I'd like to have a pen that switches colors. Simple as it may be - I'd think it'd be nifty. That and the telescope thing.

owen, BIC has been making these 4-color jobs for years.

the future is now! ;-)

Nifty. For starters, I'd like a higher screen resolution than 72 dpi--much higher. And to never have to think about calibrating a monitor.

I'd like a little device that sits next to my computer that, much like Photoshop's History palette, allows me to go back through my system at a global level and return to any given point on my machine's past. Obviously, this would be the end of "backing up" as we know it...

You know, innovations are never where you'd expect it. Note that the invention of the web and its impact was never predicted or forecasted by anyone. Neither was it thought possible that we'd see the human genome mapped in our lifetime.

And it's also worthy to note that new inventions do not necessarily mean the extinction of old things. Rather, they become supplements to things we already use. Books, newspapers and magazines did not get replaced by online versions. Both still exist and thrive equally.

I knew a company a few years back that had this amazing sound technology. They could produce sound from a single sheet of materials in varying size -- no giant speaker, no magnets, nothing conventional. The "sound sheet" could be rolled up to store, could bend, and most amazingly, could be directed to broadcast sound to a very focused subject point. I could be standing next to someone who's getting a full blast of sound from this thing, yet I'd hear none of it. Imagine a wall of this material for your home theater. Or the door panel on your car. Or you could roll it up and unfurl it on your desk at work and listen to music that no one else would hear.

The same company predicted that similar types of alien materials could be adapted for visual broadcast. Plasma screen technology is almost there. Imagine if you could scroll your monitor screen out, and pin it to whatever surface is nearest you.

I'd love another more efficient keyboard also. The qwerty setup is becoming very archaic and limiting. Same with the mouse. It's time Apple came out with something completely new -- maybe an optical tracker that automatically positions the cursor based on where your eye is looking on the screen.

And lastly, everything should be wireless. And compatible. And self contained. Imagine everything being stored in a device that's no bigger than your keyboard. To work, you just set down your keyboard and start typing. The monitor and connection would automatically synch. And when you're done, you just fold the keyboard back up, take it home, and work from there.

Paul,

I could use one of those for life sometimes...

How about a pair of eye glasses (or cornea implants?) that would capture high resolution images of everything we look at...that way each time we were inspired visually, or something interesting caught our eye, we'd have a permanent digital record of it...without having to lug around a digital camera...

I'd like someone to invent grass that only grows 3 inches. No more lawn mowing.

I'm guessing the lawn mower industry lobbyists would have something to say about that...

I wish Apple would just create an iPod/PDA/Cell Phone/Digital Wallet "iThingy". That way I could just carry that ONE piece of equipment around and be set...need a soda? just point it at an iThingy compatible drink machine, push a button, and out pops a cold Coke, and 60 cents is deducted from your account. Go get in your car and use your iThingy to crank it up...you get home, use iThingy to unlock the door...no more loose change (or lack of), no more bulky keys, no more pockets full of gadgets...just a simple, easy to use, iThingy....

God forbid if it ever got stolen, though....

The future is all around us...

Light Projected Keyboard

Illuminated Keyboard

iPod Hat

Flat CRT screens.

I worked for motorola for a while when they had a division that was working on that, they could never make it larger than about 3 inches. I've never really liked LCR displays- especially next to a good CRT. Desktop drum scanning that doesn't cost a fortune would be nice too.

Wireless Electricity. Bluetooth and WiFi are slowly getting us somewhere on data transfer. But we're always going to have a clumps of cables all over our offices and homes until someone figures this one out. And New York apartments never have enough outlets.

Wireless Electricity = solar power

As more and more people step away from the industrial workforce (the last bastion of the �real’ world) and our dependence on interfaces continues, I wonder how greatly creativity and design will suffer.

Along the same lines as the problem that much design need labors under the ability of the client to go out and buy a few hundred dollars of software and remove the designer from the process with templates, and a general lessening of standards, culturally.

So far as in the design process you are limited to somebody else’s technology and programming choices then you become significantly at a loss for independent choice and activity. In art making you would likely run out and buy whatever paint was on the shelf, however you had the choice mixing your own paint from various media and pigment. Most of the major breakthroughs in craft making have been around process (tools) change: adoption of canvas, printing press, and desktop computer, rather than paradigm change: the move from Barbizon painting to Imressionism etc.

Once this technology levels off to some semblance of compatibility and consistency there is an opportunity to make a lasting and significant cultural inpact. However in this new model the more and more make-believe our environment becomes then won’t the need for design and art diminish? Replaced by excessively different product rather than qualitatively better? How culpable is the corporate machine to our aesthetic life? And what is it that cause people to care about design in the future?

