I believe in the concept of ubiquitous computing, as advocated by Adam Greenfield and many like-minded thinkers.
I believe that is the direction our future should take.
Honestly, I’ve done a project recently that uses urban and spatial elements and embedded computing to demonstrate a possible future. You touch a wall, and information appears. You move elsewhere, go home, and access that same data from your table surface. It’s all about moving away from the archetype of the desktop computer and disseminating the computer chip into many smaller ones that embed themselves in our clothes, our walls, homes and cities.
So I am partly shooting myself in the foot with this post. I want to rant about the frequent desire we have to project an augmented reality on our environments. Enough already! There has been a lot of talk in recent times about Pranav Mistry’s 6th Sense project. While I marvel at the genius of Pranav, and the sheer goodness of his intention – I politely and humbly refuse to believe that augmented reality is the way ahead. Wearing helmets to project our erstwhile computers onto walls so that our taped fingers can manipulate data on them, is not in my opinion, the dream for the future I had in mind. Pranav Mistry has clearly prototyped a way that could make augmented reality actually feasible – but I would shudder to think of a world where such a concept was commonplace.
So let me state again for the record – AUGMENTED REALITY IS NOT THE WAY AHEAD.
It is a dream for a future that we’ve had for a while now. We need to get over it, and think beyond.
Back at the start of the 14th Century, Giotto’s proof of his masterpiece was his free-hand circle. It was a concise way for him to demonstrate his enormous technical skill. Watching him draw the circle, it probably looked easy, but undoubtedly it took years, if not decades, of practice to get that kind of lazy, deft skill.
Jim Denevan makes freehand drawings in sand. At low tide on wide beaches Jim searches the shore for a wave tossed stick. After finding a good stick and composing himself in the near and far environment Jim draws– laboring up to 7 hours and walking as many as 30 miles. The resulting sand drawing is made entirely freehand w/ no measuring aids whatsoever. From the ground, these drawn environments are experienced as places. Places to explore and be, and to see relation and distance. For a time these tangible specific places exist in the indeterminate environment of ocean shore. From high above the marks are seen as isolated phenomena, much like clouds, rivers or buildings. Soon after Jim’s motions and marks are completed water moves over and through, leaving nothing.
(A project I recently completed at Ergonomidesign, along with some amazing team-mates).
The Future of Health Care is a subject that has been under intense speculation and debate in recent times across different forums. Several interesting prototypes and scenarios have been made by professionals and designers to give the World a glimpse of a fuzzy future.
For the first time ever, Ergonomidesign have made it possible to actually experience the future of Health Care. Following their launch at the Medica/ Compamed trade fair (in Düsseldorf, Germany, Nov. 18-20), Ergonomidesign will present and demonstrate a future life science application that brings together 40 years of design experience for Ergonomidesign in the Life Science industry. This video is one of 2, that give an overview of the entire concept.
Combining a fully functioning prototype with a well resolved service-ecosystem, Ergonomidesign will demonstrate vital segments of their vision “The Future of Integrated Health Care”. The application- “Helping Hands” (a Natural User Interface developed on a MS Surface table) will enable an experience that lets you manage your own health in the future. Their concept combines the benefits of ubiquitous computing with a merger of Health Care services with internet service providers. This merger would give rise to an exciting ‘ecosystem’, one that would bring cure to your doorstep or literally to the palm of your hand. Much like the mobile ‘app-world’, pharmacies would be able to sell a variety of healthcare devices containing embedded software that synchronized with relevant devices and your body automatically.
By the year 2015, vast amounts of personal data will constantly be uploaded in real-time to the “Cloud” – for others to use, share and benefit from. Through embedded sensors in our clothes, wrist watches, necklaces, shoes etc. it will be possible to constantly monitor our biometric data. These vast amounts of data pushed to the Cloud, would be made accessible to a network of ‘smart objects’ e.g. our mobile devices and our ‘smart’ homes, furniture and environments. Our biometric data will be accessible everywhere, constantly – to us and those who we have granted admission to (e.g. our doctors and family and relevant networks). The Cloud would also allow us constant access to contacts and services in a vast directory of doctors, fellow-patients and other daily health-care programs such as diet, exercise and prescription medicine. Your good health would now truly be based on the learning, benefits and experiences of others.
The experience envisioned by Ergonomidesign comprises lucid scenarios, personas and a working prototype that was developed by interaction designers, design strategists and graphic designers. Their challenge was to envision a complex future and develop user friendly, intuitive solutions for the World to understand and use. They have created an experience that combines intuitive gestural interactions with well-resolved service scenarios for the Health Care industry.
Sci-fi writer William Gibson famously quoted – “The Future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed.”(Neuromancer, 1984.) Most of the technology necessary to make our vision a reality is already here e.g. Nike+, LinkedIn, Facebook and the Apple ‘app-store’.
Ergonomidesign hopes that ‘Helping Hands’ will inspire thought and discussion about a World where staying in great shape and avoiding illness can actually be within reach.
Did you know the first “brain-tweet” was sent out this year? How about that we may someday be customizing windshields with widgets? In the not-to-distant future, we may be interfacing with computers in exciting and innovative new ways.
In the grand scheme of history, it wasn’t long ago that the first telephone conversation took place. Relatively speaking, that makes the personal computer an invention of yesteryear, and social networking only a blink of an eye later. Just imagine what’s coming in the near future…
The future of how we interact with computers is exciting to say the least. What once seemed like nonsense outside of Hollywood and Science Fiction is now starting to find it’s way into reality, and some of the technology is a bit overwhelming.
My personal favorites, or rather the one’s I’m interested in exploring are -
Fritzing is an open-source initiative to support designers, artists, researchers and hobbyists to take the step from physical prototyping to actual product. We are creating this software in the spirit of Processing and Arduino, developing a tool that allows users to document their Arduino and other electronic-based prototypes, sharethem with others, teach electronics in a classroom, and to create a pcb layout for manufacturing.
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