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Shift Happens

A truly insightful presentation on the future of education:

(Content by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, design and development by XPLANE.)

Dr. Robot

There will be a follow-up article on personal factories soon, promise. I have been a bit overwhelmed, in a good way, by the sheer quantity of data on the subject. Thank you for your patience, dear nerds!

Image: Big Diction

Meanwhile, so much cool stuff has been happening in Nerdville, that I just have to give an update. Notably, some cool stuff related to health care.

This week Bluecross Blueshield branches in New York state announced that they are offering their members virtual physician visits. Patients “meet” with a physician through a protected online chat or phone service. New York is now the fourth state to provide an online care option.

So what? Well, increasing health care efficiency is one of those things that sounds boring but is actually amazingly cool. Like, $600 billion dollars worth of cool. That’s how much money is wasted every year due to health care inefficiency (Institute of Medicine). Inefficiencies also lead to more than 100,000 deaths and a million injuries. That is a 747 crashing in the US every day.

And this is in the richest country in the world (by GDP). I don’t even want to talk about the health care options available to the bottom billion people who make an annual salary of $365.00.

The X Prize is a foundation trying to save the world by sponsoring giant competitions. The foundation imagines an transformative invention that is just beyond the grasp of current technology. Then they offer a whole lot of lettuce to the first team who can develop it. Recently, the X Prize announced the AI Physician Prize they are considering.

The prize would go to a team that designs an artificial intelligence system capable of providing a diagnosis equal to or better than 10 board-certified doctors. The system would work by a patient calling the AI physican, describing their symptoms, and receiving help. By the end of 2013, 80% of the world’s population will have a cell phone. And anyone with a cell phone could call this AI and speak in Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, or any other language, and receive medical help at the level of a board certified doctor. That is a global health game change worth getting excited about.

Blades

Architectural

Bursting

The Next Dimension

Remember when the internet was a baby? The whole wire-spewing mess seemed pointless in an aesthetically displeasing sort of way. As informed citizens and readers of Newsweek, we thought, “Well, this thing is interesting enough. But what is it actually good for?” But then we made email accounts. And Googled. And realized that ideas were no longer trapped in universities and research institutions. Remember when this informational soup started to taste downright delicious?

Just as the internet transformed ideas, custom manufacturing is poised to revolutionize object creation. We now sit in the eerie calm that settles in the night before a revolution awakes. When the only sound is the rhythmic tapping of a nail as Martin Luther pins a paper with 95 theses to a door. The easing of a handful of German troops into the fragile Rhineland territory in 1936. The cushioned thump of a gavel in a solemn courtroom as Justice Warren rules that separate will no longer be considered equal.

The approaching revolution is called many names. Desktop Factories. 3D Printing. Custom Manufacturing. Personal Fabrication. Rapid Prototyping. Rep Raps. Laser Cutters.

But we won’t get into all these sexy details just yet. Later this week we can delve into discussion of these machines. Their material capabilities. Resolutions. And so forth. For now, let us merely glimpse into the world  these new revolutionaries are creating. The following items are children of the revolution. Some are astounding, some common. Their machine mothers are the matrons of the revolution. In an open source, custom created world, being a great idea has never been so good.

Home Decor

Clockwise from top left: – Bookshelf, Wall Art, Candle Holder, Lamp

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Toys

Clockwise from top left: Dinosaur, Sketchbot, Lawnmower

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Jewelry

Jewelry above: Nervous System Jewelry

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Medicine

Clockwise from top left: Skull, Pelvis, Printing Organs

Unlike the above photographs, the printing organs image is a cartoon, it’s true. However, printing organs actually is a realized technology. Check this sweet video from TED if you want to see organ printing in action. Then pick your jaw off the floor. The Industrial Revolution is just getting started.

Spokes & Shoelaces

Gaming the System

Jesse Schell jogged to the podium of the packed conference room to a staccato burst of polite applause. For a self-declared nerd from Pittsburgh, speaking to a large crowd is surely enough to cause palm moisture and stomach butterflies. At least here Jesse’s obsession with designing virtual worlds and video games is well understood. After all, this is the DICE (Design Innovate Create Entertain) conference, the annual reunion of elite game developers to ogle new graphics, analyze the industry, and otherwise hang with their homies.

