Futurology  

Recently, Kevin Kelly, the co-founder of Wired magazine joined The Agenda to lay out a road map for the future. He says technology has changed almost every aspect of the way humans live, and it's not about to stop. From virtual reality at home to the on-demand economy to artificial intelligence, the forces behind technological change are only accelerating.

According to Kevin Kelly, author of The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future The co-founder of Wired magazine joins The Agenda to lay out a road map for the future.

As in his book Kelly suggests we embrace these changes, including ubiquitous tracking, accessible artificial intelligence, constant sharing, getting paid to watch ads, VR in your home, and more.

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Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine, and a former editor/publisher of the Whole Earth Review. He has also been a writer, photographer, conservationist, and student of Asian and digital culture.

He mentions his concept of the Global Brain, the 'Holos.' Holos represents the upcoming combination of the internet, AIs, and human interconnected intelligence. Kelly suggests that future generations will look back at ours as the first race that "linked themselves together into one very large thing." We are only at the infancy stage of this, with the web being only about 9000 days old.

Part of this too will be the ascent of virtual reality. "What does the Internet look like in another 20 years? It is going to be an Internet of experiences," says Kelly.

Kelly bases his trend forecasts on his initial analysis of technology, an asking what it wants. He sees the benefits, but also acknowledges that great disruption will be caused by the transition. Interestingly, Kelly points to the emergence of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate as a direct result of technological unemployment already.

When asked if people are ready for this change, Kelly provides a firm "No," saying that is why he wrote his latest book. We can't control technology by trying to limit it, says Kelly, we need to embrace it to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms. Only by embracing and using technology can we change it into what we want.

SOURCE  The Agenda with Steve Paikin

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 Aging  

Arguably human evolution is now being driven solely by cultural evolution, which may suggest some deeper evolutionary  transition away from biological evolution is already in the process of occurring. An anthropologist now suggests that life extension technology may yield a new human species by as early as 2050.

According to new research by evolutionary anthropologist, Cadell Last your grandchildren be an entirely new kind of human being. The researcher says mankind is undergoing an evolutionary transition as big as previous jumps from monkeys to apes, and apes to humans.

Last's theory was recently published in the journal Current Aging Science.

"The whole of human evolution in some sense can be viewed as our species trying to abolish the category of adulthood. We want to keep the creativity of cultural reproduction into adulthood."

Instead of the biological evolution that caused massive physical changes over millions of years, Last a and researcher at the Global Brain Institute, believes that cultural evolution is changing the human species in a matter of decades.

He thinks that as early as 2050, we'll be living to an average age of 120, making the the biological clock essentially obsolete.

"Humans are naturally interested in music, movies, mathematics, and science and all of these things. So we're just entering a world where we can own our own cultural reproduction, and we can engage in this for an entire lifetime," Last told Aol. "We're not in this world yet, but this is sort of where we're going."

He says human evolution is a long transition from quote, "living fast and dying young" to "living slow and dying old."

Related articles The Dawn of De-Extinction  Two Mutations Found to Have Triggered Evolutionary Leap 500 Million Years Ago In Humans  Biological Underpinnings of Modular Networks May Help Create Advanced Artificial Intelligence

"These are sort of the beginning signs that we're making a transition to a radical life extension — within 20 or 30 years," Last told Business Insider.

"What my paper tries to show is that the whole of human evolution in some sense can be viewed as our species trying to abolish the category of adulthood," Last said. "We want to keep the creativity of cultural reproduction into adulthood."

In Last's paper, he writes:

I predict that the full realization of this life history transition should occur before 2050, which suggests that this theory could be in some way connected to the hypothesized metasystem transition commonly referred to as Global Brain. In order to take this 21st century future seriously we need only assume that the pressures of the modern developed world hold and accelerate globally. First and foremost, the pressures for the acquisition of more advanced cultural information must accelerate as a result of advanced ICT [information and communication technologies]. This will continue to force an extension of a widespread postponement of biological reproduction. Secondly, continued advances in our understanding of aging and degenerative diseases must accelerate dramatically, allowing us to radically extend life expectancy and possibly usher us into a post-aging world. This will remove the evolutionary imperative to create complexity through biological reproduction, as delaying current reproduction would always be preferred in favour of dedication of energy towards culturally mediated growth and maintenance.

