PCMag UK. How life in the cloud is disrupting our most fundamental values - Comment - Voices. Christensen’s right, but he’s missing a far deeper change.
It is the disruption of some of our most fundamental notions: value, ownership, and attachment to place. In the past fortnight, we’ve seen the price of Bitcoin (a new online-only ‘cryptocurrency’) skyrocket while gold – traditionally a safe investment in times of crisis – hit a 30-year low. In the workplace, more and more people are shunning office-based roles in place of bespoke careers, requiring only a Wi-fi connection. Netherlands highways will glow in the dark from mid-2013. A smart road design that features glow in the dark tarmac and illuminated weather indicators will be installed in the Netherlands from mid-2013.
"One day I was sitting in my car in the Netherlands, and I was amazed by these roads we spend millions on but no one seems to care what they look like and how they behave," the designer behind the concept, Daan Roosegaarde, told Wired.co.uk. "I started imagining this Route 66 of the future where technology jumps out of the computer screen and becomes part of us. " The Smart Highway by Studio Roosegaarde and infrastructure management group Heijmans won Best Future Concept at the Dutch Design Awards, and has already gone beyond pure concept. The studio has developed a photo-luminising powder that will replace road markings -- it charges up in sunlight, giving it up to ten hours of glow-in-the-dark time come nightfall.
Paul Watters, head of roads policy at the AA, told the Telegraph: "We do know that most accidents happen in the dark. Blogs Home - Wired Blogs.