Most of us know about the water treatment capabilities of plants such as bamboo. Some might even already be using it to treat wastewater in their backyard. We were also taught in school that trees and plants breathe in CO2 and breathe out oxygen, in other words they allow us to breathe. We also know that too much CO2 is not good for us: headache, shortness of breath, loss of concentration/focus, etc.

Radiator company Jaga (yes, the funky Belgians who built the Belgian waffle at Burning Man 2006) developed Oxygen radiators to keep CO2 levels in classrooms, offices, hospital & living rooms under control by pumping in fresh air. Turns out that opening up a window does not really do the same trick as air circulation needs a serious boost in order to pump up oxygen levels in a decent way.

Yet there is more in the air that we breathe than CO2 that we ought to worry about. People suffering from health anxiety might actually want to ‘link out’ before reading the next sentence.  Some indoor environments turn out to be 5 to 10 times more polluted with all kinds of toxic chemical compounds than the heavy traffic outdoors.

Kamal Meattle already gave us a few options in terms of plants to keep around our houses and offices in order to provide us with cleaner air to breathe. Now, meet Andrea. Some of you might have met her at Paola Antonelli‘s amazing Design and the elastic mind exhibit last year at MOMA NY. Andrea is a nifty little system designed to maximize the potential of using plants (take your pick: Spathiphyllum (spath or peace lily), Dracaena marginata (red-edged dragon tree), Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant) or Aloe vera) around your living quarters to help purify the air. It has been developed by Mathieu Lehanneur and Dave Edwards (Le Laboratoire) and has now been prepped for commercial release (October 8th, 2009).

How about a car version of Andrea? No, not for inside the car, maybe a plant-based skin with the same properties. Purify while you drive …

Medicine and technology companies are working hard to restore people’s vision, hearing or other senses or provide artificial aids and prosthetics to replace them. Yet what about new or enhanced senses? The animal world is full of examples of how nature has endowed them with the most amazing ways of perceiving the world around them. Ants can see polarized light, starfish have their arms covered with light sensitive cells, pigeons can detect sounds as low as 0.1hz, some fish can detect L-serine (skin chemical in mammals) dilluted to 1 part per billion, a silkworm moth can detect pheromones up to 11km away and in concentrations as low as 1 molecule of pheromone per 10¹⁷ molecules of air, the platypus has electric sensors in its bill able to detect 0.05 microvolts, etc. (hungry for more? see here)

Several years ago Osnabrück cognitive scientist Peter König developed the feelSpace belt, a compass like buzzing belt (since then a hit amongst the DIY crowd), equiping people with a ‘sense of direction’ much like birds have one. Users of the belt felt like the prosthetic became a part of their normal sensory apparatus. The trick lies in synesthesia (check out Terri Timely’s masterful video on the phenomenon). By making ‘the new sense’ talk to the old ones, the latter can translate its ‘feelings’ to the brain in a language the brain already understands; in the case of the feelSpace belt: touch.

The latest issue of the wonderful Good features David Pescovitz, BoingBoing editor and fellow futuregazer over at the Institute for the Future, explains the growing amount of research and development in digital synesthesia :

my colleagues and I have spent the last few months exploring the notion that “everything is programmable,” or will be soon. The idea is that emerging technologies—from pervasive computers to synthetic biology—are making it possible to program our bodies and our worlds to desired specifications. Increasingly, we are looking at the entire world through a computational lens.

Pescovitz pays homage to Paul Bach-y-Rita, the Mexico-born professor in neurobiology and rehabilitation who was a pioneer in the field of sensory substitution, who once said “We see with our brains, not with our eyes.” Pescovitz mentions several examples of digital synesthesia projects, such as: Wicab (founded by Bach-y-Rita) did amazing work on BrainPort, an attempt to create a vision prosthetic that translates images from a video camera into tactile responses on the tongue. “Users often report the sensation as pictures that are painted on the tongue with champagne bubbles.” In Tel Aviv is investigating ways in which cells in plants respond to light as a way to design “seeing skin”. Hello biomimicry!

Imagine a world of bodyshops filled with plugins and wearables to extend our sensory apparatus. To some a transhumanist’s wet dream, to others a mere natural evolution in the sense of media as extensions of man (McLuhan), to yet others yet another digital divide.

Via Wired and Good

The Apollo mission gave us pictures of our planet from space. Finally we could behold our planet from a distance. We could look at it as an object on the table in front of us, within reach, and as we did our planetary awareness grew. Confronted with several planetary challenges now, our planetary conscience is now gradually shaping up as well. Aside from looking at our planet, NASA‘s Earth Observation System (EOS) reads our planet through satellite data. Access to this information is a prerequisite for learning to understand our planet better. Now we can not only look at our planet, Prof. Shin-ichi Takemura’s amazing Tangible Earth project allows us to interact with our planet and the data emerging from it by touch.