"We'll be having babies later in life, and fewer of them, in order to focus on their cultural development," he explained.

"People are going to be able to have more control over how they spend their time and energy, culturally speaking. And that will be a big change, that will be a fundamental difference between industrial society and the society we're making."


SOURCE  Aol

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 Futurology  

At this year's Google Zeitgeist the most remarkable thing about what Eric Schmidt spoke of was the timelines involved.  What sounded like it might be from the far future, may be on our technological horizon in less than ten years.

At the Zeitgeist talks this year, Google's Eric Schmidt presented some of his ideas on the future. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about what Schmidt says, is that some of it sounds like the far future, but his timeline is less than a decade.

"We have an explosion of innovation that's now occurring at a rate that's mind numbing," Schmidt says.

Given his awareness and hands-on involvement in these developments, it makes it must-watch material for anyone interested in futurology.

"To me there is a real partnership coming between humans and the products, machines, thinking, networks, that we build."

Google’s Zeitgeist events are a series of intimate gatherings of top global thinkers and leaders.

"To me there is a real partnership coming between humans and the products, machines, thinking, networks, that we build," states Schmidt.  "That partnership makes safer and stronger."

"The real revolution," he continues, "is in helping us think."

According to Schmidt, we are very close to solving vision, text recognition and speech recognition.  "When that happens, the computer scientists, the people who do this just based on numbers, can begin to build systems that are extraordinary."

Schmidt goes on to say that in five years he will be able to have a program that can read his e-mail and reply in his idiom.  These systems will be able to look deep into data, and summarize for us. Sounds a lot like Samantha in the movie, Her.  He even thinks these systems will "mythbust."

Related articles Eric Schmidt Promotes Personal Robotics  Inside Google  McKinsey & Company Report on 12 Disruptive Technologies Released

He states that these systems will be carefully encrypted, but they will essentially outsource parts of our brains.  "When you think about it, the experiences that we have in this model will be captured and transformed in memories that we can use forever."

Schmidt even says that these systems will give us amazing IQ.

Since joining Google in 2001, Schmidt has helped grow the company from a Silicon Valley start-up to a global leader in technology. As Executive Chairman, he is responsible for the internal matters of Google: building partnerships and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership, as well as advising the CEO and senior leadership on business and policy issues.

From 2001 - 2011, Schmidt served as Google's Chief Executive Officer, overseeing the company's technical and business strategy alongside founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Under his leadership, Google dramatically scaled its infrastructure and diversified its product offerings while maintaining a strong culture of innovation.

Prior to joining Google, Schmidt was the Chairman and CEO of Novell and Chief Technology Officer at Sun Microsystems, Inc. and held positions at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Bell Laboratories and Zilog. He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University as well as a master's and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Schmidt is a member of President Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the Prime Minister's Advisory Council in the UK. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2006 and inducted into the AmSchmidtan Academy of Arts and Sciences as a fellow in 2007. Schmidt also chairs the board of the New AmSchmidta Foundation.

SOURCE  ZeitgeistMinds

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 Futurism  

MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte is a consummate predictor highlights interfaces and innovations he foresaw in the 1970s and 1980s that were scoffed at then but are ubiquitous today. Now he leaves you with another prediction for the coming 30 years.

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab, and One Laptop Per Child, has been giving TED Talks for 30 years now.  In his latest, he reviews the past with an eye to the future.  He also gives a startling prediction about the next 30 years.

"My prediction is that we are going to ingest information; you are going to swallow a pill and know English. You're going to swallow a pill and know Shakespeare."

"One of the things about learning to read, we have been doing a lot of consuming of information going through our eyes - it may be a very inefficient channel," says Negroponte.  "My prediction is that we are going to ingest information; you are going to swallow a pill and know English. You're going to swallow a pill and know Shakespeare."

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In Negroponte's theory, the pill will break down and go through the bloodstream and then deposit into areas of the brain, effectively uploading the information.

"Have you been hanging out with Ray Kurzweil by any chance?" asks TED's Curator Chris Anderson.

