Brendan Dawes

Brendan Dawes is a self confessed button pusher and collector. He delivered a lecture and I would say it was my favourite out of all the Unit X talks. I could write about all the things he showed us but the most relevant I feel is The Happiness Machine. It is another examples of the "The Internet of Things" as it physically communicates data from the world wide web. When the button is pushed, a little receipt is printed off displaying a tweet containing the word "happy". I cant remember if it was selected from just accounts that Brendan is following, or all Twitter accounts, but you get the idea.

Brendan said the reason it works so well is because the receipt is small and can fit in the palm of your hand, making it personal and special. You can put it in your wallet, give it to a friend or stick it on your notice board. This is a really interesting concept that I would like to explore further.

The Happiness Machine from Brendan Dawes on Vimeo.

The Internet of Things

The Internet of Things was a concept I had never heard of before. We had a talk from Ian Forrester and Zoe Barker who both work for the BBC. Zoe showed us some examples. The Internet of Things are basically real, tangible objects, that in some way visualise information or data that would usually be viewed on a screen.

I am interested in bringing a physicality back to our increasingly virtual world. We now have smart phones that do pretty much every thing we need yet these creations are moving in the opposite direction, having just one function or purpose, which at first I couldn't see the point. But now I understand, these objects put a smile on people faces and they are fun.

#Flock: A Cuckoo clock powered by Tweets

Developed by London-based technology consultancy, Berg. 

The clock reacts physically to different twitter notifications.

 

#Flock by Berg

The Good Night Lamp
The Good Night Lamp is such a lovely idea. In a world where texts, Facebook messages, likes, Tweets and hash tags have taken over real, physical and verbal communication, these lamps bring back the sensory element to letting someone know you are thinking of them.

"Good Night Lamp is a network of internet-connected lamps with a Big Lamp triggering a family of Little Lamps to turn on anywhere in the world. Our mission is for Good Night Lamp to become the first physical social network. The Good Night Lamp allows customers to keep in touch with their friends, family or work mates, and is designed to be simple to use." http://goodnightlamp.com/about/

The Good Night Lamp by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino and Daniel Fogg

Sally Denton- Macro Trends

After the colour workshop last term I realised colour/trend forecasting is something I am interested so was really looking forward to this lecture. 

Sally Denton is a trend forecaster and delivered a lecture on Macro Trends. I had always associated trends with fashion, but they are so much more than that. I thought the lecture would show us examples of future trends but instead Sally showed us what is currently influencing trends which was very interesting.

Trends are influenced by what's happening in the world

What has gone on in the past and what is happening now

Personally Sally Denton uses a mixture of intuition and research. And she does A LOT of research. 

We are currently in the "Turbulent Teens" and in post recession which = BIG THINKING

And we tend to look else where for answers.

1. Look at OURSELVES

2. Look at the PLANET

3. Look at SPACE

The four main macro trends Sally talked about were:

Human 2.0

-Ageing population

- Celebration of Age

- Mental Health

- Robotics

- Replacing limbs with prosthetics as they will eventually work better

- Becoming cyborgs

- Vaccinations: polio nearly eradicated 

Generation X.Y

- Women's century

- Over sexualised

- Freedom = naked/sex??? (Miley Cyrus)

- Objectification (Kate Moss shoe campaign, why naked if aimed at women??)

- Return to modesty

- Male grooming taken to extreme (Joey Essex)

- Return to more masculine look

- Androgynous era

Global.isation

- Shrinking world

- Rise in wealth in Brazil, Russia, China, Africa

- Use technology differently

- New wealth

-Brands

- Graphine: lighter than air, stronger than steel

- Small technology

- Mega companies

Create.Consume

- Rurban (rural/urban)

- Gorged on stuff!

- Back to basics

- Stripped back

- Raw materials

- Self containment

- Self sufficiency

- Less space

- Use nature for technology

- Finding new resources, less wasteful

The talk was so insightful, I felt excited and overwhelmed but I've got pages and pages of notes which I'm sure will come in useful throughout the project.