Events
Wearable Technologies coming to some clothing near you
Tuesday 17 March 2009
A few years ago whilst researching and generating ideas for the National Geographic Channel's futures based TV shows 'Future Matters' I discussed the idea of what I then called 'WEs' or Wearable Electronics. I mentioned that this was a substantially different approach than portable electronics, which is what most mobile phones and laptop computers were at that stage - useful electronic devices that you could carry around with you to perform a series of functions. WEs were embedded into your clothing, they quite literally became a part of what you were. And now it seems that MIT have taken a giant step towards creating the world's first truly embedded wearable technology as showcased at TED recently
They've dubbed it a 'sixth sense' style of unit and as you can see in the link below, it provides a level of functionality and automatic data engagement that is fast and impulse like. This differs substantially from mobile phones that enable you to provide access to information provided you deliberately apply them to that purpose. The MIT unit is, well light years ahead by comparison.
As someone who hasn't been tied to a mobile phone of any description for the best part of 6 years, this is the type of unit that might get me to re-engage with the disruptiveness of mobile phone technology.
Pattie Maes' from MIT, provides the presentation, giving a great wrap to her student Pranav Mistry (someone whose brain I'd very much like to meet) who devised the current model. The unit combines a projector, phone, camera and mirror and brings my thinking of WE's much closer to reality.
I think that the 'Sixth Sense' metaphor might actually do this technology a disservice. To me it is more about 'extended consciousness' - something that can finally break the neural limitations as cited in Miller's ground breaking paper 'The magical number 7 (+ or - 2)' which showed how for most people, the most amount of conscious information we can hold is seven, plus or minus two pieces of information. This has the potential to rapidly speed up and have available to us, far greater volumes of potential useful and important information right before our eyes.
You can watch the presentation here at this link
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Events
Friday 16 July 2010
A series of recent activities has me writing on the idea of 'future strategy' and how different organisations are approaching their future development. What is interesting is the strong sense that preparing for your potential future requires multiple paths forward, not a single 'home run'. To that end I've recently considered sporting bodies and local community driven programs which has triggered these 'thought bubbles'
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Monday 5 July 2010
Stephen Downes is one the handful of bloggers I follow consistently. I do so because Downes (unlike many others unfortunately) like to write about his thinking AS WELL AS promoting the thinking of others, whether or not he agrees with them. In that way you get a solid collection of alternative views within his field of endeavour (learning & teaching et al). The link below will take you to a presentation by David Harvey that walks you through an interesting interpretation of the Capitalist model and where we are at in the world affairs. Whether or not you agree with the content, it is highly recommended
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Monday 28 June 2010
Coming off what has been undoubtedly my busiest period (3 months) in the past decade, I'm in the throws of catching up on some light reading. I usually have at least two books on the go and my preference is for the books to be about diverse topics because it allows the mind to seek out random connections. I once 'solved' the nuclear fusion problem whilst reading books by Umberto Eco and John D Barrow. A physicist friend of mine suggested my idea was radical and yet theoretically possible. But I digress. Right now I have a wide combination - 'From Poverty to Peace' by Duncan Green looks at ways in which we can empower people to help themselves more effectively, whilst looking at the myriad of mistakes so commonly made in the area of 'aid'. 'New knowledge in Human Values' is an older book edited by Ambraham Maslow with a wide contribution of thoughts from the likes of Pitirim Sorokin, Dorothy Lee and Paul Tillich (among others) and is a walk through some of the thinking about Human Values emerging in the late 1950's. The chapters are appropriately dense undertakings and I'm finding it hard to stick with, especially as I'm more inclined to lean towards the model of Clare W Graves and his Value Systems Thoery; 'Coercion as Cure' by Thomas Szasz is a ripper of a book thus far, though I'm only a few chapters in, I can tell the quality of a book by how much 'tagging' I do within a text
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