"No, but I've been hanging around Ed Boyden, and hanging around with [...] Hugh Herr, and for a number of people, this isn't quite far-fetched," replies Negroponte.

Boyden, is an optogenetics pioneer and neuroscientist at MIT.  Boyden is also associate member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and is involved with the US BRAIN Initiative.



SOURCE  TED

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 Futurism  

Recently, Peter spoke in the plenary session on the second day of The Government Summit in the United Arab Emirates about what the world would be like in 2050, and the technologies that will lead to a world of Abundance.

Peter Diamandis, Co-Founder of Singularity University, Planetary Resources and Founder of the X-Prize spoke in the plenary session on the second day of The Government Summit in the United Arab Emirates about what the world would be like in 2050, and the technologies and phenomena that would make it so. He shared insights on how bright the future looks and what are the trends that will shape the world as we know it in the next 25 years.

Related articles Dennis Hong On Robot Evolution and The DARPA Robotics Challenge  Hashem AL-ghaili The Future Is Now  Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson on Planetary Resources  Peter Diamandis On The Eight Technologies That Are Making The World Better

Focusing on "breakthroughs leading to a world of abundance," Diamandis spoke of a world where the needs of every man, woman and child are met and spoke of a shift in thinking, from 150,000 years of linear and local human development that progressed in centuries and decades, to an exponential and global curve that is pushing progress in years and months.

Globally renowned as the founder of the X-Prize challenge as well as other initiatives that impact citizens globally and know no boundaries, Diamandis, co-author of Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Thinkbased his picture of the future on trends that have shaped the previous 25 years, opening the audience up to some very striking possibilities.

"In 10 years from now, 40% of the current Fortune-500 companies will not exist," said Diamandis.

"We've seen a 150,000-times improvement in computing power in 25 years," he noted. "In next 25 years, computers will be everywhere," he said.

Talking about Linear vs. Exponential growth, he says, the difference is either "disruptive stress or opportunity," depending on the point of view. Using an example of a kid who has created a brand new technology in his garage juxtaposed the giant conglomerate this technology is going to drive out of business, Diamandis explains the different points of view of this disruption in human development.

He cited Kodak's fall from imaging giant in 1999, with a $28B market cap and 140,000 employees, to bankruptcy in 2012, put out of business by the same technology developed within their offices, by engineer Steven Sasson. Sasson developed a ".01 megapixel camera the size of an oven toaster and showed it to Kodak," Diamandis noted, who turned it down because of its infantile capabilities, choosing instead to focus on their high-resolution film photography.

Diamandis calls this the, "New Kodak Moment."



SOURCE  The Government Summit

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 The Singularity  

With Moore's Law continuing to expand computing power, and artificial intelligence software algorithms lagging behind, will the eventual loading of an AGI system onto a future super-computer pose too grave a risk to humanity?

Moore's Law operates on the hardware side of computer development, exponentially ramping up computing power each year.  Specifically, the law refers to the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubling approximately every two years.

This doubling has now led us to the stage of exascale computing and to the cusp of machines that may duplicate the processing ability of the human brain.  The power required and other factors are in no way human-like yet, however the processing features may yield the projected memory and processing requirements to duplicate human brain activity.

Many supercomputers may already be at human levels in these terms, however the algorithmic methods used do not yet come close to the human brain.  Projects like the Human Brain Project and the US BRAIN Initiative look to close up the software gap.

In the meantime, Moores Law is continuing, so that when (and if, admittedly) software is capable of mimicking or actually duplicating human intelligence processes, the software may be loaded onto machines that have much more processing power and memory than a human brain.

Jaan Talinn commented a few years ago at a Humanity+ UK event (from which the top image is used),

It’s important to note that with every year the AI algorithm remains unsolved, the hardware marches to the beat of Moore’s Law – creating a massive hardware overhang.  The first AI is likely to find itself running on a computer that’s several orders of magnitude faster than needed for human level intelligence.  Not to mention that it will find an Internet worth of computers to take over and retool for its purpose.

Such a hardware or, computing overhang refers to a situation where new algorithms can exploit existing computing power far more efficiently than before. This can happen if previously used algorithms have been suboptimal.

