Insights 3.20

Roadmapping the Future: 

• Christopher Mims of the Wall Street Journal says virtual reality and augmented reality are going to be defining technologies of our 21st century, helping us interact with the computational, digital realm in more intuitive and powerful ways. At CLEAR design lab when we look around our studio at the 8 monitors for 3 people that come along with our CAD modeling and design tasks, it's nice to imagine an alternative that takes up less space and allows you to do more. From our perspective the big question is what will the new interfaces and interactions of these amorphous, all over displays be like, and how much of the current design vernacular will we have to throw away to get there- how long will it take for the "right" forms of interaction to emerge that live up to the hype?
• Circuit boards and software layers get the lion's share of tech news coverage but the consumerization of biotech products and services continues to ramp up just outside of the mainstream. From 23andMe to desktop lab products like Amino One, many companies are betting that the future of hacking and tech will get more organic as Moore's law stumbles. The latest product in the space to generate some buzz is a portable DNA sequencer by MinION, who says their long term vision is to build an "internet of living things." 

Machines for Moving : 

• A good read on the tiny biological motors inside of bacteria, that are getting imaged for the first time. The old adage about there being nothing new under the sun may not be true, but when we dig deeply into the natural world we find that many of our human inventions have precedents that predate our entire species. How's that for humbling? 

Virtually There: 

• As the internet becomes a physical presence, whether simulated as in VR, or actual as in telepresence robots/IoT, some of the worst behaviors we see online are making the jump, and getting more inescapable. Two stories this week give a glimpse into the potential and pitfalls of new technological forms meeting old human behaviors: a telepresence robot stirs up controversy at a Brown University event and how VR makes online harassment feel even worse, more invasive.

Automatons: 

• A tough week for companies building complex robotics systems: Google is looking to sell off Boston Dynamics, a robotics company best known for their groundbreaking DARPA projects. They acquired Boston Dynamics back in 2013, according to Bloomberg, Google is looking to shed Boston Dynamics because they are unlikely to produce a marketable product in the next few years. Agricultural and warehouse robot maker Harvest Automation has cut their staff significantly, from about 30 people in 2015, now down to "just a handful." Both companies have built amazing devices and equipment, but the market turbulence they face is indicative of the fact that instrumenting and acting upon the physical world with truly autonomous tech in a way that nets a positive value for buyers is a Herculean feat. For all our foibles, humans remain the most practical and economical source of labor, even in fairly predictable contexts. 

More next week.

Insights 3.13

Body/Image: 

• A startup is working on automatically adjusting optics so that you can focus near, far, or somewhere in the middle - a big problem for a lot of us as we get older and vision deteriorates across the range. Unfortunately it's pretty bulky in it's current form and it may be awhile before it's slim enough to blend in as part of your glasses frame. 

Feeding the Future : 

• Biodegradable soil sensors offer farmers detailed look at what's happening in their fields without having to worry about accidentally running over expensive equipment in the field - as a (huge) bonus, far less e-waste piling up and spoiling land in general. 
• Famous for butter but hungry for more, Land O'Lakes has been investing heavily in precision agriculture over the last several years - including acquiring a  French satellite company with the goal of going up against AgTech giants like Monsanto and John Deere. 

Machines for Moving: 

• Jaybridge Robotics was acquired by Toyota to join their AI team, presumably to work on self-driving cars. General Motors picked up driverless car startup Cruise Automation. Whether incumbent auto makers are going to win the race for truly autonomous (and safe) vehicles instead of Tesla, Google or others remains to be seen - but the auto giants seem to be hedging their bets by buying their way into the bleeding edge and domain knowledge outside of their own. To be sure, a household name will be helpful for convincing the public of the safety and reliability of self-driving, but when the trust is more about the quality of the technology than the quality of the engine, a name synonymous with sedans might lose out to a name synonymous with search. 

Building Things: 

• A new patent from Ford for capturing engine pollutants via a hydrocarbon absorbent insert molded into a plastic intake duct. It's a novel example of the still largely uncultivated realm of making products and parts work harder for us through piggy-backing material science and location/function. 
• Wearable technology that gets into medical device territory is an extremely difficult task - readings have to be perfect in imperfect conditions with a high potential for user error baked in. After $22 million raised to develop a hardware product, numerous staff departures, missed dates for product unveiling, and a CEO change, Quanttus finally unveiled their first product - an app for recording blood pressure, with no hardware at all. 

More next week.

Insights 3.06

Design: 

• Big business consultancies continue to swallow up creative agencies of all kinds - the latest is Deloitte acquiring the digital marketing / ad agency Heat. Anyone who has read this newsletter for awhile knows we're skeptical that these "corporate eating creative" relationships will hold up and provide value in the longer term. It makes sense that business consultancies are looking for ways to build out service offerings to capitalize on what humans continue to do well, namely create new ideas. As software continues to eat the actuarial aspects of their businesses and productivity tools that don't require expert implementation continue to grow, gains have to come from other quarters.
• We almost certainly haven't reached peak internet-of-things, though it can feel like it when companies start putting circuit boards into water pitchers. With so many businesses working to build connectivity into their devices, this could be a good time for the U.S. to implement mandatory producer reprocessing/recycling systems, and an e-waste tax. Just because the dollar cost of components have fallen, it doesn't mean that the externalized environmental costs we're all stuck with have gone down. 

Body/Image: 

• An app to help people of color find out what various makeup brands will look like on their skin before they buy it. It's a smart solution to the problem, but the fashion & cosmetics industries ought to be correcting their flawed processes that assume whiteness - as with many design bias blindspots, it likely comes down to homogeneity in the makeup of decision makers along the way.
• Apparently, when we measure certain activities, we enjoy them less. This doesn't bode well for the quantified self tech of fitness trackers helping us internalize the active behaviors they are supposed to encourage. 

Branded: 

• Trader Joe's abstains from social media. A good read on the IRL appeals that Trader Joe's counts on to carve out a competitive identity in the grocery business. 

Technology as a Threat: 

• Human traffickers are using implanted electronic tags to track the people they prey on, making it more difficult for law enforcement to have opportunities to intervene. Increasingly, health care workers are taking up responsibilities as front-line advocates for victims. 

Building Things: 

• Appreciating ancient innovations: The Smithsonian gets into some pretty wild nano fabrication techniques developed in Rome. 
• Making plastics from chewed gum. It's innovative, it's environmentally responsible....maybe just don't tell us where that plastic fork started out. 

More next week.