine and webcam, while other elements start talking and moving. Watch the video for the full experience:
via losasso.com
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Just a month or so after augmented reality browser Layar won EUR 75,000 in Vodafone's Mobile Clicks contest, the technology was already being put to work in a custom-designed application for Louisiana's Voodoo Experience music festival.
Layar is a free mobile browser for Android devices and the iPhone that overlays computer-generated information on top of real-time, on-screen images from the handset's built-in camera. The Voodoo app was designed by New Orleans ad firm Zehnder Communications using Layar 2.0 to let festival-goers with enabled phones get information on performances, attractions and services simply by pointing their phone cameras toward key parts of the festival grounds. When viewing concert stages, for instance, one custom AR layer provided information on lineups, schedules and current artists performing, including artist profiles and Web links. Pointing a phone camera at a vendor would show menus and pricing, while other points of interest highlighted by the app included vendor locations, artist displays, restrooms, ATMs, entrances and exits, medical sites and other services. Zehnder was one the first 50 firms worldwide named as developers of the Layar platform. A demo of the Voodoo app is available on Vimeo.
In addition to a whole new world of entertainment and useful information for mobile consumers, augmented reality also opens up a wealth of new OFF=ON opportunities for advertisers. Time to explore the possibilities for *your* tech-savvy brand...?
Website: www.z-comm.com
Contact: jzehnder@z-comm.com
via springwise.com
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Here are some concept designs that myself and ace designer Philip Langley put our heads together to create. It’s an investigation into how social networking may work in the future, focusing on mobile and augmented reality (AR).
Our investigations were inspired in particular by these brilliant (AR) concept drawings which I often use in presentations I give. There are some crude, but fascinating, implementations around too that inspired us.
After some brainstorming and quite a few mockups, we came up with the below. Admittedly AR is the new hype. But you can see how valuable (and scary) this could be when applied to a social networking paradigm. It assumes amazing resolutions, facial and object recognition, and more accurate GPS — none of these far off.
(NOTE: I’ve had quite a few requests regarding useage rights of these images. You’re welcome to use them in any form, so long as you credit and link back where feasible!)
[ Larger image (95k) | Hi Res image (8mb) ] Imagine holding up your phone or other digital device against a person you’ve just met or passing by. You’d instantly have information returned about that person within seconds, gleaned from an automatic web, public profile and social network search. You’d discover common friends, talking points — and then have the ability to add him/her to your network. Using a semantic scan, you’d discover negative or positive comments on Google or elsewhere relating to this individual. (Don’t mention that job at Microsoft or that time in Europe!) It would be instant insight into the guy standing right in front of you.
[ Larger image (86k) | Hi Res image (7mb)] Tapping into public databases and directories, discover who lives where and if and how you are connected — then call them, email them, add them to your network right then and there. Get other news about the suburb and other socio-economic information. If they’re part of your network — what are they saying about their suburb or the best pizza joint in the area?
[ Larger image (102k) | Hi Res image (6mb) ] You’d be able to hold up your phone in a crowded room and work out who is connected to who. You could instantly gauge your primary and secondary networks and work out instantly who you should chat to, what the conversation points are — and who you should avoid. Where are the cliques. Whose an outsider? What’s the buzz. We’ll never forget a name again.
Goodbye to privacy
Privacy is already an issue of concern now and for our digital future. We’re still working out the ethical and moral framework around this. We may even see a backlash from society angry at this intrusion.It may however end up being ok because you will (mostly) be in control — you could refuse access to SN’s, don’t tweet, assume personas etc. But there will be information about you that you won’t be able to control too. There’ll be inevitable abuse and misuse of the information, which is probably manageable.
However more importantly — from a privacy perspective almost everyone will be mostly in the same boat. We may evolve into a society that’s highly transparent and accountable. Don’t know whether to laugh or cry.*
* UPDATE: @pluronymous in the comments below correctly pointed out that there’s more to this. I’m often (rightly) accused of neglecting the dystopian view. It may very well be too idealistic to suggest that a loss of privacy as a result of the web and the social networking revolution would be ok because it would mean we’d evolve into a “transparent” and “accountable” society. While persuasive, this may be idealistic. We could also in turn become a paranoid and distrustful society, always worrying about what our friends and neighbours will find out about us from a web or social network search.
I do think it’s comforting that: 1) to some extent you’re in control by limiting your profile information on most networks and failing that the “delete” button looms large; and 2) everyone will mostly be in the same boat. But then again there’s always going to be information outside our control…
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