As has been shown, our awareness of our planet, our ecosystem, our society, our behaviour etc. changed dramatically from the moment we were able to observe Mother Earth from the outside, from space. We could suddenly link what we experienced ‘down here’ with what we saw from ‘up there’. Our outer and inner perspective suddenly became linked as we were looking at the bigger pictures of ourselves from outer space. It are these kinds of feedback loops which propell human insight forward.

Norbert Wiener, father of cybernetics, recognized such feedback loops as core to all intelligent systems. His findings formalized the notion of feedback and influenced a wide variety of fields ranging from engineering to computer science, from biology and philosophy to social sciences looking at the organization of society.

In his latest TED talk, neuroscientist and inventor Christopher deCharms shows how his company Omneuron is using advanced fMRI technologies to look at the happenings inside our brain in real time, in 3D. The sheer possibility of looking at what we think, feel, do ‘up there’, opens up a whole new era of discovery and remediation (e.g. chronic pain control). Psychiatry, pharmaceuticals, surgery were three major categories of treatment. Now there is a fourth. Check out the video here.

Advances in neurofeedback technologies and treatments have already shown some of the ways in which increased awareness of our brains’ activities can be used to enhance training, revalidation and for other purposes as well (e.g. gaming).

Think ahead. Imaging techniques are advancing rapidly and molecular imaging is all the hype now. Think about zooming in from brain to brain area to cell level. Which new pathways does this open up?

Image courtesy of the University of Oxford’s FMRIB Centre

The European association of plastics manufacturers, Plastics Europe, … commissioned UK futurist Ray Hammond to write a book about the world in 2030, with a special focus on the challenges for plastics.

Changing demographics, extreme weather conditions, peak-oil, resource-conflicts, surveillance society, hyperreal leisure time, robots, sustainable globalisation, healthcare revolution, virtual companions, biodigital interfaces, the global brain, new retailing, …

A summary of the book including a first response of the plastics industry on the challenges ahead, can be found here.

Regenerative medicine is gaining momentum. The Department of Defense announced the launching of a new 5-year initiative to boost developments in the field, entitled “the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM)”.

“The newly established Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, known by the acronym AFIRM, will serve as the military’s operational agency for the effort [...]  A key component of the initiative is to harness stem cell research and technology in finding innovative ways to use a patient’s natural cellular structure to reconstruct new skin, muscles and tendons, and even ears, noses and fingers [...]“

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, S. Ward Casscells, expects full functional regeneration of fingers and toes within 5 years. AFIRM is a partnership between the University of Pittsburgh’s McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Both will act as co-leaders in the initiative and receive half of the total grant of $85 million to develop new treatments for wounded soldiers. The teams working on the project include collaborators from 15 other institutions. Director of the McGowan Institute, Allan J. Russell, will co-direct AFIRM (see Alan’s inspiring TED talk here).

Several medical fields are aiming for regenerative solutions to avoid rejection of foreign tissue, prostheses, etc. In the field of oral care for example, UK-based Odontis is searching to grow entire replacement teeth. Other initiatives, such as that by Prof. Sally Marshall at the University of California are looking for solutions to remineralize parts of teeth (see here).

The road is long but every small success, because of its profound impact on the quality of lives of people, will revolutionize the medical field in the broad sense.

The Bank of America teams up MIT’s MediaLab to set up a Center for Future Banking. The new center will operate with a $3-5m annual budget for a period of five years and

“… explore new ideas in banking by inventing technologies that reveal and leverage insights across a wide range of physical and social scales, from one-on-one customer interactions to global transactions. Researchers will address such questions as: ‘How can every customer be empowered with the knowledge and tools to take better control of their financial futures?’ ‘How will banking interactions evolve as a customer’s physical and virtual worlds become completely intertwined?’ and ‘How will social networks and mobile platforms transform customers’ banking experiences, making it easier, more convenient, and better integrated with their daily lives?’.”

Prof. Deb Roy, Chair of MIT’s academic program in media arts & sciences who will lead the project, says:

“We will create a focus of intellectual energy that brings together researchers with radically different perspectives, including behavioral economists, social scientists, computer scientists, psychologists, designers, and others who share a passion for invention. It’s a recipe for producing unexpected new ideas that will trigger significant innovations in the world of banking.”

