Our New Super Powers

Our New Super Powers
The evolving relationship between people and technology

Mark Rolston, Chief Creative O cer

Iron Man from Marvel Comics

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

what why

our devices our selves


but ﬁrst,

my predictions for the future of mobile


Next year’s device will
be better, smaller,
sometimes bigger,
there will be more apps,
carriers will still be
struggling to keep up and
too many minor variations
on the same theme will be
ﬁghting for market share.

that’s it.


mobile now comes in many shapes and sizes

17” 3.5”..... 2”?


mobile’s value to us continues to expand
video camera
game box

assistant

camera
wallet

alarm clock
music player telephone

white pages

television
newspaper
web
calculator browser


markets collide...

creating
“new”


mobile = computing

(computers, just, you know, mobile)


the laptop was the gateway drug


Tron, 1982
this is the new crack.


however....

the next big thing in computing
is not a thing...


“ the purpose of
a computer is
to help you do
something else”
Mark Weiser


so if it’s not a thing, then what is it?


well, there are a few
emerging drivers:

our bodies,
our spaces,
and the cloud


ﬁrst,

the human body


early pioneers

“Borgs” outside the MIT, circa 1995


Google Latitude | www.google.com/latitude

there are plenty
of innocuous
examples


and plenty of
radical leaps in the
experimental stage

Laboratory experiment testing rabbits
with contact lense mounted displays

19


...and even more concepts

frog design Dattoos Concept

Twinkle


implantable electronics


Lyric Hearing | www.lyrichearing.com

“

22


frog design, e-monitors, 2009


Nintendo Wii | www.wii.com


Timo Arnall, 2008 | www.nearﬁeld.org

25


we are becoming the computer


second,

the space around us


the real world is the new touchscreen

Fluid Interfaces Group LuminAR


twinkle

Twinkle


Microsoft Kinect


life becomes just another level in a videogame

EpicMIX


we can use technology to
create our own personal reality

http://unlogo.org


where does it end?

Clip by Keiichi Matsuda

36


third,

compute and the cloud


client
compute
cloud
connect

the map will outgrow the territory


everyone, everything, and everywhere
become part of the network


RUG

Matsushita Electric Carpet


umbrella


public spaces along the highway

tools
our shoes
hospital equipment watching transportation

our children’s toys
household items
clothes
listening in the packaged food we buy

food packaging
personal sampling
measuring electronics
architecture
our desks
our cars
our underwear

shipping packaging calculating sports equipment
o ces
on the factory ﬂoor
reporting
personal
professional healthcare
instruments our stu
recording our appliances
furniture
at the watercooler

Photo: Jan Chipchase


to what end?


“knowledge is power”
sir francis bacon


super powers


“I can see through satellites now”
Warren Ellis & Adi Granov, Iron Man, 2008


the extension of the self

- situational awareness
- extending our senses
- throwing our senses
- finding
- knowing
- remembering
- thinking (correlate, calculate, etc)


super powers

extend our extend our self be anywhere
senses

see and hear more
...and in new
dimensions
(time, place, data, etc)


people, places, and things


people


people

Actual Me Virtual Me

META-ME

Financial Me Body Me


We can step outside of ourselves

conversation in the third person

video of video game in/out of third person

or TheSims game pic


be anyone


the end of forgetting

Microsoft Sensecam
62


places


“being there”

64


Creating a sense of place 65


we can see and talk to anyone, anywhere


“if you (virtually) build it they will (virtually) come”


Google Street View for the o ce


experience anywhere


any dimension of anywhere


things


spime
Bruce Sterling.

An object that can be tracked through space
and time throughout the lifetime of the object.


anything


anything (anywhere!)


our super powers come from this
emerging infrastructure
ourselves
our senses our environment
and things


ourselves and everyone else
our senses our environment we share it with
and things


we are no longer just ourselves


mark.rolston@frogdesign.com

www.frogdesign.com


the number of ways we can connect has grown
exploded


Our New Super Powers

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