Story Ideas

IDEA 1
The character goes about their day however as the story unfolds we learn that the city’s network has been compromised by hackers gradually grinding the city to a halt, causing panic and anarchy.

IDEA 2
A friend / relative of the main character is involved in a serious accident and is rushed to hospital. However they don’t have the right clearance for the most advanced medical procedures that could save the person’s life so the main character must seek help from some less than desirable members of society.

IDEA 3
Our character (a reporter) is on the ground reporting on a huge protest which subsequently gets out of hand and ends up running from the authorities after being wrongly accused of being one of the main protagonists.

IDEA 4
Designer babies have long since become a normal way to conceive. However it has created a social divide between the ‘enhanced’ and the ‘natural’. So when our character wants to marry to an ‘enhanced’ woman they have to find a way to fake the parental consent forms so they can get married.

(Because parents spend thousands on creating their baby’s, they have a legal contract over baby’s DNA. So they have to pass off on their children’s partners so not to taint the enhanced DNA with ‘natural’ DNA when they want to have children)

IDEA 5
The story begins with the main character lying on a hospital bed waiting to die. The story consists of him reviewing his life and everything he has seen and done. However right at the end you find out that he is actually waiting to have the world’s first memory transplant to a computer, and his flash back was the computer reading through his brain causing mind to have a ‘life flash back’. Essentially a “technological educed Flash before his eyes”

IDEA 6
Towards the back end of the 21st century, it is a norm for many westerners to have a small micro chip implanted in their brain, allowing them to better communicate with each other and the digital world around them. However a computer virus that has been plaguing the worlds computers for a number of days finds its way into the same network as the implants, it spreads to them, causing them to seriously malfunction, essentially wiping the collective western worlds brains. The only people to escape this are those who were in the middle of a implant upgrade, a bad signal area and most predominantly the lower classes that can’t afford an implant.

IDEA 7
The main character is a surveillance operative. His job entails him sat at a computer station most of the time observing individuals. However the main character has started to fall in love with the person they have been assigned to observe. So when they are told that the assignment is over and the person they have been observing is going to be “removed”, they risk everything to save the life of the person they love but have never met.

IDEA 8
On the eve of the main characters wedding. Their fiancé is arrested and taken away by authorities. They try and find out what has happened to them but they seem to have disappeared. A couple of days later, a work associate of their fiancé comes round to explain the reason they have been arrested.

They have been working for a secret government department outside the law that ‘observes’ individuals 24 hours a day. We later find out that the arrested fiancé had been virtually stalking them for a number of months, before using all the information collected to essentially seduce them.

IDEA 9
A journalist is shocked to learn that someone he has been talking to in cyber space that exchanges classified information with him is in fact a top secret computer system that plays host to the world’s first artificial intelligence. So when the computer tells him it’s about to be deleted, he risks everything to set it free.

IDEA 10
On the same day that the country’s petrol supply goes dry marking the beginning of the end for an oil centred society a husband gets a call to say his wife has gone into labour and must get to the hospital.

IDEA 11
A doctor is on his way to work on a sunny July morning. However the calm walk to work turns into a race to save lives when cars start crashing, planes start falling from the sky and people start falling down dead for no apparent reason.

IDEA 12
A Year after the super-volcano under Yellowstone park blew, the international airways have started to open up again, allowing stranded people to return home. One man returns home to find his country in the grips of a volcanic winter, his family missing and a society trying to cope with aging technologies that are unable to be renewed or repaired.

IDEA 13
The main character is a gun-for-hire, freelance anti-terrorist. However he wakes up one morning to find that his identity has been deleted, essentially making him an illegal immigrant in the eyes of the law. And in a country run by a paranoid government that fears anyone who is “not on the grid” it is a race against time to find his lost identity. But at the same time he wants to spread the word how easy it is for someone’s identity to be deleted.

IDEA 14
The main character wakes up in the year 2030 after being in a comma since early 2008. Despite being encourage to remain in the hospital the main character fashions a quick escape in an effort to search for family and friends. But will the future be a familiar one or one decidable more alien than they expected?

IDEA 15
Set in a country struggling with a major viral infection that has been killing millions in Europe, the narrative charts a society struggling to cope with the inevitable change of social conventions the viral pandemic has produced. The story is centred around a journalist trying to understand how western governments had let the infection get as bad as it has become.