However, Jesse is not here to swap high-fives with his new BFFs. Moments into his speech he flatly states, “facebook kind of knocked us on our collective ass.” And with that, Jesse launches into his description of the Big, Strange, and Terrifying Unexpected world that is facebook.

Jesse describes facebook as the following:

• Big. At 400 million users, facebook is very big. More people raise virtual farm animals on the FB game Farmville than have Twitter accounts.
• Strange. Facebook games probably make more money from “lead generations” than “direct payments.” Huh? Well, players can earn points using 3 different approaches:

1. Boring old hard work. Slow.
2. Transfer money directly into your game account (direct payments). Expensive.
3. Sign up for credit cards and other promotional offers (lead generation). Fast and free. Ding ding ding!

As you’ve probably guessed by now, the strategy often employed is number 3: sign up for promotional offers. Herein lies the facebook funkiness. This enormous market appears to be primarily financed by 3rd-party offers and promotions. In other words, virtual money is being swapped for more virtual money. Which somehow translates into real-life money. A lot of real-life money.

– Terrifying Unexpected. For developers, the craft of game creation has long been a relatively cushy and predictable occupation. Oh sure, you have to know your stuff going in; no programming slouches allowed. And the field certainly has plenty of technical hurdles to overcome. However, the formula for how to make a winner has been pretty clear. Make it flashier. Improve the graphics. Build a more intuitive interface. And so on.

Now audiences are no longer playing by the rules. Or if they are, it’s a new rule set. In addition to facebook apps, games such as the Wii Fit and Guitar Hero also exploded into popularity. Much to the game development world’s chagrin.

What is the common thread of these new gaming trends? Jesse identifies a collection of clever psychological tricks. Rather than trying to beat a machine or an unknown online adversary, networking sites like facebook allow players to compare their points and skills directly with their loved ones: friends and family members. Apparently, a lot of us want to do this.

While the above critiques are certainly informative, Schell’s most startling observations come at the end of his talk. In his frank analysis, “we live in a bubble of fake bullshit, and we’ll do anything to get to what is real.” Schell points to the public’s hunger for the “real thing,” whether it be reality TV instead of a sitcom or an Angus beef burger instead of a big mac. Perhaps these social games scratch an itch for a deeper interaction with each other than our boxed-up modern life allows.

At the very end, Schell points to where technology is going, and describes a world where every product will come with a CPU, a screen, a camera, and a wi-fi connector. Whether you are drinking a coke or jogging, there will be ways to connect to some kind of semi-social stimulation. Schell even predicts a synchronized storm of slot-machine living, where every action – be it biking to work instead of driving or using one product over another – results in a microshower of pleasing bleeps and bloops as the score rises in your point account.

Behavioral Economics? Meet Technological Capitalism. Technological Capitalism? This is Behavioral Economics. It is a strange, dsytopian view of the future, and perhaps a possible one. At least for a time. Time is a’wasting, but I would say this talk is well worth its 30 minute investment.

Jesse Schell: DICE, 2010

Minding Our Previews and Quotations

L would rather eat the appetizers than the main course. Cinematically speaking. The boy loves previews with a passion that is hard to capture in words. He finds them thrilling. He likes movies and all; they just pale next to the trailers.

I, on the other hand, treat movie trailers like the sun. I strenuously avoid looking at them directly when they cross my path. It’s not that I dislike them – previews are dazzling, after all. It’s just that when a movie starts, I want to have no idea what I’m about to see. That way I can bury myself in the story with no preconceptions. It’s more like life that way.

Although I treat previews like a virulent disease transmitted via eyesight, I understand why L loves ’em. Trailers reveal a fleeting glimpse of a cinematic utopia. An dream world in which every movie becomes hilarious, poignant, and gripping for two and a half minutes. The excesses of plot and narrative are stripped away, leaving behind only raw emotion and glimpses of the truths the movie managed to penetrate.

Quotes are like previews of a person’s life, and I love them for that reason. Like this one. When I start to wimp out on something, I call to mind that: “Courage is the first of all virtues. By it, all others are ensured.” Winston Churchill