Eric:

I read your post twice. Not quite sure what you are getting at.

I'm with you Darrel....What??!

And Eric -- I have to give you shit on using the term "paradigm change' on this forum. Tsk, tsk.

Consider that as your first black mark on an otherwise spotless record.

I think it's something about how the robots are going to take over...

just point it at an iThingy compatible drink machine, push a button, and out pops a cold Coke, and 60 cents is deducted from your account.

Tracy, you are dreaming. I mean about the part where Cokes are 60 cents.

Wireless electricity must happen!

Believe it or not, you can still get a 12 oz. out of a machine for that...here in SC!

Wireless electricity must happen!

It's called "lightning" folks.

----

I have one, though it's not for design.

I want a refridgerator that keeps inventory of the food you put in it, including the expiration dates. So when you are about to go to the grocery store, you push a button, and it spits out a list of things you're running low on.

or better yet, how bout a series of Mac G12s that have small appliances built-in, like a small microwave built into the CPU that's just big enough to heat your coffee or a toaster that fits a bagel, or an espresso press with an attached milk frother.

I want a refrigerator that keeps inventory of the food you put in it, including the expiration dates.

I read an article recently on implanted chips that will replace UPC codes on products, allowing your items to be scanned via radio-frequency from any number of sources. Thus, your sub-zero (all designers have sub-zero's, right?) will "know" what is inside and the respective expiration dates. Of course, anyone nearby with an RF scanner could also "know" what is in your fridge.

Tan + Darrel etc,

in as much as we're dreaming of what science fiction will spin to reality, my questions above grow out of a concern over current issues of �quality’ and a general malaise from the viewing audience and the trendingly sedate consumer.

Perhaps also re Debbie’s Rockstar thread, which I, in part ,attribute that desire for validation, a disproportionate increase in finance and a dreading fear of anonymity, I wonder if our increasing dependence (via the complexity of software) on other people for our creativity won’t ultimately lead to an arena where there are fewer people making fewer choices. A sort of “streamlining” of aesthetics.

People spend their lives increasingly like electronic veal. If you continue to progress towards a life that is completely immerged in media what questions can you still retain of it and what will be the opportunity to contribute?

re �paradigm shift’. I’m not an asshole all the time, cut me some slack.

Oh, and never give gum to robots.

> "know" what is in your fridge.

It'd be fun to do a thread similar to "What's on your desk?" -- but instead "What's in your fridge?"

Velveeta!

----

Speaking of stupid inventions, my next door neighbor (a retiring Boeing engineer) just bought a Segway human transporter. He's been the talk of the block. Everyday when I come home, there's always a crowd of gawkers in his driveway. Most of time, it's a bunch of seniors. Grey-haired grandmas stroking the Segway as if it was some sort of sexy speed machine. It's disturbing.

Yes, he let me take a short ride myself. I'll admit, it's cool and amazingly easy to operate. There's a foot pad you stand on -- to make it go forward, just lean forward. Lean back to make it stop, and turn the handle to turn. There's an internal gyroscope to keep it upright and balanced. And the thing is amazingly fast.

I wouldn't mind having one if it just didn't look so stupid to ride on it. Oh yeah, and the damn thing is $6K.

Of course, anyone nearby with an RF scanner could also "know" what is in your fridge.

Great! So when Altria sends out a direct mail piece on DynaPaper� that automatically scans the bar codes in your home and shifts it's molecular ink density accordingly, it will know whether to become an advertisement for Marlboro's or Kraft Singles...

Gosh, I can't wait for the future!

shit damn, i just deleted my whole post. what an amateur! what follows is a dramatic reenactment of my original post:

Excellent points, Eric. I suffer [sic] from a dependence on interface to such an extent that I am constantly trying to command-z things I do in the dirt world, like hanging up the phone by accident or cutting off too small a piece of cheese. I have yet to try to cut-and-paste anything, ahem, but then again maybe I have.

However, I'm not sure I see what you're getting at with this:

Most of the major breakthroughs in craft making have been around process (tools) change...rather than paradigm change.

I'm not clear if by "craft making" you mean art per se, or art and design, or any type of production that's made with tools (basically, all industrial production). Technological development in this day and age--as opposed to Gutenberg's or even Gropius's--is symbiotic with creative development, whereas in previous eras the relationship would have been more causal. Today, there are industrial engineers, software engineers, and researchers developing the tools with which we carry out creative work. Yes, we designers don't have the tools until they invent them, but the actual contribution to culture is made by us. (I wonder if industrial engineers think of their work as cultural contribution, or if they see it as contributing to the culture specifcally of industrialization.) The responsibility, therefore, still rests with us.

