All right, welcome everybody. 0:01 I'm Donna and I'm gonna talk to you today 0:05 about two of my favorite things, science fiction and gadgets. 0:07 And yeah, I think it'll be fun, I mean, I had fun 0:14 working on this project, and I think it'll be a fun talk. 0:18 [SOUND] what I'm gonna talk to you about. 0:22 First, though, before we jump into, into the future, because 0:25 we all wanna get there, is, let me tell you a story about this guy. 0:31 This is, this is Martin Cooper and, he, does anyone know who he is? 0:36 Any, anything about him? 0:42 See one, one hand wanna shout out who, who he is 0:44 >> The cell phone guy 0:47 >> Yeah, the cell phone guy [LAUGH] he basically invented the first, 0:49 first cell phone for Motorola and he was also or is a huge geek 0:55 the thing about, Martin Cooper is that he idolized Captain Kirk. 1:00 So he was young in the 60s, loved Star Trek, loved Captain Kirk, 1:06 and was just, you know, kind of, kind of enamored, enamored of him. 1:12 And this was a thing at the time. 1:17 It's still even kind of a thing. 1:21 William Shatner's actually in Vegas. 1:22 Today, which is so crazy at the MGM. 1:24 You should go see him. 1:26 He's, got a finger or something. 1:28 I don't know, he does stuff, one man show. 1:30 But, people loved Captain Kirk, they even named their kids after him. 1:31 Kirk Cameron is named after Captain Kirk. 1:35 He was just, he was a thing, right? 1:37 And he did really cool awesome things 1:39 like, talk into this thing called a communicator. 1:41 And he would say things like, beam me up, Scotty. 1:45 And other cool awesome suave things. 1:48 And, like a lot of people, Martin wanted to kind of be like Captain Kirk. 1:52 He wanted to be all cool, hip, suave, and do stuff, like, communicate on the go, 1:56 and, the thing about communication is, it's something 2:04 that we all do, and in the 60s it's 2:07 something that people did as well, but it 2:09 just didn't happen in an electronic way on the 2:12 go, and Martin would watch Star Trek, watch 2:14 everyone with his communicator and think, I want that. 2:17 Why, why can't I do that, so like any good fan boy 2:20 or fan girl, he went ahead and he invented the first mobile phone. 2:24 And, the good thing is that Martin was not alone, he was not 2:30 the only one who wanted to do this mobile communication on the go, thing. 2:34 In fact fast forward many, many, many, many years later 2:39 and the whole world wants to do this mobile communication thing. 2:43 We all want to communicate on the go. 2:46 So why am I telling you about all of this, other than 2:51 I love Star Trek and I love tech and all of that? 2:56 It's because there's something that happens when we watch things on a 3:00 screen or read about them in stories and it excites the imagination. 3:05 We make it so. 3:09 And this is Picard, not Captain Kirk, but I'm more of a Picard person myself, so 3:12 I had to just, make sure that you know, we did give him some props today. 3:18 This is what he would always say when he would you know, being on the 3:22 deck and say make it so and everyone do whatever he asked them to do. 3:24 But [COUGH] make it so. 3:30 All right. 3:30 It's this idea that we see things in the movie. 3:32 Movies, fiction, it sparks our imagination and we 3:35 wanna do what characters on the screen are doing. 3:39 We want to be powerful like them. 3:41 We also want to do things, when they are kind of 3:43 familiar, and it amplifies what we know, to be true today. 3:47 Oh, I had a talk on the phone. 3:51 I wanna be able to talk on the phone, on the go to. 3:53 This is what in Sci-Fi scholar scholars call this concept of defamiliarization. 3:56 And so the idea with defamiliarization is that, in science fiction 4:04 what we are actually seeing is not the future and it is not other worlds. 4:10 It is our, world and is our present day that is re imagined. 4:14 It's re imagined in ways that either tell us, what's wrong with our 4:20 current society, time or place or that tell us, what things can be like. 4:23 And so, when we see, what things can be like on the 4:30 screen, we do what good humans do, we try to emulate it. 4:33 We try to built it and we go and we, we essentially. 