Related articles What Will Computers Look Like By 2029?  James Miller Discusses Aspects of the Singularity  Adam Ford on The Technological Singularity

In the context of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), this signifies a situation where it becomes possible to create AGIs that can be run using only a small fraction of the easily available hardware resources. This could lead to an intelligence explosion, or to a massive increase in the number of AGIs, as they could be easily copied to run on countless computers.

Anders Sandberg writes, "when you run an AI, its effective intelligence will proportional to how much fast hardware you can give it (e.g. it might run faster, have greater intellectual power or just able to exist in more separate copies doing intellectual work). More effective intelligence, bigger and faster intelligence explosion."

As some would argue, this hard take-off scenario could make AGIs much more powerful than before, and present an existential risk.

As futurist David Wood points out, an example of a hardware overhang once occurred when thermonuclear bombs were being tested at the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.  The projected explosive yield was expected to be from four to six Megatons,  but when the device was exploded, the yield was 15 Megatons, two and a half times the expected maximum.  If the scientists at the time were wrong in their estimates by a greater amount, the consequences could have been so much greater.

With the risk of AGI, are we too looking at a development that may threaten millions of people if it is unleashed?  Will putting an AGI onto a Zetta-scale or Yotta-scale computer in the coming years produce a Singularity like Wood's graph below?  Moreover, would such a technology spell the end of humanity?

SOURCE  David Wood

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 The Future  

In the past, IBM's futurists have been pretty accurate. With 2013 drawing to a close, the company has just released this year's 5 in 5.

This year, IBM researchers are exploring the idea that everything will learn – driven by a new era of cognitive systems where machines will learn, reason and engage with us in a more natural and personalized way. These innovations are beginning to emerge enabled by cloud computing, big data analytics and learning technologies all coming together.

Over time these computers will get smarter and more customized through interactions with data, devices and people, helping us take on what may have been seen as unsolvable problems by using all the information that surrounds us and bringing the right insight or suggestion to our fingertips right when it’s most needed. A new era in computing will lead to breakthroughs that will amplify human abilities, assist us in making good choices, look out for us and help us navigate our world in powerful new ways.

1. The classroom will learn you

Related articles IBM Teaming Up With Universities To Advance Cognitive Computing  The New Era of Cognitive Computing  IBM's Manoj Saxena on What Watson Will Mean for the Future

The classroom of the future will learn about each individual student over the course of their education, helping them master the skills that match their goals.The rapid digitization of educational institutions will allow unprecedented instrumentation of the learning process. Cognitive computing, or learning technologies, will help us calculate everything we can about how each student learns and thrives, then create flexibility in the system to continually adapt and fine-tune what we deliver to that student and how this supports teachers and employers.

2.Buying local will beat online

The technology trends will move us back to brick and mortar—but with a difference. In the future, retailers will layer increasing levels of engagement and personalization on top of the shopping experience, ultimately merging the instant gratification of physical shopping with the richness of online shopping and making same-day delivery a snap.

3.Doctors will routinely use your DNA to keep you well

Today, full DNA testing to help make treatment decisions is still rare. But cognitive systems and cloud computing may make this form of treatment mainstream. It could be done faster, more affordably and much more frequently. In addition to DNA testing for cancers, we may even see DNA-specific personalized treatment options for conditions such as stroke and heart disease.

4.A digital guardian will protect you online

Security is evolving from being based on rules, like passwords, to being automatic and made stronger through us just being us.This guardian will have your back, trained to focus on the people and items it is entrusted with based on a 360 degree of an individual’s data, devices and applications. It will make inferences about what’s normal or reasonable activity and what’s not, ready to spot deviations that could be precursors to an attack and a stolen identity.

5.The city will help you live in it

For citizens, smart phones enabled by cognitive systems will provide a digital key to the city. People can have fingertip access to information about everything that’s happening in the city, whether an experience is right for them, and how best to get there. Because these learning systems have interacted with citizens continuously, they know what they like—and can present them with options they might not find easily.



SOURCE  IBM

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 The Future  

Stuart Armstrong, from the Future of Humanity Institute (Oxford), gave a talk where he touched on many of the research themes of the institute: the accuracy of predictions, the limitations and biases of predictors, the huge risks that humanity may face in the future.

