Insights 6.19

Design: 

• Real time application of a style input (using a simple sphere as a reference point) to complex 3D models and animations. It's an amazing bit of technology, though looking to the past in mimicking of analog aesthetics seems like an odd way to show it off. 

Virtually There: 

• Aware of how the awful power of online harassment is augmented by virtual reality, some companies are building in personal space bubbles by default. It's great to see designers and engineers picking up early signals of trouble in technologies and working to build features that limit the reach of bad actors from the start. 
• The variety of sensors present in VR headsets can provide software developers with incredibly detailed information about the wearer's state of mind, how their body is responding to stimuli, and other data that is both useful and potentially invasive. Responsive software could automatically tune itself for optimal addiction or a data breach might provide con artists with insights into your brain's particular desires and fears. Since consumer oriented wearable technology started flirting with providing pseudo-medical data logging and analysis privacy has been a perennial concern. When we move from tracking our steps to mapping our (normally private) emotions, the stakes are much higher. 

Solutions from Down the Supply Chain: 

• The sprawling investigations of supply chains and labor practices that go into making a complex piece of technology like a smartphone in something like an ethical way. The real brilliance of the Fairphone project is making repair/refurbishment intrinsic to the design and engineering, supporting circular economy practices in what is normally a fast tracking of scarce resources from open pit mines to landfills, with a lot of human exploitation along the way. 

More next week.

Insights 6.13

Design: 

• A solid take on the promise and failure of "maker culture" and the work that needs to be done to reorient society for a more open and less resource intensive future. Access to tools and new technologies isn't enough- ultimately we are creatures that try to bend the world to our desires, no matter how costly, destructive or empty the outcomes might be. We will have to be persuaded to depart from the stylistic and material expectations of mass produced goods and put more care into the design of open products if they're going to have a chance of upsetting the status quo. 
• Keurig's soda machine, the Keurig Kold is being discontinued. We mentioned a bunch of reasons we thought it was a bad idea back in December and it looks like most people felt they didn't need another wasteful, costly kitchen gadget. Unfortunately when a company the size of Keurig makes a product bet that goes to market and fails, many are affected. Over 100 people are expected to lose their jobs. 

Upgrading Ourselves: 

• Manual laborers might end up being the first cyborg class. Using (and abusing) your body is a fact of life for the manual laborer and experimenting with how to push the limits of the body to boost productivity has long been part of the unofficial job description. Whether it's construction workers fueling themselves past fatigue with methamphetamine or factory workers getting high on break to make it through the high-stress tedium of meeting daily quotas, labor pressures prompt us to compromise our minds and bodies in order to keep up. Using wearable technology to increase powers and maintain human relevance in the face of full automation, old age, or injury seems like a positive development. When/if the technologies of augmented labor pass from the surface of our skin to its interior, it becomes a very different question.

Building Things: 

• What it would cost to build Apple's iPhones in the United States. As the article points out, it's not just the costs- the logistics would be far more difficult and the domain knowledge, scale and flexibility of the workforce in China doesn't have a parallel in the U.S. right now. 
• The recent story about Foxconn replacing tens of thousands of workers with robots is looking more like techno-optimist bluster than cold hard fact. The amount of money sloshing around via government incentives and initiatives for robotics in China seems to have provoked some dubious claims in the race towards a shiny future. 
• A company that has made huge strides in automated manufacturing is LEGO:This recent video behind the scenes of production demonstrates how much making happens totally apart from human hands. The simple, homogeneous nature of LEGO's products (lots and lots of ABS plastic) makes it a good candidate for automation vs the tiny, complex set of sub-assemblies that go into something like an iPhone.

More next week.

Insights 6.05

Design: 

• Neural networks making novel, recognizable images. The results are in a sort of uncanny valley territory, or maybe like looking at off-brand greeting card illustrations while under the influence. 

Bias and Brains: 

• Airbnb has a racism problem. Which is to say, society has a racism problem. Airbnb's distributed nature and the amount of personal choice given to hosts and guests makes it difficult to discover and police patterns of discrimination until after the fact, once harm has already occurred. As of now punitive actions stop at banning a user from the platform, turning it into a game whack-a-mole for bigotry. While it's unreasonable to expect technologies to fix deep, systemic problems like racism on their own, at a minimum they should not exacerbate the situation by reintroducing old problems in new forms. 

Up in the Air: 

• Walmart is working on drones for warehouse inventory management. Known for their penny stretching practices (they reuse 75 cent cardboard boxes and encourage traveling reps to bring hotel pens back to HQ) they've started to pour some serious money into technology initiatives as political pressure for a higher minimum wage continues. 

Building Things: 

• Researchers are hoping that machine learning will be able to unlock innovations in material science, a field where useful discoveries are the rare outcome of difficult and tedious testing. While human insight and analysis will still be a significant part of the process, the idea is that the AI will be able to shortlist the candidates most worthy of further consideration. 
• Differing laws and national priorities mean that giant tech companies spanning the globe are required to re-inscribe political borders into their otherwise pervasive and amorphous services. While the most massive of tech companies are averse to adapting their offerings to fit more restrictive laws (whether that's surrounding privacy or political censorship), when the market opportunity is great they have sometimes made significant concessions and garnered criticism from those on the other end of the political spectrum. When it comes to medium and small countries it turns into a game of chicken- which party needs the other more and at what point does the cost of leaving citizens on the wrong side of a digital divide become too great? 

More next week.