Today I am going to talk to you about bridging the gap between the analog world (which in this sense I mean the non digital aspect of our lives), and the digital, which is an integrated and important part of our lives. I will also attempt to show via examples how bridging this gap can help to create not only value but engaging and immersive experiences for your users/clients.
For almost two decades Mediafront has been creating engaging award winning websites and campaigns using the common tools of the trade: namely graphics programs, programming code, the internet and desktop and mobile devices to display these on. However the end product has invariably been a digital non-tangible solution. Now there is nothing wrong with that. We could continue this line for a long time, continually extracting new ways of doing things with the same tools. But as we’ve moved from a mostly static desktop world to an increasingly mobile world we see that tomorrows world is a seamlessly integrated, connected, intelligent and tangible world. But... as William Gibson said - “ The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” So what do I mean by this? Seamlessly integrated....connected.....tangible. Well, lets take a look at a few examples of ideas that are bridging the gap between these two facets of our lives.
First up is Botanicalls (http://www.botanicalls.com/) This is one I’ve talked about before - it’s the Botanicalls. Botanicalls is a fun project. What I like about this one is that it illustrates simply what kind of things we can do now, with todays technology. It probably doesn’t have that many applications as it is shownhere in this image but what this example does is that it shows us how to think a little differently about the physical world around us, about inanimate objects communicating with us and visa versa.
The second example I’d like to show is BleepBleeps ( http://bleepbleeps.com/ ) “ BleepBleeps are little guys that help you get pregnant, give birth, look after your baby and raise your child. Each BleepBleeps character connects to the BleepBleeps app on your phone to give you simple guidance and content to make parenting easier. ” The reason I am showing this as an example is because it encapsulates everything I am trying to get across to you. It’s integrated. It’s a physical tangible product. It is useful...it has a value. It has an emotional attachment-factor. It is shared - the source code is available for every single part of the physical product. It communicates. I believe that we will see a lot more of this kind of thing very soon.
The 3rd example is another fun project that opens your eyes to what can be achieved with a little imagination, some physical devices, existing technologies. Its called Instaprint ( http://instaprint.me/ ) and I’ll just play the video in order to explain the concept.
You know, not that long ago (in terms of our lives), developing these types of things would have cost a fortune, requiring scores of nerds, and some serious technology. But now we can say that innovation is being democratized. Knowledge is being shared and virtually anything is attainable. Two of the examples I just showed you were fully or partially open source projects. When you have this kind of spirit and this kind of generousity and this kind of availability then the only thing that stops you from coming up with a smart use for technology is your own imagination.
Thanks to modern web technologies such as HTML5, we can begin to get physical, very easily. Using gestures to interact with devices, applications, displays is becoming more and more accessible. So, say we install a Kinect or a web cam in a shop or other location. We can detect passers by. We can see if they stop and look. We can use facial recognition, we can use these actions to trigger other events - digital or physical.