Dr Stuart Armstrong, from the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, gave a talk at the IARU Summer School on the Ethics of Technology.

In the talk, Armstrong touches on many of the research themes of the institute: the accuracy of predictions, the limitations and biases of predictors, the huge risks that humanity may face, the huge benefits that we may gain, and the various ethical challenges that we'll face in the future.

Related articles David Hanson on The Future of Robotics  Is It Humanity's Fate To Be The 'Mitochondria' of Super-Intelligent AIs?  Robin Hanson Envisions a Future Robot Society

Armstrong’s research at the Future of Humanity Institute centres on formal decision theory, the risks and possibilities of Artificial Intelligence, the long term potential for intelligent life, and anthropic (self-locating) probability.

He is particularly interested in finding decision processes that give the “correct” answer under situations of anthropic ignorance and ignorance of one’s own utility function, ways of mapping humanity’s partially defined values onto an artificial entity, and the interaction between various existential risks. He aims to improve the understanding of the different types and natures of uncertainties surrounding human progress in the mid-to-far future.



SOURCE  Future of Humanity Institute

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 Books  

In his new book, Who Owns The Future, Jaron Lanier argues that we need to reshape the information economy. He details how the idea that information is free may ultimately lead to economic disaster and presents interesting potential solutions.

Jaron Lanier is the bestselling author of You Are Not a Gadget, the father of virtual reality, and one of the most influential thinkers of our time. For decades, Lanier has drawn on his expertise and experience as a computer scientist, musician, and digital media pioneer to predict the revolutionary ways in which technology is transforming our culture.

Related articles Jacque Fresco's Unique View of the Future  Brian David Johnson On Changing The Story of The Future  Robin Hanson Looks At Surviving The Future

Who Owns the Future? is a visionary reckoning with the effects network technologies have had on our economy. Lanier, who now works for Microsoft,  asserts that the rise of digital networks led our economy into recession and decimated the middle class. Now, as technology flattens more and more industries—from media to medicine to manufacturing—we are facing even greater challenges to employment and personal wealth.

But there is an alternative to allowing technology to own our future. In this ambitious and deeply humane book, Lanier charts the path toward a new information economy that will stabilize the middle class and allow it to grow. It is time for ordinary people to be rewarded for what they do and share on the web.

If you are familiar with Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee's, Race Against The Machine and Martin Ford's The Lights in the Tunnel you will recognize Lanier's argument, but Lanier also links the digital economy's demonetization of information in his predictions about the future.



According to Lanier, by introducing efficiencies and disrupting existing markets, the Internet makes things more efficient so that a greatly reduced number of people can perform the same tasks.

Unfortunately Lanier argues, the new fact that information that "wants to be free" means massive economic disaster for the majority.

Lanier writes, "the price we pay for the illusion of 'free' is only workable so long as most of the overall economy isn't about information.  Today, we can still think of information as the intangilbe enabler of communications, media, and software.  But as technology advances in this century, our present intuition about the nature of information will be remembered as narrow and shortsighted."

Lanier proposes some solutions to this problem which would involve nothing less than a major shift in the way that current users of the internet consider the cost of information. He suggests that the Internet could create jobs if only the creation and distribution of information could be monetized. He provides some ideas in this direction. He also makes some predictions about what happens if something doesn't change.

Books like Lanier's, Race Against the Machine, and Lights in the Tunnel give us a view of the future that is definately not the rose-colored glasses variety.

Insightful, original, and provocative, Who Owns the Future? is necessary reading for everyone who lives a part of their lives online.





SOURCE  TechCrunch

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 Film  

Following up on his popular "This Week In Science,"infographics, Hashem AL-ghaili is working in video media as well. He has created a short video entitled "The Future is Now" featuring Peter Diamandis and Kevin Kelly.

You love his "This Week In Science," and other infographics, now, Hashem AL-ghaili is working in video media as well. He has created this short video entitled "The Future is Now" featuring Peter Diamandis and Kevin Kelly.

This is Al-ghalli's first short video which will be followed by some other short videos he says.

So far so good!