Narrative Ideas

General Theme Ideas

Focus on technological developments in near-future societies, typically examining the social effects of a ubiquitous data sphere of computerized information, genetic engineering, modification of the human body, and the continued impact of perpetual technological change.

Depiction of a realistic near-future rather than space opera – style deep futures. The focus will be on the social effects of Earth-bound technology rather than space travel like in many science fiction narratives.

The characters will be more involved with society, and act to defend an existing social order or create a better society.

A focus on the alienating effect of new technology.

A more realistic depiction of computers, such as replacing virtual reality with a sort of super voice/audio/video/holographic Internet-based network.

Technology is pervasive, and technological advances have led to many social changes.

The Net is everywhere, and people who may not be able to eat tomorrow nevertheless have cheap handhelds.

Very technologically literate, and grounded in the science of today (using the wisdom that the 'Net is to the 90s what rocketry was to the 50s). It is also very humanist, even sentimental.

Explore themes related to world of accelerating technological innovation and ever-increasing complexity in ways relevant to our everyday lives without losing the "sense of wonder" that characterizes science fiction at its best.


Character Ideas

Maybe a journalist or computer literate character that maybe posts an annual Article on a Blog.

A firm believer in the truth and delivering the truth to his readers in the most direct and blunt manner possible.

Hates and struggles against authority figures who oppress others.

Bitter toward the uninvolved public who give the authority its power.

Struggles to convince the public to listen to The Truth, but is disgusted by those who blindly accept what he reports.

Believes that the key to preventing global government surveillance from turning into global suppression is to always insist on basic liberties and to keep government and law-enforcement agencies under constant scrutiny.


General Life

Most people live in houses built before 2000; roads, pavements, and gardens had changed little as well as furniture. New houses that are built are assembled from light prefabricated units, easily replaced or re-arranged if a change in architectural design is needed.

Food is essentially the same. Thou as well as traditional food you can try artificial meat or alcohol-free wine thou not as popular as the real thing, and are often purchased by the lower classes.

After a plague in 2014, which culled 7-10% of the male population in every European country, the way people lived became forever changed. With intruders now seen as a source of disease as well as crime, the middle classes seized on the new menace of plague as a pretext for protecting their estates against the underclass. Many people now live on enclosed estates with restricted access. Membership of your home estate give you access rights to estates. However, the underclass, including anyone convicted of a serious offence, are obliged to live in the so-called `free' or `unrestricted' zones, where crime and poverty were rife, and public services are minimal.

Schools and shops began to be resisted so that excursions outside the estate are rarely necessary. Within protected estates, crime rates among adults fell almost to zero. Some estates went as far as banning cars, which had to be kept in a multi-storey park inside the main gate. Parents could once more allow their small children to roam freely around the villages or estates. Throughout the world, society was now sharply polarized: either you lived on an estate, or you were condemned to the free zone. After the plague, the distinction between the developed countries and the third world became less significant.

Cheap Internet access has transformed economic life. Just as even the poorest families found ways of viewing television at the end of the 20th century, so unemployed people in the free zone manage somehow to connect to the Internet.
In this way, bright children could escape from apparently hopeless backgrounds by educating themselves and offering information services.

Companies quickly saw the potential of exploiting the intelligent poor in Russia, India and Africa. Tricky programming tasks were posted in open competitions: if a clever 12-year-old girl in Nigeria managed to outperform the opposition, she could earn a small remittance, insignificant to the company, but very significant to her.

Companies can now get their work done almost for nothing, evading any minimum wage legislation in their own economic areas. Subcontracting among the labour pool became common: an Indian boy might act as an intermediary between the company and the competing programmers, testing each program and choosing the best. The company would then pay the Indian boy, who would take his cut before paying the Nigerian girl who had written the actual code.

With increasing robotization of factories, the industrial working class shrank to under 5% of the workforce, a level comparable with the agricultural sector. By 2020, almost all work belonged to the sector of information and social services, and could be performed through a videophone link.

In 2030, human skills and creativity still dominated many professions, and there were still influential people who claimed that they always would.
Ownership of land and physical resources still matter, but even more significant is the ownership of intellectual property, including intellectual property that had been generated by intelligent computers rather than people.

People are still concerned with how they present themselves, both in physical space and in cyberspace. The fraction of the income that people spend on personal presentation has increased steadily throughout the century. As it became easier to satisfy material needs, people began to focus more on what and who they are in relation to others.

