Mercedes-Benz TV: The F 015 Luxury in Motion Future City. EmoPulse Smile, Best Smartwatch So Far. The death of the cool: fan-fiction futurism. Part [x] in an ongoing and probably endless series of examples of why it might be that, outwith the futurism community and the managerial class, hardly anyone takes the word “futurist” seriously.
Today’s victim is Dan Abelow, and this post of his at the World Future Society’s blog. Someone asked me in the comments a while back why I snarkily called the WFS the White Future Society; this is exactly why. Take it away, Dan. Whether you’re young or old there’s one thing you know: Your future is digital. I don’t know that at all, because you haven’t defined “digital” in the context in which my future might be it. Our cell phones, tablets and other screens are with us constantly throughout our daily lives.We move from screen to screen as everything revolves around how quickly they do our bidding, how well they meet our needs.We can’t imagine living without digital. But we’re still just individuals with devices.
The commodification of computing is hardly a new trend, but OK. Wrong question. HAHAHA. Corning - A Day Made of Glass 2 Unpack. Lighthouse. Step behind the scenes and get a glimpse of the thinking motivating the digital world's greatest artists, thinkers and doers.
Critical futurist and analyst, Scott Smith was our July Monthly talk speaker. Scott Smith is a critical futurist from the USA. He is the founder of Changeist, a lab, research tank and studio created to identify and make sense of weak signals of change. His work is built on over 20 years’ experience studying the development of technology and tracking social and cultural evolution around it. His main focus is exploring how we perceive and construct futures. Here’s a video of his talk at Lighthouse: Prior to this role, Scott was a consulting futurist, research director and analyst for several international research firms in the US and UK, focusing on media and technology.
Design Fiction: Scott Smith, "Beware of Flat-Pack Futures" Scott Smith (Changeist) @ MFW13. A Day Made of Glass... Made possible by Corning. Microsoft's Vision of the Future (Parody) On Glass & Mud: A Critique of (Bad) Corporate Design Fiction. Socially awkward futures videos Asperger’s Design Fiction I’m a fan of design-based futures work (a.k.a.
“design fiction“). Videos, in particular, can be a very effective way of engaging people in complex, subtle and nuanced explorations of the future. I always applaud companies that give it a shot, especially when it represents a big step away from “business as usual” for them. Take the enormously popular “A Day Made of Glass“. Reactions to the video varied. Love this! But not everyone was so positive. Remember those “house of the future” videos from the 60’s, 70’s, etc. and how stupid they look now either because the ideas were eclipsed by modern technology… or just because fashions simply changed?
Fortunately, we don’t have to wait 20 or 30 years to see their reactions. A Thin View of the Future… Are these users (and this post) just being mean-spirited? Therein lies the challenge of consumer-oriented design fiction (and futures work in general). …That No One Buys. Microsoft's Productivity Future Vision. Productivity Future Vision. Manufacturing Future Vision. Productivity Future Vision (2011) Microsoft Future Vision on Productivity HD. Health Future Vision. Why Microsoft's Vision Of The Future Is Dead On Arrival. This just in: In the future, everything will be lushly luxurious, gleamingly clean, and digitally magical.
Yup, it’s another corporate "the future of . . . " video, this time courtesy of Microsoft Office. This dazzlingly mounted production will spin your head with its vision of "the future of productivity"--the most salient feature of which is that, apparently, nobody uses Microsoft Office anymore. Sounds like a dream: Sorry if that’s harsh, but I’m with John Gruber: These spit-polished masterpieces of magical thinking are the tech-elite version of LOLcat videos. They make you feel warm and fuzzy for a minute or two and…that’s about it. I’m going to get a bit more meta: I’m actually fine with corporations pouring scads of money into producing futurist concept videos (sidebar: I’m available!) This is the world that 99% of the users of Microsoft Office actually inhabit now, and it won’t be any different in a decade. Futuristic interfaces are supposed to solve problems and make life easier.