An example of Hashem AL-ghaili's "This Week In Science" infographics

SOURCE  Hashem AL-ghaili

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Listen to Jeremy Rifkin as he describes how the five-pillars of the Third Industrial Revolution will create thousands of businesses and millions of jobs, and usher in a fundamental reordering of human relationships, from hierarchical to lateral power, that will impact the way we conduct business, govern society, educate our children, and engage in civic life.



The Third Industrial Revolution offers the hope that we can arrive at a sustainable post-carbon era by mid-century. We have the science, the technology, and the game plan to make it happen. Now it is a question of whether we will recognize the economic possibilities that lie ahead and muster the will to get there in time.

Natasha Vita-More speaks on Transhumanism, the future of Technology, two of her favorite technologies being Nanotechnology and Artificial General Intelligence, and the Aesthetics of Transhumanism.

This interview was recorded at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University at the time of the Humanity+ @Hong Kong conference Dec 2011.

http://hk.humanityplus.org

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has awarded Tomowave Laboratories a small business innovation research (SBIR) phase I grant in order to evaluate the health risks caused due to nanotechnology applications in medicine and industry. The innovative system by Tomowave will sensitively and quickly evaluate the health risks that are related with inducing nanoparticles into animals.

According to the CTO and the project’s principal investigator Dr. Alexander Oraevsky stated that the system will utilize adjustable near-infrared laser pulses to determine nanoparticle characteristics all through the body of the animal by changing absorbed optical energy into ultrasound sources. This technology also called optoacoustic tomography is highly effective in detecting gold silver, carbon nanoparticles with considerable biological tissue depths not possible using just optical techniques. Even minute quantities can be identified.

Present techniques available for nanoparticle detection, which include CT scans or X-ray imaging and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) do not detect carbon and metal nanoparticles effectively and cannot be accessed by companies that need to test industrial products and nanotechnology-based drugs.


Dr. Benjamin Adler, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, stated, "We are very excited that the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has selected funding of our Phase I program entitled "Optoacoustic system for monitoring biodistribution of nanoparticles in vivo". According to Dr. Adler, "there is a pressing need for low-cost and high-sensitivity instrumentation capable of monitoring growth and clearance of nanoparticles in the body, to perform health safety assessments and determine efficacy of disease treatments". Current methods to detect nanoparticles, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and x-ray imaging (CT scans) are not sufficiently sensitive for metal and carbon nanoparticles, are very expensive and are not available to many companies which must test nanotechnology-based drugs and industrial products.


TomoWave is recognized globally in the field of optoacoustic imaging development and research. According to Dr. Adler, it is anticipated that these imaging systems will have high demand in nanotechnology-based bioengineering businesses and in academic labs that identify the risk of nano-devices and nano-drugs.

tomowave.com

U.S. doctors will start working out what drug or therapy works best for a patient using their genetic code, it emerged today.

The revolutionary step of personalising their care will be taken by mapping a patient's entire genetic code in advance to make prescriptions more effective. It is hoped thousands will take part in the landmark project run by the prestigious Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Volunteers will have all 23,000 genes in their genetic code sequenced and stored with their medical records from early next year. It is part of an ambitious move towards an era of proactive genomics that puts modern genetics at the centre of patient care.

The trial reflects a growing trend in medicine to use genetic information to identify those patients who will benefit most from a drug and those who will respond better to an alternative.


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Olzweg project from R&Sie(n)

Design Futures by textile and design expert, Bradley Quinn was released in April.  The 240 page hard cover books features lush illustrations and interviews with some forward-looking designers and practitioners including:

• Mathias Bengtsson
• Winka Dubbeldam
• Freedom of Creation
• Jane Harris
• Toyo Ito
• Suzanne Lee
• Mathieu Lehanneur
• Daniel Libeskind
• Karim Rashid
• David Shah
• Helen Storey
• Moritz Waldemeyer
• Tokujin Yoshioka, and
• Li Edelkoort

Throughout the book the author is relatively indiscriminate when it comes to design disciplines and keeps a broad approach making many of the lessons and influences very much applicable to industrial designers. When it comes to forecasting future technologies and trends, Design Futures plays it extremely safe; don’t expect too many sci-fi of fantasy ideas.The book is split up into the following chapters:

• Urban Utopias
• Interactive Interiors
• Mega Materials
• Dynamic Design
• Hyper-surfaces, and
• Future Frontiers