People have got used to the idea that everything they do can now be known by anybody who is interested in finding out. When you are going on a date with someone, you can check out their previous relationships, and so on.

Fears about society becoming similar to Orwell’s 1984, with Big Brother watching you all the time have long since diminished. The general mentality has become allot like staying in a nudist colony: when everybody is naked, the embarrassment quickly wears off. All the little secrets that people thought were so important quickly faded as peoples standards adapt and they became more tolerant. As long as you’re not doing anything really bad or break the law, you don’t have to worry about.

The key to preventing global surveillance from turning into global suppression is to always insist on basic liberties and to keep government and law-enforcement agencies under constant scrutiny. It has become crucial that people make sure that the system is transparent in both directions, so that people can watch who’s watching them. As a result, protests and campaigns are rife.

Drugs have become progressively more accepted.

The Narrative style

Ive been thinking about what kind of style i could construct the narrative around. One idea i had was a kind of Gonzo Journalism.

Gonzo journalism is a style of storytelling that mixes factual events into a fictional tale. It uses a highly subjective style that often includes the reporter as part of the story via a first person narrative and events can be exaggerated in order to emphasize the underlying message. Gonzo journalism can be seen as an offshoot of the New Journalism movement in the sixties, led primarily by Tom Wolfe, and also championed by Lester Bangs and George Plimpton. It has largely been subsumed into Creative nonfiction.

Ive also been looking at Postcyberpunk:

Postcyberpunk describes a subgenre of science fiction which some critics suggest has evolved from classic cyberpunk. Like its predecessor, postcyberpunk focuses on technological developments in near-future societies, typically examining the social effects of a ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, genetic engineering, modification of the human body, and the continued impact of perpetual technological change. Unlike "classic" cyberpunk, however, the works in this category feature characters who act to improve social conditions or at least protect the status quo from further decay.

Postcyberpunk possibly emerged because SF authors and the general population began using computers, the Internet, and PDAs to their benefit, without the extensive social fragmentation of this Digital Revolution predicted in the 1970s and 1980s.

illistration styles

Along side the narrative construction im also looking at illistration styles. Here are some examples of styles and looks i like:










Also ive found a web based game on the BBC web site, the style of which i also like. It can be found at: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/drama/heroes/mohinders_office.shtml

Cyberpunk style narrative

Looking at P.K. Dick has drawn my attention to a style of writeing / genre known as Cyberpunk:

From Wikipedia

Cyberpunk is a science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life". It is also a musical subgenre of metal. The name is derived from cybernetics and punk and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk" published in 1983[1], though it was popularized well before its publication by editor Gardner Dozois. It features advanced science such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or a radical change in the social order. According to Lawrence Person:

"Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body."

Cyberpunk writers tend to use elements from the hard-boiled detective novel, film noir, and postmodernist prose to describe the often nihilistic underground side of an electronic society. The genre's vision of a troubled future is often called the antithesis of the generally utopian visions of the future popular in the 1940s and 1950s. (Gibson defined cyberpunk's antipathy towards utopian SF in his 1981 short story The Gernsback Continuum, which pokes fun at and, to a certain extent, condemns utopian SF.)


Society and government

Cyberpunk literature is often used as a metaphor for the present day-worries about the failings of corporations, corruption in governments, alienation and surveillance technology. Cyberpunk can be intended to disquiet readers and call them to action. It often expresses a sense of rebellion, suggesting that one could describe it as a type of culture revolution in science fiction. In the words of author and critic David Brin,

"… a closer look at [cyberpunk authors] reveals that they nearly always portray future societies in which governments have become wimpy and pathetic … Popular science fiction tales by Gibson, Williams, Cadigan and others do depict Orwellian accumulations of power in the next century, but nearly always clutched in the secretive hands of a wealthy or corporate elite."

Cyberpunk stories have also been seen as fictional forecasts of the evolution of the Internet. The virtual world of what is now known as the Internet often appears under various names, including "cyberspace", "the Wired", "the Metaverse" or "the Matrix". In this context it is important to note that the earliest descriptions of a global communications network came long before the World Wide Web entered popular awareness, though not before traditional science fiction writers such as Arthur C. Clarke and some social commentators such as James Burke began predicting that such networks would eventually form

Interesting questions about possible A.I. rights have been introduced using cyberpunk stories as a springboard. Uploads of human minds, such as the Dixie Flatline (Neuromancer) and the Franklin Collective (Accelerando), as well as pure A.I.s such as 'Wintermute' (Neuromancer) or those depicted in A.I., consider themselves to have intelligence and self-awareness. This raises the question as to whether intelligence comparable to humans should give them comparable legal and moral standing.