In view of coming up with solutions to the challenges we are facing, sensing our planet has become sheer necessity. We increasingly do so in real time as well: within mouseclick reach we check webcams on the other side of the planet, we can download data from weatherstations around the world, etc.
Until recently, the sensing world was pretty much the playing field of NASA and the likes. The future promises to be more open in this respect (see  also open source efforts such as GSN) and consequently much larger – and since we’re talking data: more powerful. Years ago, in describing his wish of an Earth Witness Project, our fellow future explorer Jamais Cascio already pointed to opportunities opened up by the convergence between labs on chips, mobile phones and sharing networks to create an open global sensor network.

Now several companies and grassroots initiatives are preparing to put technology in the hands of citizens. Already we can deduce a lot of information from information we leak by the mere usage of our communication technology, as Carlo Ratti‘s Senseable cities team at MIT shows us. Nokia’s Eco Sensor Concept plans to make us more active participants in the game. Imagine millions of always-on, networked tricorder-like devices sensing our planet : local data + networks + sensemaking = global intelligence. Hewlett-Packard is developing the equivalent of a globally distributed stethoscope (CeNSE) to monitor our planet’s health, and look to nanotechnology as an enabling technology. “The motivation for this work is realising and understanding the planet is sick and the disease is us.”, says Dr Stan Williams of HP’s Information & Quantum Systems Laboratory.

An often forgotten challenge is how to use tech already out there to turn them into sensors for our health and that of our planet. Think about the tech equivalent of using ‘useless’ bath-tub ducks which fell off a ship, to study ocean currents.

Although some are still Grail-hunting for ‘one source of sustainable to replace them all’, the more interesting debate on possible future mixes of sustainable energy production, transport and consumption is going strong as well.

According to researchers at Cal State University “high-altitude wind machines could power New York City” (see Wired article). And a consortium of German companies is trying to get Operation Desertec off the ground and use the sunny side of Northern Africa to feed Europe with 15pct of its electricity needs through solar energy. And although many agree with the basics of Kissinger’s ‘interdependence through trade increases peace and stability’ strategy, recent problems in terms of energy provision as a political weapon (e.g.  Russia cutting off gas,  pipelines being attacked elsewhere in the world, etc.) raise fears and warnings regarding creating a new situation of European ‘dependence’.

Solar technology is becoming more powerful each day. Lonnie Johnson (of supersoaker fame) “says he can achieve a conversion efficiency rate that tops 60 percent with a new solid-state heat engine. It represents a breakthrough new way to turn heat into power.” JTEC (or the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Conversion System) “[...] uses temperature differences to create pressure gradients. Only instead of using those pressure gradients to move an axle or wheel, he’s using them to force ions through a membrane. It’s a totally new way of generating electricity from heat.” says Paul Werbos, a programme director at the NSF, one of the funding partners of JTEC.

Yet, of course, there is more out there than just wind or solar, there’s biomass, wave, geothermal, hydrogen, fuell cell, bodyheat, body movement, piezoelectric surfaces,  etc.

There is the science, the technology & the economics, the promises and … the reality. For those of you curious about the numbers behind the current state of the art re: the sustainability/energy discourse, check out David JC MacKay’s astonishing book Sustainable Energy – without the hot air (see his website).

Image: WIRED magazine

Le Corbusier once described the house as a machine for living in. Designer Eduardo McIntosh designed a whole series of such machines and called them Autonomous Living Units. His work was presented during the Future Cities: Past, Present exhibition at the d3 gallery in New York last month.

“Autonomous Living Units is a somewhat satirical project that stands at the intersection of the current housing crisis, the tendency of people in developed countries to live on their own and the trend of turning architecture into a consumer product. The project poses a scenario in which living units ( homes) have evolved into the most minimal yet visually alluring objects that can still provide for the basic needs of the 21st century human being. Because of the morphing of architecture into furniture, the Living Units could be inserted in derelict areas and ruined housing projects.”

Via Boite-a-outils

In 1970 the futurologist Alvin Toffler published Future shock … a book about signs of the time and of times ahead, times in which the (increasing) speed of scientific and technological progress oversteps the pace of the human heartbeat. It becomes too much for many to digest and a sense of discomfort rather than techno-enabled comfort sets in.

Few people remember – hey, I wasn’t even born yet – that in 1972, a documentary version was made of the bestselling book, narrated by Orson Welles. Although over 30years old, there remains a contemporary relevance to the story being told. Some might even see a few parallels between “the future shock” phenomenon and “the singularity”.