4:37 Make it so, so this that's, that's me. 4:41 This is kind of what, what I do on a daily basis. 4:45 I am an advisor. 4:49 I am a teacher. 4:51 I'm a consultant. 4:52 I help businesses figure out what digital products should be, how to 4:53 make them better, how to, fix them when they're not working quite right. 4:58 How to build things that are completely new, how 5:02 to make sure, that everyone is on the right track. 5:04 And for the last few years, I've been focusing a lot in the mobile 5:07 and tablets face and so over the last year, one of the questions that 5:12 started coming up a lot from clients and students alike, is this, this 5:16 question that is you know, a lot of people are thinking about what, what about glass? 5:22 Is that something we need to start thinking about? 5:27 Do we need to, design for it? 5:30 How do we approach it? 5:32 What do we do? 5:33 And when people first started asking me this question. 5:35 My initial answer was, cuz I'm a futurist but I'm also a skeptic. 5:39 And my initial answer was, oh my God no stop. 5:45 It's the, it's the Segway for your face, don't 5:50 go there, this thing is gonna be a dud. 5:54 Right so actually if you Google Segway for your face that is what comes up. 5:56 [LAUGH] Basically lots of Google Glass photos 6:02 they're the top of the search results. 6:05 So, that was, you know, my initial thought was, this 6:07 thing is a really, really, really silly device, who wants it? 6:10 And you know, if you look, this is what Google wants us, wants us to think. 6:15 Oh no, everybody wants it, so this is from a promotional trailer. 6:21 [MUSIC] 6:26 >> Okay Glass. 6:28 Record 6:30 a video. 6:34 >> This is it, we're on in two minutes. 6:34 >> Okay Glass, hang out with the flying club. 6:37 Google photos of tiger heads. 6:41 Ready? 6:46 You ready? 6:46 >> Right there. 6:48 Okay Glass, take a picture. 6:49 >> So, right. 6:58 Take pictures of Google tiger heads and, you know, air balloons and 7:01 balley and all this really, really fun, fun crazy kind of consumerish stuff. 7:05 This is what Google was, has been telling us, yeah, this is, this is Glass. 7:11 This is the future. 7:15 This is totally awesome. 7:16 This is running through fields and throwing your kids up in 7:17 the air and taking pictures of them at the same time. 7:20 And so, you know, of course I'm thinking, well, okay, 7:23 something's not sitting right with this whole Google Glass thing. 7:26 We're all kind of, mocking it a little bit even 7:29 though all of our friends are thinking about buying one. 7:31 And lots of labs are buying it, and figuring out, 7:34 okay, yeah, we've got to build an App for Glass. 7:37 But, growing up with science fiction and having 7:39 watched many, many science fiction films through the years. 7:42 I also, the other thing about me, is I have film background. 7:46 I was a, film maker many years, while I also worked in Tech. 7:49 I have two film degrees, for, for some reasons. 7:53 So, it's what I do. 7:56 I watch, I watch movies and then I figure out what cool things we 7:58 can apply to, to the Tech, that we build and, you know, thinking about 8:01 it I, my reaction was no this is silly but also, we've seen this 8:06 prototyped in the movies a million times and Google wants us to see this. 8:11 But what I've always seen, throughout, my career watching 8:16 movies [LAUGH] is, is this, this is a still from Robocop. 8:21 And, this is in what what we call in 8:27 film dystopia, or we call in science fiction dystopia. 8:33 It's the opposite, of utopia. 8:36 It's the opposite of what we try to do as designers, 8:39 as technologists, as people who build cool digital things and software Apps. 8:42 Whatever we're working on, right? 8:46 Not good! 8:49 Why on earth, would Google be trying to tackle this thing that is supposed to 8:51 be so awesome and you know, daisies and 8:55 fields, when, dystopia is what we see, right? 8:57 Awesome, that's what Google says. 9:02 But, no. 9:04 So something, something, you know, wasn't quite sitting right with me at the time. 9:04 And I was ready to just spend some time doing a whole of research. 