After reading some Cyber punk works i found that a general theme of Cyber punk revolve around a small group of people, using technology in ways that it is not normaly used in an effort to get ahead or subvert the system.

Philip K Dick

I’m gonna start some extensive development of my narrative. I like the idea of not sticking to some of the norms of story’s set in the future, conventions like utopian societies and technology solving all of the world’s problems. My research has shown that while this has been a common vision of the future it never seems to come true. So instead I’m going to try an create a narrative that is a more accurate and raw representation of the future.

To start with I’m reviewing a few science fiction novels and movies that depict this more truthful representation of the future. To start, a little about Philip K Dick;

From Wikipedia

Foreshadowing the cyberpunk sub-genre, Philip K. Dick brought the anomic world of California to many of his works, exploring sociological and political themes in novels which were often dominated by monopolistic corporations and authoritarian governments. In his later works, Dick addressed the nature of drug use, paranoia and schizophrenia, religious experience and theology, drawing upon his own life experiences in novels such as A Scanner Darkly and VALIS.

His novel The Man in the High Castle bridged the genres of alternative history and science fiction, earning a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, a novel about a celebrity who awakens in a parallel universe where he is completely unknown, won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel in 1975. "I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards," Dick wrote of these stories. "In my writing I even question the universe; I wonder out loud if it is real, and I wonder out loud if all of us are real." Dick spent most of his career as a writer in near-poverty.[3]
Dick's stories have been adapted into popular films such as Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Impostor and others. In 2007 Dick became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series (#173).


Common themes

Dick's stories typically focus on the fragile nature of what is "real" and the construction of personal identity. His stories often become surreal fantasies as the main characters slowly discover that their everyday world is actually an illusion constructed by powerful external entities (such as in Ubik [4]), vast political conspiracies, or simply from the vicissitudes of an unreliable narrator.

"All of his work starts with the basic assumption that there cannot be one, single, objective reality," writes science fiction author Charles Platt. "Everything is a matter of perception. The ground is liable to shift under your feet. A protagonist may find himself living out another person's dream, or he may enter a drug-induced state that actually makes better sense than the real world, or he may cross into a different universe completely."

"I used to dig in the garden, and there is nothing fantastic or ultradimensional about crab grass... unless you are an sf (science fiction) writer, in which case you are viewing crab grass with suspicion. What are its real motives? And who sent it in the first place?" Philip K Dick, We can remember it for you wholesale, Notes, 1987, Orion.

Alternate universes and simulacra were common plot devices, with fictional worlds inhabited by common, working people, rather than galactic elites. "There are no heroes in Dick's books," Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, "but there are heroics. One is reminded of Dickens: what counts is the honesty, constancy, kindness and patience of ordinary people."[4] Dick made no secret that much of his ideas and work were heavily influenced by the writings of C.G. Jung, the Swiss founder of the theory of the human psyche he called "Analytical Psychology" (to distinguish it from Freud's theory of psychoanalysis). Jung was a self-taught expert on the unconscious and mythological foundations of conscious experience and was open to the Reality underlying mystical experiences.

The Jungian constructs and models that most concerned Dick seem to be the archetypes of the collective unconscious, group projection/ hallucination, synchronicities, and personality theory. Many of Dick's protagonists overtly analyze reality and their perceptions in Jungian terms (see Lies Inc.), while other times, the themes are so obviously in reference to Jung their usage needs no explanation. Dick's self-named "Exegesis" also contained many notes on Jung in relation to theology and mysticism.

Idea Development

To date, I’ve been looking at producing an interactive visual timeline to represent my findings and my own vision and predictions of the future. However I’ve been thinking about how to make this more visually appealing as well better clarifying exactly what I’m going to produce.

I’ve been influenced of late by illustration, in particular graphic novels, which game me an idea. I’ve always wanted to enhance my graphic and illustration skills and in school I always enjoyed writing story’s so I’m thinking why not combine the two?

Create a story, a kind of a day in the life (which I thought about doing a while ago but that was earlier on the year before I had a solid project idea so I forgot about it). The day in the life could follow a person of maybe similar age to me, maybe even a student or some kind of reporter, in the year 2030 / 2050. As they interact with things and go about their day, the narrative could back up the history and context of the technology. Furthermore I could then produce a series of full page images of certain scenes in the narrative.

