Category: Hardware

The WII Balance Board is a sort scale that can accurately determine where you put pressure on it. Apart from all kinds of fitness exercises, the Board also makes it possible to train your balance (fc).

Promoting balance in mind and body is not a short contemporary hype, not a trend like ‘we are going to play games again’, but a very long term trend. This trend however is only beginning, and will only further develop after the world economy has come to balance, we can hardly speak of low wage countries, and the automizing and robotizing trends have allowed us to work less. We then will finally have the time to structurally work on ourselves. We will then be able to do things we now consider ‘inexplicable’, as ’magic‘, or supra natural. It will take some time, I am talking about 2050, but the first products to help us in this are now introduced. And these are just brands again.

The Epoc right and left ear hearing aids from Oticon work closely together to strengthe the sounds from the environment as natural as possible. Through this, the user can hear exactly what direction a sound is coming from. It doesn’t stop here though: via Bluetooth these smart ear plugs are aslo connected to a mobile phone, MP3 player or navigation system, thus forming a personal communication center. Because of this, Epoc already is a gadget for music loving youth in the USA (vo, Dutch). Ear plugs are becoming a standard accessory, used even more than glasses. Visible, as (costly) jewelery, or invisible in our ears. With that, we get endless possibilities for communication with the (virtual) world around us.

It is now possible to send an MMS to the Parrot DF7700. Thanks to a built-in SIM card the device has its own phone number that can be used to directly communicate with it (mc, Dutch). All hardware products get their own number we can use to directly communicate with. And not just us: when we start a dialogue with the brand, the producer of a device, it directly is clear what copy we are talking about. Products will no longer be anonymous, and producers will always stay connected to their products. No matter if they are with their original user, or the second or third user. Five, ten or fifty years later. This is a development in that direction.

Apple’s new laptop, MacBook Air, reacts to finger movements on the touch pad. Of course you can move the cursor with your finger, but apart from that you can scroll with two fingers, and with three fingers you can browse through the website. The laptop also reacts to turning, pinching, and stretching movements. Brands will soon start using these applications. On their websites we will be able to point at things, to quickly browse through their offers, and drag things together. First on the touch pad, later on the screen and after that from a distance of the screen. And after that, even our speech and posture are included. Then we really get into the dialogue. This laptop with these possibilities contributes to that evolution.

The new Sony T-200 camera recognizes up to 8 faces in a photo and automatically controls focus, exposure, color and flash to bring out the best in everyone. With that, making bad pictures is history. (al). We always want to look better than we do. Our holiday pictures always need to have a lot of sun. We always want to look our very best at pictures. Sony helps us here. Soon we will be able to participate in a Sunday morning video conference with colleagues in our underwear. Background, makeup and clothes are added automatically. Now in still images, soon in moving images. It will soon be the most normal thing in the world.

With Bluetrek‘s Sense callers can operate their headset (picking up or ignoring calls) with their voice. Besides, the Bluetrek Sense is also equipped with some so-called Voice Alerts, which literally tell you what phone function you are using, or just have activated, like ‘Redial last number’ or ‘Call rejected’ (mc, Dutch). Now we operate devices with our voice, soon we make contact with all kinds of brands through these devices. We then call our personal contact brand, named Joyce for example: ‘Joyce’, ‘Yes Erwin’, ‘Connect me to Yvette please’. We think it is completely normal for technology to react to us. Now still bound to a device, but soon Joyce will appear on a display in the store, in a hotel in Malibu, and in a rental car in Bangkok. This future gets closer every day.

Norwegian designer Thomas Heyerdahl sells iDiamond ear, 18 carat golden ear speakers with 204 tiny diamonds. It goes for $6,400 (en). Technology disappears, and everything we still carry on our body becomes some kind of jewelery. Like the glasses, a mobile phone, or a watch, the ear speaker also is completely refreshed. Soon ear speakers will be wireless, and then they will also let other sounds come through. We then will start wearing them permanently. Either completely hidden, very deep in our ear, or the opposite: clearly visible, like this type of ear speakers.