9:08 Going back, figuring out, all right. 9:13 What are all the instances of wearable face technology, in Sci-Fi 9:15 that have appeared over the last several decades and how is it treated? 9:20 What is this device really? 9:26 Now, one thing I need to qualify here is when I talk about Google Glass. 9:29 Have any of you ever used a Google Glass before? 9:35 Just a couple. 9:39 Oop, I see, I see one there. 9:40 Okay. 9:41 All right. 9:42 >> [LAUGH] Batteries dead. 9:44 >> Okay, that's what I was just gonna say. 9:49 The battery is dead. 9:50 Thank you. 9:51 I was just gonna ask you all a second question which is how is it. 9:52 So, Google Glass. 9:55 It kind of, sort of, sucks. 9:57 In it's current incarnation, it's a bit of a dumb device. 9:59 The battery barely lasts long enough for people to complete 10:03 the, the key tasks that they might be completing with it. 10:06 Which I will talk to you about. 10:10 It it has to be tethered. 10:11 It, also the screen is terrible. 10:14 I've used it and it, I've, it hurts my eyes. 10:16 I can barely get anything done. 10:19 Also there's a lot of sol, social stigma attached. 10:21 It's not where it could be right now. 10:23 So when I talk about Google Glass and I talk about wearable face technology. 10:26 I'm kind of jumping ahead into the future talking 10:31 about, what it could be if it worked really well. 10:33 In other words if the battery lasted, if it had some more connectivity, if it 10:38 had a little more power, if it 10:42 had different gestural commands and better voice commands. 10:44 If it also wasn't kind of a passive device and that have to be activated by us. 10:48 If it could just do things. 10:55 So, what, again, I'm talking about when I say can you Google Glasses, what are 10:56 device like that could be in the future not necessarily its current incarnation 11:01 but, going back through, [LAUGH] through this journey. 11:06 I started at at, at Stat Trek, which as I, I love it. 11:13 And you see a bunch of different instances of wearable 11:19 face technology in, in Star Trek, and they often fit. 11:23 Something like this. 11:28 So, I am gonna show you a trailer from Star Trek, The Next Generation. 11:29 It's an episode, called The Game. 11:31 >> A 11:33 harmless game becomes a dangerous addiction. 11:35 >> What if someone's trying to use the game for some purpose other than pleasure? 11:38 >> And the crude fall victim to its evil hypnotic power. 11:42 >> We can't trust anyone any more, not even the Captain. 11:45 >> Can Wesley rescue the crew from total mind control, or is he next? 11:48 >> We've got him, Captain. 11:53 >> Let go of me! 11:55 >> High Tech Nightmare on the next 11:56 exciting episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation. 11:57 [MUSIC] 12:00 >> That's right. 12:05 So, we have this utopia so far, basically film noir with robocop. 12:06 We have now, High Tech Nightmare. 12:11 This is still not good. 12:14 Why would anyone say yeah I wanna build one of those, this is so cool, right? 12:15 Still something's not sitting right and, a lot of the 12:21 instances of this high technology again are of this genera dystopia. 12:26 It's nightmare. 12:32 Things go very very wrong when there's technology on your face so. 12:33 [COUGH] Digging a little deeper all right. 12:38 The cyborgs. 12:42 The cyborgs are coming. 12:43 Doesn't sound very awesome right? 12:45 This is not what we do as technologists. 12:47 This is, a character from Star Trek as well, the Borg. 12:49 They are cybernetic beings that are connected and do very, very bad 12:54 things and they have, they have technology on their face as well. 12:57 Why would we want to be like this? 13:02 So, this is actually not something bad, according to Thad Starner. 13:04 Thad Starner is the lead engineer on the Google Glass team at Google, and 13:10 this is the title of an article, a kind of a treatise he wrote in 1993. 13:16 It was never published, because no one took it seriously. 13:22 He sent it to Wired Magazine. 