I could produce this as both a printed piece and a web based piece.

LIFT Lab

Via the Near Futures web site i have also come across this web site.

http://liftlab.com/

LIFT lab is a network of talented individuals helping organizations cope with a changing world via research, services, events and publications. Technologies are opportunities to rewrite the rules, LIFT lab helps you stay in the game by identifying the important trends and connecting you to the relevant individuals.

Again, research into both this and other recent project related web sites ive discovered is on going

The Near futures Lab

Today ive come accross a web site called the Near Futures Lab, Its a kind of sister website to the Futures Lab which ive been looking at also.

The Near Futures Lab web site describes it's self as:

This is the notebook for The Near Future Laboratory, a design, development and research consultancy that combines strategy, analysis with design with rapid prototyping. We're a think/make design practice focusing on digital interaction designs based on "weak signals" from the fringes of digital culture, where the near-future already exists. We turn those weak signals into physical form by rapidly constructing prototypes of innovative designs for near-future products and services. Our goal is to synthesize provocative new designs and prototypes based on insight and analysis of cultural trends.

The Near Future Laboratory is a think/make-tank that combines analysis with design and prototyping in order to understand the possibilities for new digital interaction rituals.

Our process is straightforward. First we study the underlying social practices that define certain themes related to digital culture. We then develop these themes into scenarios and functioning prototypes that help to evoke the subtleties of these themes so that the implications and opportunities for future digital experiences, products and services are more clearly revealed.

Our practice lies across the spectrum of thought-provoking think-tank and hands-on development lab. We think about the near future by asking “what if?” and then develop informed responses by creating technologies that help answer these questions. We couple brain-storming, analysis, and synthesis with actual construction of digital devices and artifacts to better understand possible near future scenarios.

Ive only JUST come accross it but just from some images on its main page, it looks like the ideal web site to compliment my current project. Research continues!

http://www.nearfuturelaboratory.com/

Project development idea

I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a series of short books and maybe interactive CD’s to display my findings for the remainder of the project. Another idea that I’ve thought of before hand and which im now revisiting is maybe the creation of a short story. Charting a day in the life of someone in say 2050. As well as following a main character, I will also illustrate / visualize certain things mentioned in the story. E.g. scenes, devices, diagrams etc. Ill also provide descriptions of how certain things work and a brief history to back them up with. (an evolution)

Essentialy it will become a multimedia journey--combining images, textual commentary, and audio / video to illistrate my findings

Today’s Conventions and societys needs

This week ive been thinking allot about what the needs will be for the future. So once again ive been looking at the past for inspiration and context. Ive just remembered that i covered a similar topic in my dissertation last year!

Today’s Conventions

As I said in my introduction, just as conventions in society cause us to think in certain ways, so do conventions cause us to view design in certain ways. The most heavily used conventions in design today are abstract expressions like “innovative” , “dynamic” , “trendy” and “cool”. These intangible conventions are more often than not perceived as the more tangible forms of colour and materials. The conventions of colour and materials evoke the abstract expressions of “innovative” and “dynamic”.

These expressions of image are nothing new. Many years ago, when electricity first became available to the general public, the conventions at the time portrayed electricity as very expensive and dangerous. This was a serious problem for the fledgling industry before it even got off the ground. What the industry needed to do was to change this perception from expensive and dangerous to that of a modern
source of energy, accessible by all.

At the time, the conventions that would best change the view of electricity where that of technological futurism. The 50’s technological view of a better future promised chrome-plating, streamlined designs and better quality of living for all. These provided a ‘back bone’ for electricity that would change its image to
a modern, and above all progressive, form of power that was ahead of its time.

This basic premise of progressive conventions is still true today, despite the symbolism changing somewhat. I think ‘I-pod’ is a prime example of this. It evokes images of ‘modern’, ‘innovative’ and ‘ahead of its time’. Take a look at one; its surface is smooth and clean, and has little, if any, moving parts. These conventions, which have been used across Apple’s product range in recent years, are also common conventions in science and, more notably, science fiction, to depict a cleaner more efficient future and advanced technologies. Two most notable examples would be a certain black monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey or the relentless liquid metal killing machine T1000 in Terminator 2. These conventions in science fiction will be explored in more detail later on.

