The Connected World

Times, they are a changing

We are living in a very interesting era, a time where the connection between us, our peers, our loved ones, then our devices, our cars, our public utilities all combine to form a dynamic grid. And it all amalgamated on the show floor of Intel during the CES (aka Consumer Electronic Show), which happens every year.

In fact, its the power of making connections that Steve Jobs valued the most in design. It is the job of the designer to make a connection and see patterns where no one else may. But what if your computer did this ? Would it still be a computer ? Below is a link to Intel’s CES 2018 update:

Our guys in the studio loved the entire presentation, it provoked some really nice conversation which i will try to capture below.

Voxels

I probably jumped when I saw this one being presented by Intel at the CES. A voxel is a unit of graphic information that defines a point in three-dimensional space. Captured with a range of 5K cameras, it generates up to 3TB of data per minute. Volumetric video (the output) gives the viewer the ability to view its content from any point of view. Imagine if you were to see a cricket match, volumetric video would allow you to see the match from the bowlers perspective as he bowled an over. Or allow you to see a goal attempt from the shooters point of view. As we see it just the fact that it gives you multiple perspectives or points of view, opens up a world of possibility.

More on voxels here

Neuro-morphic Computing

Computers that can perceive like humans. Recognise patterns and maybe make decisions based on those. While only briefly introduced in the presentation.

This will mimic the way the brain, observes, learns and understands. We felt this took the rules of HCI ahead by bringing creativity and decision making to the machine, but time will tell how this unfolds. While this has endless possibilities are the best applications of this the ones that better leverage human judgement.

Autonomous

Autonomous vehicles, like the car and volocopter seem to be the future. We strongly feel for this as it will remove the need for the person to control, drive. May be this will solve issues like road rage, stop accidents from happening. Maybe I am thinking ahead of myself 🙂 But there was a lovely framework which involves setting up of sensors, mapping the environment and data and a set of rules to ensure that these vehicles function.

This really opened up our minds to what is possible from a technology, design and business perspective and converted our studio into a discussion forum for an afternoon.

While we get excited and begin to think of a connected and smarter world ahead, as advocates we feel responsible to continue designing with the human in mind, and how technology can best leverage what is already good about us humans 🙂

We’d love your thoughts, fellow humans?