Sit back and enjoy the movies (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Via Smashing Telly

Continuing our stroll through the growing landscape of corporate future visions, we re-stumbled upon Microsoft. Microsoft Office Labs put out a series of videos glimpsing ahead into the future of banking, retail, manufacturing and healthcare during the past few years, each time keeping a time horizon of 5-10 years in mind. Although the viewing experience is somewhat hindered by the low quality of the videos, check out some of their mixed-reality futures …

Health (2007) – Imagine a future where you can monitor your own health with smart, connected devices, your health team can share data seamlessly, and doctors are empowered with a view of health records across multiple sources – all leading to better, faster, safer, more personalized care.

Manufacturing (2006) – Imagine a manufacturing environment of the future where workers collaborate seamlessly across time-zones, predictive technologies automate processes, and sense and respond systems are connected across organizations, leading to better innovation, improved efficiencies, and more flexibility for customized products.

Banking (2005) – Imagine a banking experience where you’re always connected to your finances, banks are empowered to anticipate your needs, and transactions are seamless through predictive technologies – whether you’re in the branch, at home, or on the go.

Retail (2004) – Imagine a store of the future where you can quickly find and purchase everything you need; you have instant access to the product information you want; and the store can anticipate your needs and provide price and product offers in tune with your shopping history.

For those of you only out to get a quick glimpse, check out the montage.

Via Customer Experience Labs

Like any truly disruptive technology, the web changed the world in myriad ways. Can you remember times before the internet? Surely the medical world can. Before the internet the amount of patients showing up at the doctor’s with a binder full of ‘mediknowledge’ downloaded from the internet and demanding answers, challenging the knowledge of the expert, was definitely smaller than in today’s world. For a long time medical and pharmaceutical knowledge was the domain of a select group of people and organizations. They were the one and only point of reference. This has all changed. As access to specialist information and specialist tools increases, many of the walls separating the medical world and the rest of us come tumbling down.

In the ‘old’ model, research in terms of diagnostics or cures, was – and often still is – ruled by the cult of numbers. Many rare diseases are considered too costly in view of limited statistical impact, hence considered ‘economically  uninteresting’  to investigate, leaving groups of individuals with rare diseases or developing countries out in the cold. 

Wired magazine tells the story of Hugh Rienhoff. Reminiscent of Lorenzo’s oil, the article shows the admirable and moving quest of a parent in search for an explanation for his daughter’s genetic problems and the difficult relationship with the inner culture of the medical world as he pursues his journey. Rienhoff launched a website mydaughersdna.org to share his experience with parents fighting the same battles, exchanging insights gained, problems encountered, etc.

The medical and pharmaceutical world is changing … from within and under the influence of outside pressure. Increasing numbers of individuals start their own research journeys thereby co-setting the agenda, the pricetag for full-genome sequencing is falling, increasingly medical cases are being documented in – many times open – online shared databases (e.g. DECIPHER) leading to exponential increases in insights gained, pharmacogenetics promise the arrival of truly personalized medicine, previously specialist lab technologies are coming within reach of individuals.

Like with any opening up of previously closed ecologies of information, there is the issue of quality of information and interpretation on which ‘knowledge’ depends, the spectrum with on the one end experts, on the other quacks. Could a p2p model work in the medical world? Especially in complex areas such as genetics it already is leading to massive change. Could a more open model of knowledge exchange benefit the medical profession and humanity in general? Surely, there are advantages to be gained, yet also requiring new mechanisms to be put/grown in place and new challenges to be tackled.

Yesterday’s news headlines put cancer in pole position as the primary cause of death in the Netherlands. Amongst families of cancer-patients, the frustrating question of ‘why on earth, with all the amazing technological capabilities we have and the dozens of daily new insights gained, do people still need to die of cancer?’ is like an ever-returning mantra. To some in the field it’s a lack of knowledge which prevents us from major progress, according to others the paradigms by which we investigate cancer, describe it, categorize and treat it are flawed and we are in desperate need of a paradigm shift.

A recent cover story in Wired Magazine “The Truth about Cancer“ urges to increase efforts in detecting cancer early instead of trying to fight it later. Early detection could increase survival rates to 90% according to some. 

TechnologyReview looks at new developments in treatment – which could be classified as regenerative medicine - which train the body to recognize the killer cells as cancer and trigger the immune system to fight them off once again.

“One of cancer’s cleverest tricks is its ability to hide from the immune system. A new approach to cancer treatment called immunotherapy could spare patients at least some of the grueling battery of chemotherapy treatments by retraining the body’s own defenders–the cells of the immune system–to recognize and destroy tumors. Now researchers at Harvard University have developed a simple way to do this inside the body: a polymer implant attracts and trains immune-system cells to go after cancer.”

