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Posted:
March 17, 2012
Comments:
60

Where science fiction meets science fact (SXSW 2012)

What will the future look like? Often we see images that are supposed to depict the future. A good looking guy sitting in a stark minimal environment looking at a screen. These visions are intellectually dishonest because they don’t take into account real people and how they live their lives. Real people have stuff. Pillows and toys. It is important to be honest about how the future will actually be in order to figure out how to make the next generation of products.

 

We’ve moved from desktops to laptops to mobiles. By 2020 computing is set to become invisible as we move to the cloud and computing moves beyond computers. So what will it feel like for a human living in twenty years time? Increasingly the tech community and those building the products of our future look to science fiction writers to unlock the imagination and possibility of our future. By posing questions via narrative you can conceptually prototype the impact of new technologies.

 

Knights of the rainbow table is a story about the future of security. It supposes our future will make it incredibly easy to set up a server network with such vast computational power that all passwords can be cracked in an instant. Therefore we end up living in a world where all our information is out there and available all the time. How will this feel for the people living in this world?

 

The last day of work is a story that predicts a future where all our tasks are replaced by computers. No human has to work anymore. What would this world feel like and what does work mean to us?

 

The Dr. Simon Egerton stories sets a world where robots make rational and irrational decisions. They are programmed to be irrational and therefore give the impression of free will. The gin and tonic test has the robot being asked to make a G&T for their owner. The drink doesn’t get drunk and instead is asked to make another. And again. The question is posed at what point will the robot refuse to make any more drinks. This is the quantum persona transfer function. And it is off the back of these stories that actual research is being carried out to create these robots.

 

The limits to what we can build can’t be determined. We are only held back by our imaginations. It is the role of science fiction to pose questions and prototype the future by bringing people into the equation.
Posted:
March 17, 2012
Comments:
56

The Toyota Prius thought powered bike (SWSX 2012)

A project was born out of the creative minds over at Saatchis to align the Toyota Prius with the  cycling world. But instead of sponsoring a race they envisioned: ‘What if the Prius was a bike itself?’ And so an innovative product was born out of a marketing campaign. Naturally it’s a well crafted thing of beauty using all the latest technologies. Brake cables are tucked inside frame tubing for aerodynamic superiority. An iPhone holder seamlessly captures the cyclist’s speed, cadence and heart rate. But most interesting about the product is that they built a thought-powered EEG reading helmet to control gear shifting. Via a clever conduit between gears, a micro processor and the helmet, cyclists can be trained to think “shift up” or “shift down”. A wonderful live demo showed this to be true to the delight of the audience. It’s not like thinking of words, or even an object such as an apple, but more like thinking of moving a muscle. Imagine you have wings, they said, and you are lifting your wings up or down.
What a wonderful notion.
Posted:
March 17, 2012
Comments:
36

Hacking your brain to make you better (SXSW 2012)

Brain well and truly blown by my first talk at SXSW. Seems we are able to hack our brains today in many ways. What we do in our day to day lives affect how our brains take shape.

 

 

 

 

 

What kind of things affect our cognitive performance?
  • Sleep. Getting 7 hours seems to be the optimal amount of time for increased performance.
  • Exercise.  Getting about 2 days of exercise is about same as 6 days but as long as you get some your performance will be better.
  • Drinking alcohol. 1 drink per day gives you the best performance surprisingly!
  • Readers. People who read books and magazines perform better than those who don’t.
  • Those who play a musical instrument seem to perform slightly better.
How can you hack your brain for better performance?
  • Heart rate variability. Your heart talks to your brain. So hack your heart and nervous system first. You can do this with various sorts of breathing exercises. The five second in five second out breathing exercise is a great start.
  • Dual N back training. This is a set of brain training exercises that can add 12 to 20 IQ points.
  • Focused captive attention training.  Keeping your eye on your subconscious creative mind so you are better aware of all the creative thinking your brain is producing without letting it go unnoticed. Basically be better at day dreaming.
  • Electrical stimulation. Target laser or infrared beams onto brain. Note this can be dangerous!
  • Neurofeedback. Give your brain a mirror so it can see the output of the hacks you are performing. It will start to improve itself just by seeing the feedback for itself.
  • Blood flow. Use a device called an HEG to view and control the blood flow in your brain.
  • Light. Wear orange glasses at night and use halogens or LEDs at home. This will help.
  • Monaurals, Binaural and Isochronics. These sounds can help train the brain to be better and more focused.
  • Have a high fat, low toxin Diet.
  • Drink coffee. Hooray for this one!
Pretty inspiring stuff. And some of this is pretty easy to achieve with a few tweaks to day to day life.
Posted:
March 17, 2012
Comments:
33

Yeehaw SXSW here I come

It was three years ago when South By South West Interactive, or SXSWi as it’s affectionately acronym-ed, first came onto my radar. This beautifully simple thing called the ‘Hat Game’ a devilishly simple idea where a bowler hat, embedded with a GPS chip, gets tracked by players in and around the conference area in Austin. When you discover the person wearing the hat you simply say to them ”Excuse me, sir (or madam), but I do believe you have my hat.” The person who manages to hold onto the hat for the longest is the winner. As a creative technologist I suppose you’re always looking for a new way to work with technology. A new twist to an existing idea. It started to occur to me that this conference was becoming a bit of a Mecca for creative interactive ideas. A body of advertising folk and technologists congregating on this place from all over the world. And for a brief five days in Texas something always seems to emerge.

Jared Ficklin demoed his ‘awesome smoke vortex’ machine at Flash on the Beach last year. The guy is a tinkerer by nature and happens to live in the Austin hills. For me he embodies everything that I hope is special about SXSWi. It’s a chance to get away from London and mull for a bit. To go beyond advertising and the immediacy of the campaign deadline and be able to wonder at how this rapidly changing technology landscape is affecting our lives. This will probably happen in the hours after the conferences. It will be in the bars and social events where this chatter will be created. Hooking into this hive mind for five days, to live and breathe it, is what I’m most excited about.

But, to be honest, I’m slightly daunted by the whole thing. The scale of the conference itself makes Flash on the Beach seem like David to your Goliath. Don’t get me wrong, I love Flash on the Beach and have always left thoroughly nourished. But SXSWi is like FOTB times ten. With fifteen or so talks every hour, scouring the schedule is going to be a necessity. The distance between venues is often too far to reach quickly so some kind of military procedure is needed to plan the five days effectively in order to get the most out of it. But being in Texas, the epitome of American excess and grandeur, it’s bound to not disappoint. If I don’t see a few cowboy hats I’ll be sorely disappointed.

I’m going armed with a killer data plan (thanks IT department) in order to blog and tweet as much as is humanly possible in 120 hours. I just hope it’s as good as I imagine it will be. I need to see beyond the vast conference centres, large cars and cowboy hats and immerse myself in the spirit of the place. I wish I could say that the culmination of this week of interactive goodness is going to be something as ingenious as a smoke vortex machine but in reality it’s the closing party with Miike Snow and special guest Kasabian. Say no more.

If anyone else is heading out be sure to say hi. I’ll be easy to recognise. I’ll be  the one wearing a GPS powered bowler hat (for a little while at least).

http://7make.posterous.com/

@jeremywillmott

flickr.com/photos/jeremywillmott

Posted:
March 17, 2012
Comments:
37

Advances in 3D displays

It’s always good to be abreast of the latest developments in display technology. Is some kind of  3 dimensional navigation the way it’s going to go?

 

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