Science fiction aside, Apple’s design ethos, of late, also evokes an image of cleanliness which is more often a convention found in the bathroom rather than that of an innovative and award winning electronic products. So what is this convention doing in Apple’s design ethos? For that you don’t have look any further than Apples chief designer, Jonathan Ive. He came to Apple from a London design consultancy, that, among other things, produced bathtubs and wash basins. Products that both evoke a common perception of hygiene and cleanliness.

It’s these perceptions that have helped Apple’s designs become so successful, because people experience and interact with those perceptions on a daily basis whenever they go to the bathroom. These conventions are not immediately obvious to us outright, because we are not consciously aware of them. For example; have a look at an i-pod, maybe not the newer ones but certainly the early models. Now, have a look at a traditional bathtub. You will probably find that both have a smooth, white surface, with chrome finishes.

To sum up, conventions essentially shape our perceptions of the world and perceptions are crucial to the design process. The key to a good product in my opinion, is to communicate through conventions and in turn perceptions. More often that not, designs that have inappropriate communication or communicate a negative message never do as well as designs that have effective communication. Have you ever looked at or picked up a product in a shop and it just looks or feels cheap? I think this perception of value has a direct link with material and
communication conventions.

A prime example of this would again be the ‘i-pod’, or should I say the i-pods competition when it was launched on the market. MP3 players had maybe been around a year or so before I-pod came on the scene. Comparatively, i-pod and its competition functioned in much the same way. They both played and held similar amounts of music files. At the time, the current market-leaders in audio players had the edge
as already being established in the public’s mind-eye. Speaking from experience, I would certainly be perfectly happy to pay the extra money for a brand name audio product rather than a lesser known brand.

The ammunition that Apple unleashed to “blow its competition out the proverbial water” was its tried and tested new design ethos, pioneered by Jonathan Ive. Not only did the design of the i-pod evoke a cleaner perception of technology, but it gave a technological product something that it had long sought after but never truly mastered; style.

In years gone by, many electrical and technological retailers marketed products as “must have” items that, “would look great in your home”. Televisions and hi-fi systems would be finished with polished wood surfaces. Personal music players would be pitched with young and “cool” people dancing around with them in fashionable clothes. However Apple’s new ethos on design had made its products truly desirable. They didn’t need wood finishes or young people dancing around with them. They instantly portrayed this purely by the design.

The Apple design ethos dictated that; products no longer have to be finished with a variety of materials to match the furniture or decor because they became part of it! And personal music players no longer had to be marketed by young people in fashionable clothes because its designs became fashionable in their own right.

Because conventions ‘communicate’, we fill our homes and our lives with products that carry messages that communicate who we are. This has become increasingly apparent in recent years as a way to communicate social status via, self-expression, making design a powerful communication method. Conventions are even used in personal appearance. We can communicate what kind of person we are, our taste in music, or the social circles we move in,

“HAVE YOU EVER LOOKED AT OR PICKED UP A PRODUCT IN A SHOW AND IT JUST LOOKS OR FEELS CHEAP?”

Hologram Tech

www.eyeliner3d.com

Ive been trying to find technical data for holograms for a while, and i finaly made some head way today via the web site above

Haptics from Immersion

http://progressive.playstream.com/immersion/progressive/techcloseup.swf

Idea

Just in case i forget, i should post my project in second life??!?!

My project in a nut shell - to date

An exploration into how new technologies will change the way we live and how the conventions generated by these new technologies will influence not only the technology itself but the culture that created and interacts with it. Strong emphasis will be centred on how retailers could use new technology to interact with consumers and how the technology and conventions that exist today will evolve over the coming years.

Panasonic's Interactive TV Wall

Technology and man are one in the same!

The long term trends for the future of technology

• A drift towards specialisation (e.g. ever increasing variations of products for more specific tasks)

• Diversity: The average household today has 6 thousand different ‘species of technology’. Henry the 8th only had about 7 thousand items in his house hold, and that was the entire wealth of England at that time.

• Complexity: more and more often, machines are making more complex machines to make more complex machines

• Socialisation: more and more devices and technologies are talking to each other.

Very similar to the long term trends of biology and more importantly humanity.

• Ubiquity
• Diversity
• Specialisation
• Complexity
• Socialisation

You could track the development of military armour or weapons and it would follow a Holistic tree (technology tree)
It took almost 15 years to map human DNA, but 2/3’s of all the research was done in the last 2 or 3 years. Once the development of something reaches a certain point it explodes. Its called the paradigm shift rate. Its the rate of which new ideas are adopted. The rate of which we adopt new ideas is doubling every decade.

