Fusing Design with Technology

PreacherTom writes "Since the creations by Walt Disney of Space Mountain and EPCOT, progressives have attempted to show us a picture of how technology will affect our future lives. More often than not, these pictures become laughable after 20 years. Not for Royal Philips Electronics, who at their Simplicity Event in London unveiled their picture of the seamlessly technological future, including e-blackboards, cosmetic skintone scanners, and (sure to make the mouths of geeks water) the amBXT Immersive Gaming Experience."

How many kinds of bad is that summary?

[Nova Express]

Whoa boy, where to start:

"Since the creations by Walt Disney of Space Mountain and EPCOT, progressives have attempted to show us a picture of how technology will affect our future lives.

1. It's a lot older than Disney World. 1939 World's fair, anyone? Or before that, how about a more radical example, like the Italian Futurists.
2. "Progressives" - "I don't think that word means what you think it means." These days, "Progressive" means "a liberal, but we can't call him a liberal because that phrase is too unpopular with voters." Do you mean a futurist? A student of progress?

More often than not, these pictures become laughable after 20 years. Not for Royal Philips Electronics

Uh, who died and made you Hari Seldon? You have absolutely no way of knowing that Phillips' vision won't look equally laughable 20 years down the road. History suggests it will be just as laughable. If you could see the future, you'd be investing in the stock market, not posting to Slashdot.

The future will not only be stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can imagine...

Not so fast

[slobber]

"The last decade was the information society, but going forward, health and well-being will be a leading theme and driver of economic growth" says Philips CEO Gerard Kleisterlee.

Sounds like he is comparing apples to oranges here - information is a tool which can be used very effectively for achieving health and well being. So yes, while one can say that last decade was focused on information, I still see a huge room for improvement going forward - namely we need much better information classification to aid retrieval (for example, we can't search images, audio, or video unless they've been tagged). This, keeping focus on information is and will be essential for a Loooooooong time to come.

Re:How many kinds of bad is that summary?

[Anonymous Coward]

These days, "Progressive" means "a liberal", but we can't call him a liberal because that phrase is too unpopular with voters.

Perhaps in the US. But not in the Netherlands. It is generally not considered as progressive or leftist. The political term "liberalism" is considered to be right of the middle, whereas socialims is on the left side. Most business people in the Netherlands vote VVD, which is the liberal party.

Lasers

[RealGrouchy]

Remember when lasers were new (well, I don't, but I've seen the old magazines)?

Science magazines were all saying "lasers have so many uses and are going to be in every part of our life."

I think that to a degree, these people were right. There are plenty of informational uses (optical media), medical uses (laser eye surgery), among others.

But the reality is that day-to-day life hasn't changed, and we don't wake up and use our laser-spoon to eat our laser-ceral in the morning. Look at the average family, and sure they're different from a similar family of 50 years ago, but most of the noticeable differences are social/behavioural, even if those behaviours are based around new technology.

The future is much more boring than what looks good on the cover of Science/Tech magazines. The city of 50 years from now isn't going to be mostly buildings built 50 years from now; most of the city will look 50-80% the same.

- RG