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The Future Automatic

Got futurism on the mind, folks.

Been traveling through Don Norman’s future vision by way of The Design of Future Things. Norman imagines a future where today’s design shortcomings are tomorrow’s design opportunities. And in his book, he offers product design principals to leveraging them.

Norman crafts his around two, closely related trends:

• Technology’s growing capacity for automation
• Designers’ enthusiasm to automate as much as possible

Consider partial corrective controls in automobiles, where a vehicle monitors safety conditions and  will automatically correct for them. A “smart” car might engage the brakes if it senses you’re too close to the vehicle in front of you. What about smart houses which change room lighting and music in response to your mood? Norman also pictures “automatic banking systems [that] already exist [and] determine whether you are eligible for a loan. Automated medical systems [that] determine whether you should receive a particular treatment or medication. Future systems [that] will monitor your eating, reading, you music and television preferences. Some systems [that] will watch where you drive, alerting the insurance company, the rental car agency, or even the police if they decide that you have violated their rules.”

The implications of these systems sound very Fahrenheit 451. But the the essence of the design problem is majestic regardless of application:

• How do we engineer the capacity for machines to intuit human behavior, anticipate and judge our actions in order to effectively respond through monitoring, reporting, or just plan taking control of the situation?

The capacity to automate is one thing. The drive, curious.

It’s a scintillating design problem to wax poetic about how we can change the way we interact with machines to take better advantage of their strengths and virtues. The futurist in me, questions why applications for smart technology trend toward a Jetson’s vision of the automatic domestic life. While the business person in me wonders what the value is? It’s easy to confuse technological push for market pull. And I question automation as an end unto itself.

Enter: Emotiv. Norman wrote this book in 2007. This past July, Emotiv Systems debuted their computer interface to TED audiences. It advances Norman’s vision and them some.

The Emotiv interface reads its user’s brainwaves, and allows users to control virtual objects, and physical electronics, with thoughts (and a little concentration). Not only is it an incredible HCI solution, but their vision for application stretches far beyond reaching the Jetson lifestyle.

TED Talks | Tan Le: A headset that reads your brainwaves

Oh the places we will go!