Design Insights 9.28

Design: 

• Many "smart home" technologies are a minefield for users in their relationships to each other and their living spaces. The technology piece is there, but much of what's been developed fails the social side and requires more technology literacy than the average person knows, or wants to know about. 
• Speaking of technology literacy, Buzzfeed nails the tech product review for the latest iPhone by (surprise) writing the review from the perspective and use cases of a real person. It presents the product in the context of our lives, not the other way around. It still covers the nitty gritty product differences, but in a way that shows why we should or shouldn't care. More of this please. 
• Formlabs unveiled their latest 3D printer this past week, the Form 2. It's a big step forward in the ease of use and reliability of desktop digital fabrication tools, and a raising of the bar on what user expectations for more affordable machines will be going forward. 
• Cloud based solid modeling software got a big boost this week, with OnShape announcing collecting $80M from investors. We have some mixed views on CAD modeling moving to cloud completely, but it's certainly a trend that finally has some real traction.

Roadmapping the Future: 

• Foreboding news, the first withdrawal from the "doomsday seed vault" has been made. 
• Quirky was supposed to be the future of inventing, pairing the wisdom of crowds with design, manufacturing + distribution know-how. After raising around $185M, they stumbled and finally filed for bankruptcy. What went wrong? Ben Einstein from BoltVC has a take on the matter, and there's a lot in it that we agree with. Well worth the read.
• Amazon, Apple, and others have been predicting a future where we talk to our devices more than tap or swipe them. Wired discusses the audio interface layer. The field of UI/UX, when used to describe how we engage with our little (and big) screens, is going to be especially shaken up by our devices shifting to audio input as the default instead of our fingers. Will English majors, storytellers and comedians have their tech moment, helping to build systems that celebrate the word instead of the pixel? 

Machines for Moving: 

• It's not the first cargo scooter design by any means, but with the rise of same-day delivery and on demand errands, vehicles like the Trefor Tripl could be a common sight on city streets in the near future. 
• Clearpath Robotics is showing off their latest robot, this time for warehouse applications (many of their previous machines have been for off-road contexts). The need for warehousing / fulfillment solutions that reduce labor are only going up as e-commerce gets wider and deeper, and it's drawing legitimate competitors to pioneers like Kiva Systems. Notably, Harvest Automation, which had been focused on ag-tech robotics has added warehouse robotics and seems to be focusing marketing efforts on moving packages instead of plants. Inevitably this competition will drive down costs- we don't think it will be long before similar machines are stocking shelves at your local big box retailers too. 

Bias and Brains: 

• Tips on how to get more diversity on your team when hiring.

Design Insights 9.21

Design: 

• What rose gold means. 
• Caterpillar's design for more sustainable, energy-efficient heavy equipment was accomplished outside of Caterpillar's formal lines. A great example of innovation from within - run by the workers themselves, not a department head. 

Roadmapping the Future: 

• Engineering foods that can survive future climate conditions. 
• Perhaps no one is helping us get to a dystopian food future faster than Hormel (of SPAM fame). After acquiring companies like Skippy (peanut butter), Applegate (organic meat) and Muscle Milk (god knows what, really) they are still "hungry for growth" and developing products for something called SPAM Snacks, with "proprietary dried meat technology" It's the same old model of inventing contrary to customer desires and then marketing aggressively that has been hurting the bottom line of other food processing megacorporations.
• UPS is engaging with 3D printing, testing out new services and part fulfillment - in part because it doesn't know what impact additive manufacturing could have on it's current advantages in logistics and distribution. That lack of understanding or vision doesn't bode well for their efforts in an extremely fast moving space. 

Building Things: 

• Since everyone assumed vinyl record production would fade away to nothing, the pressing equipment used to make records is hard to come by. Factories are hacking together their own solutions, making repairs and custom built parts to keep production going. 
• First their crowdfunding platform- now Etsy is getting into the manufacturing business. 
• More and more companies are taking India seriously as a manufacturing center. 

Bias and Brains: 

• Why is it that futurists can imagine robots, flying cars and automated kitchens, but not a world of gender equality or fluidity?

More next week. 

Design Insights 9.14

Design: 

• Edible food packaging could be instrumental in reducing the waste associated with getting grains, gels and liquids from farm or processing facility to your table. While it started as a neat molecular gastronomy trick it's now getting some real development work to make it a potentially viable commercial solution for mass markets. 
• Being a better designer means being a more curious human overall and studying all sorts of things that are not design. Seems obvious enough but worth reiterating. 
• A $200 single serving tea machine. The human ritual of making tea goes back to around 300 AD, at least. It's safe to say that collectively we enjoy the habit overall, and that the act of making and sharing tea plays an important role across many cultures and nations, so maybe we would be better off without a "keurig machine for tea." 

Humanity Intersecting Technology: 

• What happens you spend a lot of time experiencing the world through a robot proxy? Weird things, turns out. A great read on how it feels to filter our human nature through a machine.
• Business Insider says that smartphones and high-fidelity digital maps are helping refugees make their own way and avoid the traps of human traffickers and smugglers. 
• Lower automation technology costs could mean some dining out options become more of a "food delivery" experience, less a human one. 

Designing Space: 

• Giant LEGO-like blocks for adults to build their own life size forts or partitions. It seems a little goofy at first but a modular, flexible function system like that could save mixed-use spaces time, money, and construction/furniture waste over longer term.

Our Weird Future: 

• Robots that identify sea stars and then assassinate them (using a poison injecting needle) in order to preserve coral reefs. It might be helping the oceans but it's going to haunt your dreams. 

More next week.