13:25 Thought, oh my God, they're, they're gonna eat this up. 13:27 And they did not publish it. 13:30 It's, is basically a treaties for why, wearable face technology is going 13:32 to transform us for the better and we're gonna have an amazing, awesome future. 13:38 So, I'm gonna read you excerpt, from the treatise. 13:44 So in it, he says, at first only a 13:50 certain breed of technophile or time critical information consumer 13:52 would be interested in looking odd to gain the 13:55 power and convenience of such, such an interface would allow. 13:58 The computer professional. 14:01 These individuals use a computer every day and find it essential to do their work. 14:04 Even if the system was just sold as an expensive toy, a market may still exist. 14:08 So, a few key points I want to point out here. 14:14 The computer professional. 14:18 All right? 14:21 These individuals use a computer every day and find it essential to do there work. 14:21 And, the second point which is maybe as an expensive toy, this could hit. 14:27 This could tap into a market. 14:34 So, again I'm seeing all these dystopian visions of wearable face technology. 14:36 Okay what about toys? 14:41 Is Google Glass, could that be a toy? 14:43 Cuz again Google's going for the consumer market, not really talking 14:45 about professionals which I'll talk about in a moment, but first. 14:49 [INAUDIBLE] How where we'll face technology 14:52 toys are treated in science fiction. 14:55 So, I'm gonna show you a clip from Back to the Future part two. 14:57 >> Here you go. 15:02 >> Oh boy oh boy, Mom. 15:03 You sure can hydrate a pizza. 15:04 [INAUDIBLE] 15:06 >> Still waiting for the dehydrator, by the way. 15:06 >> I'm just worried about Jennifer. 15:08 Why isn't she home yet? 15:12 >> I'm not sure, where Jennifer is, Mom, [SOUND] she should 15:14 have been home hours ago, but having a hard time keeping track. 15:17 >> Hey, fruit! 15:20 >> Of her these days. 15:21 >> Fruit, please! 15:23 Thank you. 15:24 >> Aren't you and Jennifer getting along? 15:24 >> Oh, yeah, great, Mom, we're like a couple of teenagers, you know? 15:25 [SOUND]. 15:30 Go ahead, [INAUDIBLE]. 15:34 >> Dad, it's for you. 15:34 >> So, here we have it. 15:38 Google Glass, you can make phone calls from your face. 15:40 You can, play games from your face. 15:43 Awesome, right? 15:45 [LAUGH] No. 15:46 So it's, it's similar to dystopia, it's similar to film noir and nightmares. 15:47 This is comedy. 15:52 It's a send up. 15:53 It's, ridiculous. 15:54 We don't want this. 15:56 They look so silly, it's Michael J Fox playing, his 15:58 kids and the girl with the wig and the whole thing. 16:02 Right? 16:05 This is, again, is this the future that we see and think, oh my God I want 16:06 to be able to make phone calls from 16:11 my face while sitting at the, the breakfast table, 16:12 very very strange right so, a little bit 16:16 in the toy sphere they're teenagers, games communication now 16:18 does this kind of mockery stop us from 16:23 still trying to build these devices on your face? 16:25 No, we have a strong tradition of trying to build games 16:28 for your face even though we mock it in popular science fiction. 16:32 We have the Nintendo Virtual Boy from 1995 which, you know, 16:37 I know it's a collector's item, and I think that's totally awesome. 16:42 But it's, it never took off, except now, as a collector's item and a geek thing. 16:47 But, we still had Saga going for it. 16:53 We had Atari, going for it and we still have 16:56 Sony going for it, over and over and over again. 16:59 And each of these instances, never, never, never panned out. 17:02 The market just didn't exist. 17:07 Does it stop us. 17:09 No. 17:12 No. 17:13 We're still trying to, do something with this wearable face technology. 17:13 We have Facebook buying Oculus Rift for two billion dollars. 17:17 Which there's some strategy behind that. 17:22 No one's quite sure what that strategy is, but 17:24 I will still argue that Oculus Rift, a geek sensation. 17:27 With 2.5 million, I forget, $2.5 million I think was 17:31 the backing on Kickstarter, even though they didn't need that much. 17:34 It was only 10,000 backers, that got it to that point. 