🌊 soulful speech, stimulating stories, super sensing, safe stupid sitting and ripples in the water
wa've ~ did you see this coming?!
Did you see this coming?! is my (mostly) optimistic view on our changing reality and everything that is in motion. I am trying to make this intersting by adding speculations of what might be, provocations where I can and spectism where I must. This way I hope to open your eyes and see that possibilities are endless.
Imagine with a OpenAI supernatural mind
Commercial companies are hiring scientists and doctors to help customers experience their products on whole new and different level and in different realities. These offerings go beyond current commodoties as we know them today as they are connected to our brain and merge our physical and virtual selves with biotech features.
Welcome to a new world of possibilities where minds can merge with machines and where we can create new experiences and realities. We can now merge our physical and virtual selves with biotech features that connect us to the internet of things.The way we interact with technology is also changing, as we are able to control it with our thoughts and use it to enhance our physical and mental abilities.
Soulful speech
A paralyzed man who hasn’t spoken in 15 years uses a brain-computer interface that decodes his intended speech, one word at a time. This man wants to help develop the technology into something that people like himself could use in their everyday lives.
By draping a thin, flexible electrode array over the surface of the volunteer’s brain. The electrodes recorded neural signals and sent them to a speech decoder, which translated the signals into the words the man intended to say. It was the first time a paralyzed person who couldn’t speak had used neurotechnology to broadcast whole words—not just letters—from the brain.
Biotech solutions are helping people with disabilities to restore speech, mobility and sight. Does that make you feel good?
Breaking the wa’ve
As developments in EEG (electroencephalogram) are moving rapidly we can learn a lot on how our brain works, consumer-tech applications follow by helping us moving in different frequencies to reduce stress and improve our mental health.
This KFC brainwave bucket helmet is encouraging people to (over) think less and indulge more, the device’s built-in headband analyzed people’s brain activity while their senses were stimulated by deep fried chicken. Those who embraced the comforting qualities of the signature meal and stopped overthinking were rewarded with even more fried chicken.
If you ask me this is leaning more towards brainwashing…
Super sensing
A growing number of people are living with conditions that could benefit from physical rehabilitation. but there aren’t enough physical therapists (PTs) to go around. An upsurge in sensor-based techniques, such as on-body motion sensors, has provided some autonomy and precision for patients who could benefit from robotic systems to supplement human therapists.
Now MIT computer science researchers, the CSAIL and the Massachuttest General Hospital have created an unsupervised physical rehabilitation system VR Body Suit that lets a patient watch themselve perform. It has motion tracking that captures motion activity, an imaging technique called electrical impedance tomography (EIT) that measures what the muscles are up to, and a virtual reality (VR) headset and tracking suit.
Breaking the wa’ve
We are going to spend more of our time in virtual reality and are getting used of that VR headset. Realities are merging and the digital twin (or avatar) will become part of identity and ourselves. So what if there is no difference between you and your digital self? Can we just rehabilitate in game play?
Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey claims to have built a VR headset that, should its wearer's avatar die in a game, blows up the user's head with "explosive charge modules. So if you die in the game you die IRL. It means the stakes are raised to the maximum level and force people to fundamentally rethink how they interact with the virtual world themselves and others.
I wonder what would happen if you go to a VR wine tasting would you get drunk?
Safe stupid sitting
We love to play, game and have fun as much as we can where ever we can. Could that be the reason why we would like to sit in a office chair and drive around our workplace? Volkswagen wants to give you the feeling that you can experience and sit in their car without leaving your (second) home.
As the Volkswagen bumper-car office chair is already fossil fuel free, McDonalds takes on the challenge with a oil free gaming chair. Gamers can now stash their fries on one side and softdrink on the other and play without having to worry about making a mess.
I wonder if you can combine this with the KFC helmet.
Ripples in the water
Last month I facilitated a future thinking workshop with citizens in Eindhoven to envision the city in 2100. We imagined large city sized co-living buildings that could provide the people with everything they would need. There are so many developments going on that show we could move towards a future like this (look at The Line).
The architecture of these buildings could be co-created with an AI that renders tectonic surfaces and enclosures reveal layers of exuberant segments and impressions of metal panels and concrete volumes, seamlessly folded into dynamic compositions that evoke a sense of fluidity.
The windows of these buildings would have multiple features. They can be used as a magnifying glass to melt metal in to fluid forms. The window coating could cool the buildings without using energy and are made out of smart glass that uses the sun to make Wi-Fi.
Would you like to live in such a sustainable and regenerative building?