The fight against cancer or for knowledge about it, does not only take place in medical labs or our bodies. The known or presumed influence of environmental factors on the occurrence of cancers, also leads to efforts to geotag cancer occurrences and correlating their spatial spread with other layers of knowledge using GIS systems (e.g. NCI, Turkish effort)

Image courtesy of National Cancer Institute

Meet Oblong Industries‘ G-speak, an amazing gesture based interface à la Minority Report allowing ‘hands-on’ interaction between people and data. The resemblance is no co-incidence as one of Oblong’s founders – John Underkoffler, formerly at MIT’s Tangible Media Group – was one of the science advisors to the movie-team.

“The g-speak platform is a complete application development and execution environment that redresses the dire constriction of human intent imposed by traditional GUIs. Its idiom of spatial immediacy and information responsive to real-world geometry enables a necessary new kind of work: data-intensive, embodied, real-time, predicated on universal human expertise.”

Some of the system’s features seem to build further upon early-day HCI projects at Frauenhofer (GMD at the time) in the 90s.

NewScientist recently reported on some amazing new discoveries using advanced fMRI technologies (see also here). The team of Yukiyasu Kamitani at Japan’s ATR’s Computational Neuroscience Laboratories …

“[...] has used an image of brain activity taken in a functional MRI scanner to recreate a black-and-white image from scratch. “By analysing the brain signals when someone is seeing an image, we can reconstruct that image,” says Kamitani. This means that the mind reading isn’t limited to a selection of existing images, but could potentially be used to “read off” anything that someone was thinking of, without prior knowledge of what that might be.”

What if one could use it to communicate with people with lock-in syndrome? What if ‘design thinking’ or ‘thinking a design’ would be enough to prototype? What if future privacy laws would include the privacy of one’s mind and thoughts? It is not hard to image many uses … yet also abuses of such a technology as it matures.

Image courtesy of Neuron/Cell Press via NewScientist

Games, simulations, … have long entered the arena of what-if In fact they have always been in the position of luring our minds into the mode of unfocussing and thinking in terms of multiple possible outcomes, alternative scenarios, strategies etc. Ecofootprint calculators allow us to play what-if with our own (un)sustainable behaviours, GIS-enabled knowledge and simulation systems serve as decision support tools for everyone from urban planners to policymakers, etc.

In true W3 (weird-ways-of-the-web) style, we recently stumbled upon MetroQuest … an interactive scenario planning tool allowing stakeholders (e.g. in the future of a city) to experiment with the future, the outcomes of policy choices, external drivers of change etc. According to their website, MetroQuest can help:

•     Communicate complex planning concepts easily to lay people.
  
•     Generate excitement and public awareness for your initiatives.
  
•     Increase public and stakeholder participation in your planning initiatives.
  
•     Help the community develop an understanding and acceptance for policy decisions.
  
•     Create broad-based consensus for your community’s future vision.

The tool appears to be mostly focussed on quantifiable and quantitative change. Besides a process-embedded version of MetroQuest using handheld keypads in stakeholder workshops, the system also has been deployed online (see the Yellowknife and Niagara cases).

We should have known … looking at our stats: flying cars are still one of people’s favourite future subjects. So to still your hunger, check out the Icon A5. 

With space tourism being commercialized and low cost airlines booming, maybe personal flight is finally on the verge of its long-awaited breakthrough.

Via Wired, Image by Andrew Zuckerman

Set to go live July 2009, Amsterdam’s CityCargo is about to liberate the inner city streets of heavy traffic. Goods destined for shops & offices will be loaded onto a specially equipped tram via loading platforms at the edge of the city. In town, small electric cars will unload them from the tram at specific drop off points and run the last mile to their destinations.

Similar initiaves are already operative in cities around Europe and others are bound to follow (Belgian cities: take note and catch up, please). The CargoTram for example runs in Dresden and delivers parts to the Volkswagen factory, the GüterBim already runs through Vienna, etc.

What if these trams would also carry waste out of town? Or filter/clean city air while running?

As American philosopher Susan Sontag – among others – reminded us, there is no neutral way to picture reality. The photographer’s eye and his mind’s eye’s point of view through which he/she looks at reality is always in the middle, directing gaze, adding interpretation to a seemingly – but only seemingly – ‘objective’ act of perception. Different perspectives, different intentions, different interpretations … the wealth of the eye.

Digital photography has exploded the amount of pictures taken around the world. Social media have brought them together, now what? Recreating reality ? Creating alternative realities? Microsoft developed Photosynth, but now the image gurus at Adobe have also joined the race to the next visual killer app.

Inspired by Bladerunner tech envisionments, Shai Avidan, joined by MIT’s Bill Freeman, recently showcased Adobe’s new Infinite Images technology at their MAX Europe conference in Milan (MAX blog). Check out the video as well as John Nack’s post here.