The world of banking is changing drastically, not only from within, but in major ways also under influence of external developments, which pose new challenges for existing players in the field as well as opportunities for new ones. For example, on the ‘cheap end of innovation’, discount banks popping up everywhere are forcing many players to change their businesses and offer added value in new innovative ways. Worldwide, local and networked communities are stepping up to fill gaps left by the business players and open new markets, introduce new (or redress old) models also in the banking sector. While still marginal now, initiatives such as Zopa, a p2p online loan bank, or community bank Umpqua (experience-designed by Ziba), but also initiatives such as the Grameen Foundation‘s microfinancing model (see also a previous post), the Children’s Development Bank by Butterflies in India, investing in kidpreneurs show the changing face of banking and the mechanisms behind it. As customers become pickier and more demanding, technology offers new possibilities and banks realize customer-centred reasoning pas off, many future-oriented initiatives of existing banks are focusing on improving the overall customer experience through better, more human-centred design of their spaces and products. See for example Deutsche Bank’s Q110 bank of the future. They also aim to enhance simplicity, flexibility and customer enjoyment.

Feel free also to check out this (slightly dated) IBM podcast on the future of banking (or read the transcript).

Inspired by the X-Club, our fellow future explorers over at IFTF launched the X2 project a while ago. This ‘open’, collective research initiative aims to

“identify major trends and disruptions in science, technology, and the practice of science over the next twenty years and their impacts on the larger society.”

IFTF previously also conducted the UK’s Office of Science and Innovation’s Deltascan,  creating a database and map of trends and forecasts regarding the 50-year future of science and technology.

Mid-January Italian comedian Luciana Littizzeto commented on the underlying problems of the Naples’ waste problem, saying: “We are the only species that shits more than it eats!”.

Naples’ problems are far from solved, yet as in many difficult situations, the local community found ways to turn the situation’s threats into opportunities or in this case: trash into cash. Among other things, they organized a ‘trash market‘ selling reusable trash items. In a sense their scavenge hunt selections were not based upon material value of the found objects per se, but on the added value they might represent for their ‘customers’, i.e. their neighbours. What is worthless to one, can still be of high value to another.

Cradle to cradle design teaches us that waste is food. It signifies changes the starting position of our design endeavours. In this period of transition, we are of course required to deal with the waste that is present and unfortunately still continues to be produced. A series of initiatives is now now looking how to turn trash into cash or rather how to make the most, the best of the leftovers of our consumption society.

In the US, in Colorado, Professor of Architecture Julee Herdt is aiming to turn the state’s landfills into harvesting areas for new, environmental friendly construction materials. In New Zealand, ScionResearch runs the Waste2Gold Project, trying to accomplish three goals: a) using waste as a bio-processing feedstock,
b) combining waste with other materials for added value products and c) recovering energy and chemicals from wastes and residues. Examples Scion is working on include bacteria to turn waste into biodegradable polymers, new composite mixes (e.g. controlled-release fertilisers, biodegradable plant pots, panels, and other moulded plastic products), biomass energy sources (e.g. biogas, liquid biofuels, wood pellets etc.)

A nice trip through the history of ‘waste & wealth’ can be found at WasteAge.

Flexibility, plasticity, elasticity … concepts about to move into the material world.

Imagine transformers, not as a mechanical capability but as a material characteristic. Imagine all problems where different contexts require different form factors, different functionalities etc. yet basically only one underlying system.

The Nokia Research Centre and Prof. Mark Welland’s Nanoscience Centre at the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge developed Morph, a concept for a shapeshifting multifunctional device based on nanotechnology.

“Nanotechnology allows control of physical properties of nanostructures and devices with single-molecule precision.”

Watch Morph’s concept video here and see how Morph senses our environment, scans our food, etc. See how its nanowire grass recharges the device via solar power, how its superhydrophobic surface repells dirt and keeps it clean, how its nanoscale structure allows the device to stretch and change shape (a nanoscale mesh of fibres controls the stretching when folding for example rendering parts of it tough and strong as spider silk), its surface (able to shift shape depending on context) is responsive to touch (yes, buttons in real 3D with haptic feedback), its electronics invisible to the human eye fully integrated into the material etc.