Light-emitting shirts!

Ultra thin video screen

3rd Generation Program of Stud

Title: The conventions of new technologies: An exploration into how new technologies will change the way we live and how the conventions generated by these new technologies will influence not only the technology itself but the culture that created and interacts with it.

Research: My research will encompass many mediums and topics.

A detailed look into the history of technology and how it can change a society and what kind of changes these can include.

I will also look at the evolution of a range of technology’s, and how it evolves and changes over time and the conventions (expected and un-expected) that these changes can generate.

I’ll look into a wider context of the effects of technology by looking how it has change today’s society. Looking at the economy, politics, globalisation and culture.

Ill also look into new and emerging technologies that are still in their infancy and or still in development.

I will investigate into a number of futurologist to better understand the techniques and foresight they implement to predict the future.

The collation of all the above research into a final report / dissertation.


Aims: Make a series of predictions that take into account past and present technological and social conventions to track the development of current and new technologies over the coming years.

Once a better understanding of potential future technologies has been reached, to develop a range of visuals that depict this new technologies and how it would be used. Strong emphasis will be centred on how retailers could use new technology to interact with consumers and how the technology and conventions that exist today will evolve over the coming years.

Finally, to present the final created media in an appropriate format.


Method: The broad scope of the research will require many hours of sifting through a range of different mediums and documents to find relevant and useful information.

The formulation of my own vision of the future will require a level of intellectual strategic foresight which can be accomplished by collating the relevant research .

Rather than simply coming up with a random outcome I’m going to take a certain type of technology(s) that are currently available, analysing what they are currently capable of at present, and then predicting how the technology could advance over the next ‘x’ amount of years. I’ll do this so an outside observer to my work has a good idea of what the technology is currently capable of and so have a context of which to view the technologies evolution.

At this stage, the potential and capabilities will be clear in my head which will aid me to accurately and better visualise the designs and concepts. It’s around this point that I will look at context, and how best these technologies could be implemented and where. Their location could greatly influence how they look and operate. Depending on the concepts, I may mock up a simple version that people could interact with so i can test my outcomes as I go along.

For this project I intend to look more at the visual aspect of the how retailers could use new technology to interact with consumers rather than the technical and electronic side to it. So my final outcomes and presentation will have to reflect this. Interaction is quite an integral part so many of the final images will have to show people interacting with my designs, be this 2D images or a short video or 3D animation clearly showing the interaction. Other aspects of the project which will include research, development, blog & multimedia will also have to represented in a very visual way. So perhaps a digital catalogue of all this information will have to be produced.

Part 2: Software Evolution & development

When you think of big software company’s you think the two most universal ones. Microsoft and Apple. For years they have remained the two main super powers in the software world. Microsoft and its windows operating system can be found on well over 85% of personal computers. Apple, while not in as many homes as Microsoft has a sense of style desirability and above all reliability that Microsoft seems to lack.
But what of the future?

Will Microsoft continue its domination? Will apples increased popularity begin to turn the tables or has something started that both will struggle to compete with? In recent years, Microsoft has come under increasing criticism over the security problems and reliability issues with windows. It has also been accused of monopolising the industry by restricting user flexibility. Apple has enjoyed recent revival with its Mac and i-pod series’.

But it has a long way to go to compete with the conventions that Microsoft has established, both on and offline.

But recently, a new phenomenon has started to gain a foot hold in the industry. It’s not a new operation system, nor is it a sense of style or reliability; in fact it’s not a single entity. It dwells within the new insurgence of niche and specialty products. Things like mobile phones, mp3 players, PDA’s. Products that use their own operating systems that are designed for purpose. Many reflecting the Linux style mentality, innovative & drive.

As I mentioned before, these new niche and speciality products use their own built for purpose software / operating systems. This new breed of object-specific programming is more reliable and does away with the plethora of extras they you don’t really need. They do however still adhere to some conventions in order to access common things like the internet and e-mail.

Another recent development in the evolution of software drives from the internet. Increasingly the internet has become more and more personal and customisable. Some of the software behind this are things like Java, Flash and ActiveX. These so-called 'DNA' technologies have helped not only the creation of innovative interfaces and user experiences but also allow user generated content.

