Besides cultural opposition, Japanese citizens possess high, complex standards when it comes to cellphones. The country is famous for being ahead of its time when it comes to technology, and the iPhone just doesn’t cut it. For example, Japanese handset users are extremely into video and photos — and the iPhone has neither a video camera nor multimedia text messaging. And a highlight feature many in Japan enjoy on their handset is a TV tuner, according to Kuittinen.
https://www.wired.com/2009/02/why-the-iphone/
Tag Archives: design
Where Will Virtual Reality Take Us?
Apple’s entrance into V.R. has symbolic weight, because the company has had so much influence on computers and phones. Back in 1984, when the Macintosh was introduced, a few members of the Mac team left Apple to join my startup, V.P.L., and help us create the first generation of commercial V.R. products. At the time, we guessed that Apple itself would enter the market in 2010. We knew that the consumer adoption of the technology was a long way off. We were selling tools for millions of dollars to customers like nasa. But despite the conservative clients, our early V.R. software was radically strange. You could program while in our virtual world, and see all the variables not as textual symbols but as virtual objects; there was no source code. I used to wax on about how virtual reality would lead to a new style of “post-symbolic” communication, in which we would make experiences for one another, sharing them directly instead of just describing them.
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/where-will-virtual-reality-take-us?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_020324&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&utm_term=tny_daily_digest&bxid=5bd66dd12ddf9c6194382970&cndid=13267906&hasha=9daa350d41aff482ef70345758ade9d6&hashb=8d9dbc2d50718e70c553f3060d24988afeba31d7&hashc=305e7b751cd4cde167a93ee9770cfcfff72a85daf86fa885c4acc7e91ba511d1&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&mbid=CRMNYR012019
Set, follow or skip? How brands should navigate micro-trends
In 2023, clean girl, girl math, Barbiecore, coquette and tomato girl summer dominated our social feeds. This year, these trends have quickly been replaced by mob wife winter, corpcore and loud budgeting. That’s the thing about micro-trends: they’re fleeting.
In this sense, they’re not really micro-trends at all, argues trend forecaster Agustina Panzoni. “When you look at trends, you look at movements that span multiple years and multiple seasons on the micro-side,” she says. “So what has been labelled ‘micro-trends’ are more like ‘internet aesthetics’. They’re pre-packaged styles that you can buy into.”
https://www.voguebusiness.com/story/fashion/set-follow-or-skip-how-brands-should-navigate-micro-trends?status=verified
CES offers a machine view over a human view of the future – Ballie: Your perfect home
Sundance 2024: Generative AI Changes Brian Eno Documentary With Every View
Oblique Strategies is yet another way Eno has been merrily smearing the boundaries of expression, creation and authorship for a very long time. His conversations about those subjects, pulled from dozens of hours of interviews with Hustwit’s team, are some of the film’s most absorbing and inspiring segments, as we see him in his airy, England country home and studio, capering about two huge screens of music software and YouTube videos as he discusses bits of song, long-time influences, science, art and much else.
The customized AI technology used to build the film’s many variants is amusingly named, informally, Brain One, appropriate for the tool’s tasks and, happily, an anagram of Eno’s own name.
https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.forbes.com/sites/dbloom/2024/01/18/sundance-2024-generative-ai-changes-brian-eno-documentary-with-every-view/amp/
Using AI for developing foresight: reflections on an experiment
There has been much talk on the potential of AI in general and specifically on its potential for developing foresight both within the academic realm and in the corporate world. To evoke a better understanding of AI’s potential and application in the context of developing foresight, we conducted an experiment with a group of students in our Master Global Foresight & Technology Management at the Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt, Germany.
Working on the future of the German photo and imaging industry, the project followed the well-known and established Shell scenario planning approach. In the course of the seminar, students started with the research on trends, assessing the trends on a relevance/uncertainty matrix and eventually finalizing their projects by developing scenarios along a 2 x 2 matrix.
To assess the impact of using generative AI, the students participating in the research seminar were split into two groups; One group used as many generative AI tools as possible; the other group used an “old school” approach to scenario planning without AI. The project duration was three months.
While analyzing our data, which we gathered following a video-ethnographic approach, we followed the two groups, both of which were diverse in terms of participants’ cultural and academic background, language and gender. To publish rigorous research on this experiment, we want to share our first impressions.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/using-ai-developing-foresight-reflections-experiment-schwarz-gpikf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&utm_campaign=share_via
How the cult of cute took hold
You could see the origins of cute, its Rosetta Stone, perhaps, in one memorable cat meme from 2007, “I can haz cheezburger?” which gave rise to lolspeak, still influencing the way we talk online. Words like zoomies, gorlies and besties are still riding high. Clearly, something in this squishy way of talking captivates us, even shapes our identity. “We don’t know where cuteness will go or how it will be used, but we do know it’s powerful,” says Catterall. (Of course she has the word “cat” in her name.)
So why is cuteness everywhere and what does it mean for us? To answer, we must consider a more basic question, that turns out to be surprisingly slippery. What is cuteness?
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/21/how-did-the-cult-of-cute-take-hold-and-does-it-have-a-dark-side
Dieter Rams pointing at things he doesn’t like
Downtowns Are Full of Empty Buildings. Universities Are Moving In
In design jargon, the term is “adaptive reuse,” which is the same story as turning empty office towers into apartment buildings. Graduate students from Hopkins’s business school and its government and international studies programs, among others, now occupy the space where an old satellite and a news helicopter belonging to KXAS-TV in Texas used to dangle from the Newseum ceiling. David Rockwell and his Rockwell Group, the theater and hospitality specialists from New York, have converted the center’s atrium into a handsome, sunlit, wide-open complex of terraced classrooms and breakout spaces.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/arts/design/00johns-hopkins-bloomberg-center-review.html
We’ve Hit Peak Beverage
The refrigerated aisle is out of control, and I am a moth to the fluorescent flame. Picking up a “fun drink” (aka, not just water) as a little treat doesn’t just require gauging my cravings but also my physical and metaphysical aspirations and needs. Want better hair? Crack open a collagen water from Vital Proteins. A less screwed up stomach? Get a pre/probiotic power-up from Poppi or Olipop. Lowered anxiety? Opt for Recess or Vybes with CBD, or Moment, which offers a literal “meditation in a can” with adaptogens like ashwagandha. (Whether the drink offers the same proven long-term benefits as meditation is another story.) The “edgy” CBD water of days past has been replaced by a pharmacy’s worth of promises and a boutique “shoppy shop’s” aesthetic appeal.
https://tastecooking.com/weve-hit-peak-beverage/
Analyzing Trends 