The video – a visual/storyboarded scenario of use – clarifies the various ways in which nanotech advances could find their way into future products, fulfilling a broad range of functions. In this sense the video is a wonderful example of rendering the future tangible.

The Morph concept is currently on display at the MoMa exhibition ‘Design & the elastic mind‘, curated by Paola Antonelli.

Via Slashdot. Image courtesy of Nokia

Catching up on some stuff waiting in our ‘drafts’ folder for a little too long, here is a belated post concerning WIRED’s Nextfest festival of last september. With a baseline reading Experience the future, it obviously attracted our attention.

The future of … 12 themes was explored in 12 pavillions, by exhibiting a series of innovative developments – technologies – in the domains of communication, design, education, entertainment, exploration, green, health, play, robotics, security and transportation.

Four videos were posted recently, labeled The future of design, yet it are the technologies developed through design, which are really at the center of attention rather than the profession of ‘design’ itself, its applications, roles, ways and means, tools, methods and techniques, etc. (see also here). Nextfest sees design as ‘the way we shape and communicate with the world around us’.

Lifestyle shows the e-taf automatic door by Tanaka Seisakusho, Alvaro Cassinelli’s Khronos projector (we covered here), the wine-m winerack by ThingM, PerceptivePixel’s multitouch wall (we covered here, here), the YouTube Mirror developed at the Courant Institute at NYU (also by Jeff Han), InformationLab’s Cellphone Disco,

Robotics features Kiyomori by Tmsuk, Chroino by Kyoto University’s RoboGarage, WL-16 bipedal robot by Waseda University in Tokyo.

Transportation features FastTrack’s Amphibian, the WheelSurf, the AirScooter II, Greg Kolodziejzyk’s Critical Power HPV, CuteCircuit’s Interactive fashion (we covered here).
Mind and body shows Aksioma’s Brain loop, StepintoFun’s BodyBug,  d3o lab’s D3O shock absorbing material.

Several designs/gadgets seem to be on display at Nextfest for several editions in a row. In this fast-paced world, it is hard to imagine a lack of future-oriented designs to fill an exhibition?

It is not only of solutions that lists are made, but also of the directions in which people ought to point their efforts. At the US National Academy of Engineering, a special committee including Danny Hillis, Jaime Lerner, William Perry, Dean Kamen, Craig Venter, Larry Page, Ray Kurzweil came up with 14 grand challenges for engineering in the coming years.

1. Make solar energy economical
2. Provide energy from fusion
3. Develop carbon sequestration methods
4. Manage the nitrogen cycle
5. Provide access to clean water
6. Restore and improve urban infrastructure
7. Advanced health informatics
8. Engineer better medicines
9. Reverse engineer the brain
10. Prevent nuclear terror
11. Secure cyberspace
12. Enhance virtual reality
13. Advanced personalized learning
14. Engineer the tools of scientific discovery

See also the video here. Obviously, in many cases, finding a solution to one of them, helps solving other ones as well.

Not all challenges humanity faces are of the engineering kind. To get a glimpse of the bigger picture, check out the UIA‘s World Problems and Global Issues project, aka The Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential.

MIT’s Technology review‘s March/April issue features their yearly top 10 of emerging technologies. This year’s ‘winners’ are:

• modeling surprise: datamining, human psychology and machine learning is about to help us to deal with surprise (Microsoft’s Eric Horvitz)
• probabilistic chips: uncertainty in computer chips may increase efficiency (GeorgiaTech’s Krishna Palem)
• nanoradio:  nanotube-based radio elements for appliances (Berkeley’s Alex Zettl)
• wireless power: beaming electricity from one place to another (MIT’s Marin Soljacic)
• atomic magnetometers: tiny new magnetic-field sensors for next-generation MRI scans (NIST’s John Kitching)
• offline web applications:  (Adobe’s Kevin Lynch)
• graphene transistors: new carbon for faster, smaller processors (GeorgiaTech’s Walter de Heer)
• connectomics: mapping our brain (Harvard’s Jeff Lichtman)
• reality mining: learning about human and social behaviour using cellphone data (MIT’s Sandy Pentland)
• cellulolytic enzymes: biofuels from cellulose (Caltech’s Frances Arnold)

Our Swedish friends from FutureDesignDays recently organized Light Now, the latest stop in their travelling NOMAD show, which dealt with the future of light(ing design). Their recent newsletter features a chat with lighting designer Kajsa Sperling from Gothenburg’s White office. Kajsa relates the future of lighting design to the designer’s social and environmental responsibility …

“Kajsa tells us that the light pollution in the world is an important reason for her commitment to lighting design. Light consumes brutal masses of energy. Kajsa is convinced that a new way of looking at lighting will be a significant part of the environmental work. We must dare to eliminate light, instead of adding more and more, in other words: less light and more focus on the lights we choose to keep. Lighting design is likely to be a very important part of building projects or urban space planning in the future. If it’s up to Kajsa to decide, every municipality ought to have their own lighting designer.”