A new device featuring GPS, made by Satski, follows your routes at the ski slopes, guards the trip you planned upfront, and gives information about the restaurants on the way. You can also see how many miles you have traveled, what top speed you reached, and you can print the road you have traveled. You can save this, and compare it with other athletes (vo, Dutch). Thus personal sport brands slowly evolve. Now connected to a device, in the future also available through all kinds of screens, like our mobile phones among others. Now it measures the results after the achievement has been made, in the future it will give you real time tips when you’re going down the slopes: bend your knees a little bit more, now ‘carve’, put your hand on your side, etc. Our ski coach then always accompanies us.

Amazon.com introduced its own e-paper reader: the Kindle. This device contains so-called e-paper: electronic paper that can be rolled up and doesn’t use energy once the page has been loaded. Books can be imported from Amazon.com. Now it still is a technical device in black-and-white, but Philips in the mean time has shown a color version. For the time being it is mainly a toy-for-boys, but once it gets out of its hard shell, and can be taken in any writing pad, in any beach bag, in any inside pocket, then the reading experience will get a totally new dimension.

English company Goldstriker makes a golden version of every product. Lighters, pens, or mobile phones: Goldstriker makes the golden edition. They even gild certain car parts. They now also made a golden edition of Apple iPhone, as the first company in the world (mc). Brands with a symbolic function, brands that carry products to carry on or against the body, come in great designs. As long as the technology is new, the product often still has a technical appearance. The first eye glasses witnessed that, but also the first shoes, the very first laptops, or the first mobile phone. Apple now already has a product you can be seen with, but Goldstriker takes it a step further with this golden version. Of all technology to be carried on the body, we can expect design versions. Design VR glasse, to name an example.

The new Philips TV, the Philips Aurea, makes watching TV in the living room even more impressive. This is the result of the frame of the TV now lighting up too, adapted to the video being watched at that moment. Since the introduction of the TV with the very small, almost round black-and-white tubes, we have constantly been introducing innovations to make the experience more and more intense. To make it look like we are part of the scenery. The developments just keep rolling. The screens will get much bigger, the image will be 3D, the sound will come exactly from the place it is supposed to come from, and - even more important - the screens will react to us. Even at home, in the living room. For now however, this TV is awesome.

With a printer we can’t just put ink on paper, but also make a physical object out of plastic. This video shows how it works. The technique has been available for a while, but priced at $5,000 it is now available for consumers (nn). And so the virtual world enters the physical world. Anything we see in the virtual world we will be able to copy in a plastic 3D model. Even a movie star on TV. Or a friend’s funny face (or a different body part) on the web cam. Or a model from you future house you would like to see in 3D. It will be possible in just a few steps. Meanwhile, the world keeps turning. Generating a 3D model based on a couple of normal photographs will be completely normal. So if we have a vase we really like at home, we take a couple of pictures of it and a while later we have an exact copy of it. A child can do it. The sky is the limit..

This mirror shows incoming text messages as soon as somebody approaches it (tip christian). This way we get more and more interactive displays in our lives, through which we can enter the virtual world. Now we receive text messages, later we will see all possible text, audio and video messages. And we’ll be able to react directly. Through speech. And our brand agents will appear in the mirror like they have always been here. This is a small step in that direction.

Fashion brand Levi’s introduces its own mobile phone (mc, Dutch). Brands with a symbolic function (all brands carried on the body) will introduce brand extensions with products having a comparable function in the lives of consumers. For consumers who are satisfied with the standard functions of today’s mobile phone, this is a great opportunity to express themselves. Levi’s understands this. In the future, they will probably bring many more design products with relatively new technologies, like ear phones, rings, and watches.

The new Nokia E90 can read 2 dimensional, QR (Quick Recognition) bar codes. In this video clip the code on a business card is photographed, and the contact details are stored directly in the phone (mc, Dutch). In the future, every product will have a code with a URL which directly leads to the web site of the brand. Now through QR codes, later through RFID. It all becomes simpler. The product loses its anonymity and becomes the topic of conversation between brand and consumer. This is a small step in that direction.