There's defintely evdience of creative paradigm (or insert the word "style") development that happens independent of the technology of the time: abstract expressionism (Pollock's use of enamel paint wasn't influenced by anything so much as poverty), or why not all the painting movements of the 20th century. By the same token, when we have a blatantly clear technological paradigm shift such as any of the digital media of the last 20 years, or television before that, there is an immediate and direct effect on creative work. But there is just as immediate a massive diversity of styles within that creative work, which means you're seeing the creative impulse making use of the new technology but in countless forms and for myriad ends. In other words, artists and designers in the driver's seat.

What am I trying to say? That the tools do not the artist [designer] make. I'll bet we'd all agree with this. But I do believe that the contributions to the development of one's craft and to culture at large--the contributions that matter--are made by those who wield the tools rather than are wielded by them. The implication of this--and the reason basically why a lot of bad design doesn't depress me the way it does many designers--is that sure, there's more template-designed crap then ever, but none of this crap is to be considered culture. The important part of culture, that is. The part worth striving for. So while I sympathize and I share your spirit of questioning, Eric, when you say "Replaced by excessively different product rather than qualitatively better? " I feel rather that most of the stuff of society is excessively the same (clothes, fast food, car commercials, celebrities) with only branding to differentiate one cola from another, but that the important contributions, if they truly possess quality, last.

That was not as good as my original comment, but you know how it goes.

I read an article recently on implanted chips that will replace UPC codes on products, allowing your items to be scanned via radio-frequency from any number of sources.

Jonsel, that's funny you came across that RFID article. My company has been working for two years with Alien Technology (what a clever name eh?) on getting one of our vendors to build machines to aid in their "fluid self assembly process" for the RFID market.

Here's a photograph from their site showing "Nanoblocks," (silicon wafer slices) on the surface of a dime.

Entire shopping carts can just pass through the check out and the total is tallied. An entire UPS, I mean FedEx truck can just leave the warehouse and it'll be scanned. Amazing but scary at the same time. But then again, perhaps all this hoopla will just aid humans and not rid them of all tradition. Like Tan said, books are still around and we are 8 years post consumer Internet.

Tracy, an iThingy is exactly what I want. Another thing, before we do get food as pills and what not, I'd like our current technology to work. I mean, everything should sync. I mean actually sync. GSM phones should not be rolled out in areas where they don't work. What the fuck is 56K still doing around? I mean, St. Paul can't even figure out that green means go, not stop. Starvation still exists. Baseball players make $250 million. OK, I'm veering. You get the point.

Perhaps that's the way it's supposed to be. Small steps. Lot's of mistakes. Eventually we'll get it right. Right meaning useful. I wish I knew more about history.

“I'm not clear if by "craft making" you mean art per se, or art and design, or any type of production that's made with tools (basically, all industrial production). Technological development in this day and age--as opposed to Gutenberg's or even Gropius's�

The responsibility, therefore, still rests with us.” — Mr. Sam

Sam, you introduced the thread as that marvelous vista of “tomorrow”. In that leap beyond the horizon of inevitability, where one has to make guesses , my reasoning behind the above was to point out clean throws forward in aesthetic devolpment -- not just shifts in style, which ultimately things like AbEx are reductive to. Pollock wasn’t the first to drip paint and the medium was, as you pointed out, inevitable.

In the short run, say the next 20 years, I think that bringing ease of production and bringing a majority of the art practices under the rubric of desktop publishing will be inventive and perhaps something a shade nearer democracy, which is the truest spirit of arts production. By the way, in this I mean that the life of design and art are similar constructions yet entirely different ends. For the sake of this, they’re both in the ark.

“But there is just as immediate a massive diversity of styles within that creative work, which means you're seeing the creative impulse making use of the new technology but in countless forms and for myriad ends. In other words, artists and designers in the driver's seat.”

Pollock’s drip paintings were hardly the culture impact on painting that the move from painting on panel or fresco in Venice was when renaissance painters finally figured out how to successfully archive paintings on canvas. Shift in style in painting, or design may reflect a social conscience or adopt a technological innovation but the medium itself has to undergo a real change in order for there to be significant evolution.

"What am I trying to say? That the tools do not the artist [designer] make. I'll bet we'd all agree with this. But I do believe that the contributions to the development of one's craft and to culture at large--the contributions that matter--are made by those who wield the tools rather than are wielded by them."