In an age of ubiquitous social networking tools, the way people connect and build relationships whether businesswise or on a more personal level is changing. A broader look at technologies on the horizon is about to disrupt the world as we know it according to SocialTechnologies. They describe 10 forecasts for cupid:

1. location-based dating or any possible love candidates nearby your smartphone?
2. the new infidelity or are online crushes acceptable or not?
3. together apart or (r)emo(te)-sensing your loved one
4. virtual therapy or second life group therapy
5. scientific pairings or do our genes promise a happy future together?
6. remote intimacy or ‘the real thing’ even when 20.000 miles apart
7. love potions or love chemistry in a bottle
8. pleasure bots or AI sex dolls
9. brain sex or who cares about the ‘packaging’ if we can plug directly into each other’s brain?
10. people will be people or why bother about the above 9?

Via ChangeWaves

Uncertainties make for a variety of possible futures. Add to that expectations and a bunch of competitive people and you have a nice set of ingredients for a market or betting game. We already wrote about the Long Now Foundation‘s Long Bets and Fabrica‘s Stock exchange of Visions. For those of you hungry for more, check out Predictify, the Foresight Exchange or Foresight Markets.

Prediction markets are no new phenomenon, but with such high public interest in wisdom-of-the-crowds, the pop-up frequency of new initiatives is on the rise as well. Check out Mercury’s Blog dedicated to prediction markets.

Once again scientists, this time members of the Union of Concerned Scientists, expressed their worries about the possible dangers posed by farming crops which are genetically modified to grow medicines or chemical substances. The prospect of large scale, molecular farming aka pharming awakens fears of normal crops and gm crops mixing with unknown consequences feared disastrous.

Solutions proposed include cave pharming, i.e. molecular farming inside controlled, sealed-off artificial environments inside caves (see here).

Via environmentalgraffiti.com

Design consultancy Frog design showcases their concept for the future of personal healthcare entitled Aura. The concept breathes core values such as simplicity, tranquillity, lightness, calmness, poetry etc.

Aura was modelled against a backdrop shaped by trends such as an ageing population, the shift from remediation to prevention,  a multidisciplinary (mind-body) but also more holistic approach to healthcare (Western & alternative) etc.

“Much of life is composed of daily routine: brushing your teeth, washing your face, preparing your meals. Once learned, such routines can offer more than the practical benefits; they can help people center their lives, providing a small assurance of simplicity within a rapidly changing world. Many cultures have traditional, repetition-based tools with which to meet the uncertainties of the world at large: Zen gardens, calligraphy, yoga massage. All treat the body and soul as one, using physical motion or non-motion to focus the mind. The Aura taps into this tradition in a new way, focusing the mind while examining the body to promote a holistic model of individual health.”

Aura combines monitoring, therapeutic and security modes of personal health care.
The monitoring ritual consists of looking into a bowl and humming. In the meantime Aura performs facial, saliva and voice scans to monitor mood, health, tension levels/fatigue etc. Through the touching of a semi-soft sculptural form the user’s skin, blood, heartrate, temperature etc. are monitored. Colour, sound, scent and vibrations give feedback to the senses: informative, yet also therapeutic, since they influence physical and psychological health. Moving a white chime mallet across the edge of the bowl makes images, forms, colours, etc. appear in the vessel. The user can control what appears, yet the device also learns which items aid in positively influencing a person’s mood, physical or psychological state. Repeated usage over longer periods of time allow Aura to provide security, by learning about and keeping an eye on the user’s personal health and advert him/her of problems or warn medical professional straight away when necessary.

The whole february issue of their design mind blog/zine is focussed on health, btw. Sit back and enjoy a fascinating read!