information aesthetics.
Global innovation firm Frog Design recently brought designers, futurists and journalists together to envision the future of computing in 2020. In 2020, the computer is not only incorporated into every aspect of our lives, but should become an integral part of ourselves. With this in mind, the workshop aimed to imagine how future technology would influence the key areas of Social, Travel, Commerce, Healthcare, and Media.
In the "Bodynet" concept scenario, future technologies will monitor our body's vital conditions and compute the outcome of our actions on-the-fly. So this technology allows you to enjoy that McDonalds meal even more, being assured by a floating data dashboard how it will shorten your estimated lifespan with several weeks.
The "Whuffie Meter" merges your physical presence with that of your online social identity. Socializing will take on completely new dimensions when people can see everything public about a person on semi-transparent infographic displays floating over their heads, right as they are talking with them. Question of allowing people to map your faked personal ad information to your person straight away.
"ThingBook" exploits the concept of "" to allow people to go shopping practically everywhere and at any time. Do you like that new car you saw drive by? Just call up the floating interface and press "buy". Want to really know how old that shirt is of your work colleague? Discover and humiliate him right there and then.
More information at and .
I am curious: who can come up with some original captions for any of the concept images available below?
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Wow, look at the size of that "Coke"! Got to be from the US!
"the visionaries" forgot to add google/whatever ads in every corner of the dashboards....scary future vision though...
I love how mcdonalds menu on the wall is still the same as it was 20 years ago.. lol. oops
and the cc reader on the counter.
Were are the floating screens coming from?
Yeah, it's a current McD menuboard (I worked on the business). Look at the Big Mac/whatever burger that they seem to have comped up in the foreground promotional piece. Appealing?!?
Jenny: "No seriously, I need 233 sheep for my Farm."
that is ridiculous. lets have a society where there is no mystery, or private information. where people don't have to work things out for themselves, ever. why dont we all drink computer chips, you'd think by 2020 we could have a drink better than coke. we'll probably all be depressed anyway, so they should replace that coke with a 1/4 of gin and some valium. that would make 2020 worth the wait
I agree with John, where are the floating screens coming from? They'd have to be projected from somewhere. The only concept design that seems to include a projection device is the McDonald's one, where the images could possibly beam upward from the tray. But just floating in mid-air with no point of origin is pushing it; I'd like to see concepts of the projection hardware and how such devices could be integrated into our lives. It's all well and good "to allow people to go shopping practically everywhere and at any time," but how we get there needs to be explored too. And in just 10 short years, such ambitious ideas can't be realized if people continue to skip steps in the process. You can't get to the summit of the mountain without first learning to climb.
@John Were are the floating screens coming from?
The screens could be coming from contact lenses that people will soon be wearing in order to get this kind of extra information. Chips will be imbedded within products that can be read and displayed when our contact lenses scan them in this fashion.
not that I personally would ever want to put a contact lens in my eye that does this, but its already being developed. here is the article about augmented reality contacts.
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/16/view/9488/augmented-contact-lens.html
twitter: @chatterpop
www.chatterpop.com
@adam Webber - but one of the guys wears glasses ;>.
Anyway, personally I'd love to eat a hamburger with percentage of eaten hamburger counter displayed on it (imagine yes men hackers hacking your hamburger to change the information to: if you eat the rest of the hamburger, your head will explode ;>), or a glass of water displaying the percentage of water in it: "You already drunk 30% of water in this glass, if you drink the rest within next 2 seconds, you'll get a free refill! ;>
2020, and still stuck with screen-sized rectangular displays...
Radical idea, love to see in some venues for Real Time testing etc.
IE ComicCon
ComDex
Hotels
Hooters
Bars
Airports
etc.
Radical idea.
Woah! I ahev a blue shirt like that guy in the last photo.
This is fantasy. It is NEVER going to happen in 10 years.
are these just visual concepts? if not, what is the concept? floating augmented reality? will we live in a future where we are just consumers?
In 2020 we won't be asking questions like where do all the floating screens come from because that's at least 8 years beyond the apocalypse.
I'm glad to see how socially responsible McDonald's consumers are.
That guy is smiling because he thinks it is so cute how that info-graphic is informing him about the Big Mac he is about to consume, and how it will shave 30 minutes off his lifespan.