Yes, but my example is predicated on the future chain of command. If private interest controls the gateway to our happiness in the Disneyland-of-the-mind, then the future Fortune 500 will not only control the medium but the message and its distribution. If they control the voice then perhaps the aesthetic aspirants of Design will be superfluous.

I don’t even bat an eye at HAVING to use Microsoft or Adobe to make it through a given day. And they at least still have competition. Their generation learned better than the Ford era capitalists about how to protect patents and copyrights.

Historically, when something made an evolutionary leap it took some time to adopt, then people got on board and in that adaptation a new dialogue was developed that carried the practice forward. This example is clearly evident in the first few decades now of the personal computer. My concern is that different from before is the way that networking cross-platforming technology is a key that belongs to a very discrete group of people while at the same time the population continues to rise. Less and less people in control of the means of production and distribution of your message.

In this design yearbook of the future you will not only have to use their paint and their brushes but you will have to say the message in the way that they want you to say it (“I’m sorry but your plug-in is not compatible”). When that happens and the level of design noise is raised it may no longer matter what “good design” is. Cheap and easy nearly always wins and if it’s the only game in town then who’s going to stop them?

I feel at times that the quaint idea of “quality” is becoming anachronistic. And if that’s the case now then what’s it going to be like further down the road when somebody’s watching �Who’s the Boss 2099’ because that seemed like a really good decision at the time.

“The implication of this--and the reason basically why a lot of bad design doesn't depress me the way it does many designers--is that sure, there's more template-designed crap then ever, but none of this crap is to be considered culture.”

Culture never had to take its cousin to the prom before, Sam. We touched on this in the Rant rant which has, I’m sure, hijacked my thoughts through to today. And I firmly agree that design hasn’t gone downhill in this day and age. Only that there is so much visual clutter, as opposed to 10, 20, 50 years ago that people tolerate bad work because it’s the majority vote. Good design is findable but is marginalized by the over-adrenalized marketing of bad design.

�

Never point your robot at the sun.

"It is possible, in say the next 70 years, that we, the planet Earth, will have a telescope of some sort that will be able to see another planet with a tree on it." -Mr. Sam

this from a book review of 'The Wisdom of the World' in Tuesday's WSJ:

"On the whole, this synthesis was a salutary one. It allowed Western man to avoid the twin extremes of making nature divine and of rejecting the goodness of God's creation. But it could not withstand the revolutionary effect of modern science. The telescope "demystified" cosmology, and the microscope gave human beings access to a previously "imperceptible world." In the "infinite spaces" opened up by modern astronomy, the evidence of an ordered and harmonious world was hard to find. It became all to fashionable for modern thinkers to deny that there was anything in nature of things worthy of imitation except perhaps for the cruelty and indifference of nature itself."

Great picture, Kiran. One question, though---why would FedEx be scanning trucks with these chips--won't they just be teleporting everything all over the place?

Eric, I'm out of my depth talking going any further with art history, but my point was simply that we still had plenty of creative evolution after the evolutionary technological change from freasco to canvas. Lots of evolution. So I see what you mean when you say

Shift in style in painting, or design may reflect a social conscience or adopt a technological innovation but the medium itself has to undergo a real change in order for there to be significant evolution.

But I would differ on what constitutes "significant evolution." Whether or not Pollock was first to drip, he's the dripper that matters. He's the dripper that moved people's perceptions of painting. That's not insignificant.

But more to the point, this is well stated:

If private interest controls the gateway to our happiness in the Disneyland-of-the-mind, then the future Fortune 500 will not only control the medium but the message and its distribution.

Is the future inevitably technological? Is the great divide of the future going to be between the digital haves and have-nots? I can easily imagine a time when technology advances so fast and miraculously (to the layman/congressperson) that legislation will have no way to control it. And then we gets the designer genes?

Paradoxically, one thing very high on my wish list is a world without operating systems. It's patently stupid to me to have all these different platforms and web browesrs and unsynchronization. It seems absurb that file formats can be unrecognizable still. It's the free market run amok and we'd be a lot better off if one operating system and one web browser had a monopoly. Normally I'm all in favor of democracy and pluralism and everybody holding hands, but this instance of competition fostering development has just been a mess.

ahh, but a mess well worth it if the alternative is using Microsoft publisher for your layout app.