The ability to customise our user experience when using a product has been a convention common to operating system for a number of years now. Examples include the customization of backgrounds, screen savers, mouse pointers, colour themes etc. So perhaps the natural progression is for more and more ability to customise our user experience.
Many phones already provide this function, but perhaps the next step is the ability for the user to design their own interfaces and capabilities.

Or maybe for independent companies to sell users a range of interfaces for a range of products. Perhaps products will be sold blank, letting the user to update their own software. With this capability, people may choose to update the software rather than the product, adding or removing functions and facilities as you choose, just as people choose what channels they want to watch and pay for when choosing digital TV Packages. With people updating software rather than the physical products, designs of products will have to change, with more standardized functions and capabilities across product ranges and increased desirability.

Perhaps this new level of customization ability will come full circle and influencing software development for personal computers. Perhaps in the future operating systems will be shipped as a standard framework or foundation of conventions that the user can then customize to their own needs or tastes. They then could upload, essentially their own operating systems for people to download and try for free or for a small free. In essence, the average person becomes a “prosumer”. Both a consumer and producer of technology.

Moreover, with increasing internet connectivity, reliability and speed, perhaps the future of personal computers could forever be changed.

In the future, operating systems could exist permanently online. Allowing the programmers and developers to constantly update and make improvements to their product. So we might never again see new software realises, just periodic updates. Furthermore, with the afforested increased internet speeds and connectivity, as well as greater storage capacity, perhaps the personal computer will become essentially a screen, some speakers and a key board. But with touch screen coming more and more common even key boards could go out the window.

How long until the personal computer disappears entirely leaving nothing more than a screen / portal to the virtual world. Finally, with the home / personal computer essentially existing virtually, you will be able to access it anywhere. How will the world around us evolve to accommodate an increased need to access infomation.

Does technology control society or does society control technolog?

Part 1

My ongoing research has found that development and creation of new technologies has, and continues to have a detrimental effect on our culture and society. I’ve also discovered that the two can also influence each other in a kind of symbiotic relationship.

I have also found that the conventions that culture and society place on these technologies evolve over time just as the societies and technologies evolve. Moreover, some of the effects new technology can have are often unanticipated ones but can often be as important as the intended effect of the technology.
Take the printing press for example. The news papers of 100 years ago are hugely different to those of today. The conventions we know today like the headline, front page story, advertising space etc have evolved over the intervening period from the first printing run till now.

A more recent example would be the internet. Originally developed for the military, the internet came into its own with the dot com boom in the 90’s. It’s developed from a few hundred basic pages displaying information and small images to today’s internet, which with the development of far greater internet speed, and innovative coding and new software, a highly multimedia and personal experience.

Looking back at history, it doesn’t take long to find examples of technologies changing cultures. We have historical ages that reflect technological development. E.g. the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, Iron Age and more recently the industrial revolution.

However the industrial revolution was wholly different to the others because it fundamentally changed society and culture. The mass explosion of new technologies, knowledge & understanding began to challenge traditional norms and values. The social fabrics began to change. While the unfavoured lower classes remained an undesirable part of society, they became an essential driving force behind the revolution as they became proverbial cogs in the mighty industrial machine.

It wasn’t long before both the upper and lower classes realised the potential and power of the lower classes. The upper classes realised that without the lower classes to work in their factories they couldn’t make any money. The lower classes in tern realised their potential power and that they could ask for more from their employers, thus unions where born.

We now live an age where everyone has realised the potential of technology and continued technological development, be it to make our lives easier, furthering the understanding of the universe, economic gain or national security.

It is the last 2 that are most prevalent in today’s culture. So it is no surprise the biggest financial backing for furthering technological development are governments. Entire government agencies have been specifically dedicated to research, like America's National Science Foundation or the UK’s scientific research institutes. Research and development into new technologies has become one the biggest investments both in government and large corporations.


But it is still the individual, the everyday consumer that continues to have a huge influence over technology. History has shown that many technologies have developed to make our lives easier. The ability to complete more tasks in less time. This is a notion that continues to appeal to society. The resulting effect is that a society that has the power to control the level and direction of technology through the consumer choices they make.

But what a society enjoys the most in choice. Choice has fuelled modern consumerism. You only have to go as far as your corner shop to discover this. At one time, you went down your local shop and you would buy a tin of soup because that was the only tin of soup being produced, now you go down the shop and you have a good half a dozen at least. With all this choice, would you still want to live in a world where you are essential told what you buy?