Bradley Quinn is a London-based writer and journalist who regularly contributes to such magazines and newspapers as Wallpaper*, Elle Decoration, Blueprint and the Evening Standard, as well as to trend-forecasting guides. His books include Ultra Materials: How Materials Innovation is Changing the World (2007) and Textile Designers at the Cutting Edge (2009)




Urban Utopias
Urban Utopias takes a look at the future of buildings and architecture. Quinn talks about how buildings and their external environments will be tightly fused together in the future. The chapter examines how buildings can be used to exploit the natural environment and are reactive, almost living creatures, that respond to the seasons and weather patterns to make our heating, cooling and health better controlled. Some interesting concepts like ‘hygroscopes’ (i.e. floating metropolises) are explored (somewhat related to the man-made islands of Dubai but more mechanical). Also, massive biospheres that can eradicate dust, radiation and chemicals harmful to humans are explored.


Interactive Interiors
Quinn believes interior landscapes will follow a similar fate as building exteriors by being more intelligent and responsive. Rooms will know where you are located to save energy, rooms will know how you’re feeling, and rooms will give you directions and help when necessary. Quinn makes some mega trend observations here, by not just mentioning what will influence the future, but more importantly why this will happen.  Here Quinn also discusses how robots will increasingly become part of our living and work spaces.

Interior by Karim Rashid

Mega Materials
This chapter highlights how recent scientific discoveries in material science are used to forecast new use cases for materials and their potential applications. Utilizing the keywords, stronger, brighter, lighter, smarter, softer and greener as his cues, Quinn shows how our everyday objects may be transformed by innovations in materials.  Use cases include aiding people with disabilities, making sports equipment more competitive and making buildings and structures stronger and lighter. Much of this section is based on current research in nanotechnology, carbon extraction and exploitation, and strong molecular structures. Quinn sees a future where these expensive and niche materials now will be disseminated to the masses and designers will discover exciting new contexts and scenarios where these materials can be utilised.

GKD Media Mesh

Dynamic Design
Dynamic design focuses on user ergonomics and user interfaces. Objects that can be empathetic to our needs and how new relationships will be forged between humans and objects where we are symbiotic to one another rather than being a relationship based on need and exploitation. Dynamic Design is probably the most relevant to the working industrial designer as it focuses on interfaces of consumer devices and looks at the ergonomics of furniture and interiors.

LED Jackets by Moritz Waldermeyer

Hyper-surfaces
The chapter on hyper-surfaces is definitely Design Futures most abstract and definiately weakest part of the book. It is difficult to piece together what on earth is going on in augmented reality and hyper-surfaces and how it relates and differs from the previous chapters. The chapter attempts to talk about surfaces, like screens and touch interfaces but due to the varied nature of these technologies, it seems as though Quinn assimilated these topics into a slightly ambiguous chapter. Potentially the author has diluted the ubiquity of screens and interfaces that will be a part of our future.

Augmented Reality

Future Frontiers
Future Frontiers acts almost as a conclusion to all the previous chapters linking them all together by mentioning the key mega trends that will affect the future design industries. Quinn makes some good insights here linking the present with the future.  The megatrends section contains many topics that will familiar to 33rd Square readers, including AI and the technological singularity.  For those not familiar with these topics, Design Futures might be a good introduction.

Kunstaus Graz in Austria

“The future of design rests on the objects we live with now, and many of the products, structures and environments surrounding us today are shaping things to come.”

As with most design books, the photographs are the star of the show. The photographs work very well alongside the main paragraphs and really help illustrate the designs and technologies around today that are in their infancy that mimic these future concepts. These photos make the concepts thrown around seem more believable, and for designers it makes the concepts seem more achievable to produce and pursue. It really is a tremendous achievement to document and collate all these photos, they are such rarities. Some of the designs appear to be not from this world at all and I was truly captivated and inspired by them.


The interviews in Design Futures are the strength of the book as they tend to be more pertinent and direct than the chapter outlines which are at times more free-flowing in their structure.  The text often lacks depth about hypothesising which specific technologies/manufacturing methodologies will power these ideas. The book never aims to achieve this endeavour though so Design Futures is best suited to a creative-driven mind rather than a mathematical/engineering mind. Despite not being specific, a skilled practitioner could be really empowered with the knowledge outlined in Design Futures. For students, Design Futures becomes a really exciting foundation of where to study and where to invest ones time as the book picks up cleverly these mega-trends, those subtleties that we experience blindly in our current world.