“But I would differ on what constitutes "significant evolution." Whether or not Pollock was first to drip, he's the dripper that matters. He's the dripper that moved people's perceptions of painting. That's not insignificant.” - Mr. Sam

Art history is only one of the markers — and maybe one of the easiest to follow because it’s relatively old and very well documented. Something like the history of Television is still sort of vague.

In reference to Pollock, yes the marketing behind him through the Life article (in �49?) forward helped create an exciting public opinion that there was a change in the arts practice. It could have just as easily been somebody like DeKooning. However for the sake of my illustration the shift from representational painting really begins in the late 18th Century (for lack of any specific jump off point.) So, is Pollock more important than the birth of Abstraction with people like Kandinsky? Or the way that the pop artists developed a commercially ironic stand? In a way all of those flavors are fashionable ebbs and flows. One generation against the next.

I’m just trying to get away from a kind of luddite argument against contemporary machines and practices. Because i think the real problems in that arena lay ahead and particularly in the realm of creativity. For the last few hundred years we've adapted and included machinistic changes. My point re Design was that the tide may change towards loss of expression and minimalization of tools.

“Is the future inevitably technological? Is the great divide of the future going to be between the digital haves and have-nots? I can easily imagine a time when technology advances so fast and miraculously (to the layman/congressperson) that legislation will have no way to control it. And then we gets the designer genes?”

I think we can all agree that the preponderance of entertainment and design is technological. Operas will still be performed and posters will still be posted. However the marriage of work and pleasure into a seamless parallel world of the web will take on greater and greater import. This is where my conjecture about the inevitability of “some” kind of VR. It doesn’t have to be all Tron-ed up and avatarish but the fact that you communicate via email and interact in chat rooms (which I grant SU as a modified format) is already its own reality.

Slightly tangential but related, I read the other day that AOLTW is jockeying to return ICQ to their fold. The reason being that their purported “monopoly” of the industry was over-heralded and the company loses a significant source of revue without that card to play. I don’t ICQ but I did wonder what the general public reaction will be if and when that behavior ceases to be free.

Computer navigation via mental telepathy.

My arm hurts.

Mr. Larsen, your shiny words and glittering ideas have cast a sparkly drizzle upon my pixelled cornea. I am afeared of the Art Debate--aye, afeared! It's all too interesting and neverending and there's yet my big question to pose (led right into by your own likes: "This is where my conjecture about the inevitability of “some” kind of VR."):

How are designers going to be designing in the distant future? Or the next future, beyond our current state of digital but still predominately 2D (screen-based 3D simulations included) media? What's is after the screen? What will virtual reality bode for graphic design?

My guess is that after the era of paper/print and after the era of digital media, we'll design in 3D. (Yes, people will still design for paper and probably even the web when it seems as old as Gutenberg.) But the new medium could be truly three-dimensional. Maybe it will be light (think "Help me, Obi-Wan, you're my only hope"). And Tron kicks ass!

Tracy: don't worry, the future will soon outgrow Microsoft. It has to. When the robots are running things, they'll laugh at the idea of using Publisher.

We "enjoy" over 330 days of HOT, BLAZING SUN here in Las Vegas and my husband was musing the other day on why someone doesn't just invent automotive paint with tiny solor collectors in it that would transmit power to the car engine. Might sound far-fetched but they have a paint in Japan that conducts heat. The walls are painted then warm water is sent through conduits in the walls and the paint acts like a radiator and warms the rooms. Amazingly enough, solor power is not widely used here. Just goes to show how strong the influence of the oil companies are when it comes to alternative fuels.

thanks for the kind words Mr. Sam. i was beginning to feel like a bit of a thread killer. re your inquiry, i just hope that when things get round and all 'Creatorly' it doesn't look like some high-octane Duke Nuke'em fan-boy interior.

Earlier in my Cassandra-complex, i spoke of visual noise killing creativity. the analogy that came to mind was the holodeck on Star Trek. The idea being that templates of environments and scenarios would be so cheap and numerous that you would be overwhelmed by the visual masturbation of it all.

�

Krystal, thanks for bringing up the auto industry. i was going to mention our growing dependence and their anti-humanitarian business practice above but ran out of time.

Computer navigation via mental telepathy.

Right on. There has to be a major evolution of the mouse, as it is clearly leading to a generation of crippled individuals. While I grit and bear it now, I'm afraid that when I'm 50, I won't be able to use my right hand.

I won't be able to use my right hand.

So...many...jokes....

SPF 30pt?

"Scientists at the institution have just been awarded a �1.3 million grant to develop the "ubiquitous computing" technology which uses tiny semiconductor specks that can sense, compute and communicate without wires."

can aerosol design be far away?