Insights 5.22

Design: 

• MIT researchers used additive manufacturing to develop some very interesting hair like structures that can produce linear and/or rotary motion, be used as input devices or mechanical adhesives. It's a project that demonstrates the real power of 3D printing comes from taking advantage of how printing processes work, rather than how well the outputs can replicate something like injection molding geometries. 

Virtually There : 

• The phenomenon of "time dilation" in VR means sometimes people have no idea how long they have been disembodied in the digital ether. 
• VR can have a visceral grip on our human senses (in some cases breaking down any sense of separation between our physical, tangible bodies and our digital twins) there are serious concerns about the ethical risks involved. With the potential for too real scares in our entertainment or torture that traumatizes while leaving no visible trace, we are entering uncharted territory. While almost any new technology entering the mainstream carries with it a wave of unwarranted and ill informed panic, the very unusual abilities of VR to play with our brains and bodies suggest that at least a bit of extra caution is warranted.

Automatons: 

• Chinese appliance company Midea is acquiring a majority stake in Kuka, a big player in the industrial robotics sphere. China's rapidly increasing labor costs combined with a commodities glut and irregular patterns of production demand makes buying into a deep fleet of robots a logical (if politically tricky) bet. While adding manufacturing jobs is a standard political trope in election cycles, in reality the future of production will belong to the countries and companies that are most willing to make aggressive moves away from human labor in factory roles. 

Technology Odds & Ends: 

• As part of their sprawling research and hardware efforts, Google has developed a "gigapixel" camera to capture the fine detail and texture of artwork. It scans across from detail to detail with robotic positioning, using a combination of laser and sonar to measure distance and focus accordingly. It goes to show how Google's mission of organizing the world's information has grown in breadth and depth over the years, reaching for as much omniscience as the state of the art (and R&D budgets) will allow. 

More next week.

Insights 5.15

Design: 

• DOOM and Dial-Up: The influence of early computer games on the internet's structures and aesthetics overall.

Watching the Watchmen (with data): 

• Some open data sleuthing demonstrates that the NYPD is in the habit of writing phony parking tickets (fining people for perfectly legitimate spots) and it adds up to millions of dollars per year. Perhaps cities should reward findings like these with something like the bug bounties that software companies pay out when someone spots a security flaw in their code. 
• GPS tracking of highly toxic "e-waste" that is supposed to be recycled finds that it is often simply and irresponsibly exported. The promise of recycling is more myth than science: the majority of materials are dramatically downgraded while using up a bunch of energy for transport and reprocessing, and many factories refuse to deal with the complications of recycled input materials. The situation is even worse for heterogeneous goods like consumer electronics, as many products are simply too complex to be disassembled and recycled cost effectively. The positive hype around recycling persists because it allows us to consume as much as possible while maintaining a sense of doing the right thing (reduction and reuse receive comparatively little attention, at least in the U.S.). There are some promising possibilities on the horizon like Apple's disassembly robots, but until externalized costs are felt by manufacturers, give "recycling" the close, cynical read it deserves.

Upgrading Ourselves: 

• You can build your own artificial pancreas if you think the FDA isn't moving fast enough. The story of the technology itself is not new, but the fact that building these systems is gaining wider acceptance and adoption and moving from fringe hacker activity to flirting with the mainstream is telling. This seems destined to become a template for building technologies into our bodies outside of clinical contexts - if your neighbor is doing it, it starts to feel a lot less risky and exotic. 

More next week.

Insights 5.08

Design: 

• Thingiverse, the digital library for 3D printable files gets an art bot that remixes existing models and some makers seem fairly pissy about it.  Even in supposedly open and freewheeling communities that embrace "making" wholeheartedly (Star Wars tchotchkes and tools for amateur science appear to be accepted in equal measure) there are still ideas of what is unacceptable, to be kept outside the gates. 
• How Netflix redesigns their images to maximize the odds you'll keep looking.

Technology as a Threat: 

• The latest instance of Big (dumb) Data having racist consequences: algorithmic bias by Amazon lead to Roxbury being the only spot in Boston where you couldn't get same day delivery. The opacity of the privately-owned algorithm means that we can only (sometimes) identify the systemic racism retrospectively by observing the outcomes. 

Machines for Moving: 

• Containerized shipping turns 60. What started as a dream for an intermodal standard has become the go-to symbol for global trade and logistics as a field: anonymous, opaque and interchangeable, totally agnostic about its contents and set apart from the human labor creating the goods to fill them. It's an amazingly efficient system, and one we are still very much grappling with the consequences of the better part of a century later. 

 

Upgrading Ourselves: 

• The Wyss Institute at Harvard has been developing a device that vibrates the soles of your feet to "prime" nerve endings which improves balance and agility, particularly when fatigued. It's a clever bit of engineering - boosting our human capabilities through stimulating underlying sensitivities instead of grafting harder, heavier tech onto or into the body. 

More next week.