It would also be nice if Design Futures was a bit more forward-looking. For example, if our homes are going to see the efficiencies of business offices, why not go into why this will occur. Asking why these events will occur and getting into the more psychological and social reasons behind these changes could suddenly open up a whole new dimension and get to the real drivers of these design challenges. The book never bypasses some of these social/environmental factors like the global financial crisis and global warming, but even more of this content could have really excelled the title.

Many of the topics are not outlandish and many creative professionals today would probably be keenly aware of many of the topics brought up in Design Futures. But the great thing about the book is that it aggregates all these snippets of ideas and broadcasts them to designers who might be stuck in their own industry or workplace bubble.  Design Futures is an exhilarating ride into the potential future and beyond and is a subject matter than many authors would be too scared to touch.

Get Design Futures on Amazon.

Mars et Avril takes place in a Montreal of the future when humanity is ready to move to Mars. But, not everyone is ready to go. Jacob Obus, a charismatic and beloved septuagenarian, leader of the anti-cybernetic movement, takes pride in slowing down time. He plays captivating music on instruments inspired by women's bodies and designed by his friend, Arthur.

It's when Jacob and Arthur are smitten by Avril, a young and short-winded photographer, that the true nature of the old sex symbol is revealed. After making love for the first time in his life, Jacob is ready to leave for Mars in search of his muse. In the midst of everything arrives Eug?ne Spaak, inventor, cosmologist and Arthur's father, who maintains that Mars is only a chimera.

IBM unveils its sixth annual "Next 5 in 5" -- a list of innovations with the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years. The Next 5 in 5 is based on market and societal trends expected to transform our lives, as well as emerging technologies from IBM's Labs around the world that can make these innovations possible.


In this installment: you will be able to power your home with the energy you create yourself; you will never need a password again; mind reading is no longer science fiction; the digital divide will cease to exist; and junk mail will become priority mail.

Energy: People power will come to life


Imagine being able to use every motion around you — your movements, the water rushing through the plumbing — to harness energy to power anything from your house to your city. It’s already being tested in Ireland, where IBM scientists are studying the effects of converting ocean wave energy into electricity. But instead of a buoy to capture motion, a smaller device that you wear or attach to your bicycle during a ride, for example, will collect the energy you create.


Security: You will never need a password again


The name “multifactor biometrics” sounds as intriguing as the thrillers that use it as a plot device. In real life, the use of your retinal scan or your voice as a passport to verification will replace multiple passwords for access to information and secret hideouts, should you decide to accept the option. Your unique biological identity becomes your only password as multifactor biometrics aggregate these characteristics in real time to prevent identity theft.


Mind reading: no longer science fiction


Dialing a telephone is considered so last century. Soon, overt communication with devices might be just as archaic. IBM scientists are researching how to link your brain to your devices, such as a computer or a smartphone, so you only have to think about calling someone and it happens. For example, see a cube on your computer screen and think about moving it to the left, and it will. Beyond electronics control, possible applications include physical rehabilitation and understanding of brain disorders such as autism.


Mobile: The digital divide will cease to exist


Mobile devices are decreasing the information-accessibility gap in disadvantaged areas. In five years, the gap will be imperceptible as growing communities use mobile technology to provide access to essential information. New solutions and business models from IBM are introducing mobile commerce and remote healthcare, for example. Recorded messages can be transmitted to quickly deliver valuable information about weather and aid to remote or illiterate users who haven’t had ready access before.


Analytics: Junk mail will become priority mail


Imagine technology that replaces the unwanted messaging in your life with the next best thing to a personal assistant. IBM is developing technology that uses analytics and sensemaking to integrate data into applications that present only the information you want—and then do something about it. Combining your preferences and your calendar, for example, the technology will proactively reserve tickets to your favorite band’s concert when your calendar shows you’re free, or research alternate travel plans when it detects bad weather along your route, and then tell you where to go.


IBM - The Next 5 in 5