17:39 It's not a mass-market device that the general public cares about. 17:43 So again, compare and contrast that to Google saying, oh my God, Glass, it's 17:49 the wave of the future, it's a fashion item, it's gonna come in different colors. 17:54 You can play with your kids, and take pictures. 17:58 It's awesome, play games, do whatever you need to do, right? 18:01 [SOUND] Perhaps not mass market. 18:05 It has not worked before. 18:06 And we just mock it over and over and over again in the movies. 18:08 So, if games in your face doesn't necessarily make sense. 18:12 It's either comedy or nightmare, what about this professional. 18:16 This computer professional. 18:21 So I'm gonna straight up list what Thad Starner lists in his treaties. 18:24 All the different types of computer 18:29 professionals, who could benefit from wearable face 18:31 technology that helps you do things like, take notes without looking at a screen. 18:35 Manage appointments on the go. 18:42 Discover precedents in a court trial. 18:43 Look up info, while seeing patients, automatic access to information, get up 18:46 to the date minute stock information, yada, yada on and on and on. 18:51 So, I'll tell you one thing, takes notes without looking at a screen. 18:56 We had a conversation loss setting up my, my laptop. 19:01 just, you know, 20 minutes ago. 19:05 And I typed something real quick, and the comment was, wow, you can 19:06 type without looking at the keyboard, and you know, I'm, I'm proud of that. 19:10 I can type without looking at the keyboard. 19:14 Most of us can type without looking at a keyboard. 19:17 Not everybody. 19:20 It happens. 19:21 But, it's not a problem that we generally have. 19:21 A lot of these are problems that we have, but not all. 19:26 So, if you frame Thei Starters treaty 19:29 something that was important in 1993 right? 19:33 Taking notes, on the go, getting information on the go. 19:37 These all were 1993 problems, they were really, really, really big problems. 19:41 Get a precedent while your on, in a trial. 19:47 You couldn't really do that in 1993. 19:49 Because this is what 1993 was. 19:52 You started to have these cool portable devices. 19:56 We have the Newton, we have. 19:59 Laptop computers, it was starting to look really rosy and great. 20:01 But what you didn't have was internet connectivity. 20:05 And so, what a lot of people like Thad Starner started to do, was jump 20:09 ahead, millennia into their imaginations and think, wow well. 20:14 To get connectivity, internet in your face. 20:20 Of course, these were, these were duds, now these 20:25 didn't seem to help anyone like the futurist, Thad 20:28 Starner and, a bunch of other people who have 20:32 been playing with cyborg technology for, for a while. 20:34 But, if you think about a lot of the used cases that he talks about, what 20:39 we have today, we've surpassed this and we 20:43 now have, things like iPhones, iPads, Android devices. 20:46 We just have mobile technology everywhere and it's all connected. 20:52 And you know what? 20:56 We use these devices, on the go. 20:57 We do things like pull up information. 21:00 When we need it, we can take notes on the fly. 21:02 We can kind of do a whole lot of stuff with 21:05 our mobile devices and companies like Apple and Android know this. 21:08 They are heavily marketing towards enterprise and computer professionals. 21:13 They want that market. 21:17 There was a statistic that came out recently, Apple. 21:18 Has finally cornered the enterprise market, which no one thought they would. 21:22 And most people now use iPhones in the enterprise. 21:25 Not really a problem. 21:28 So, still, again, what on earth would Google be 21:30 doing sinking all this money into this technology that, 21:34 it seems like is either scary dystopian or we 21:37 just don't need, because we already have solutions to them? 21:39 So. 21:43 Digging a little bit deeper, into, Science Fiction. 21:44 What I did find were three really distinct use 21:48 cases where, actually the technology is kind of awesome. 21:51 So, I'm gonna walk you through each of these three. 21:56 And, what I'm calling it is the, the face text, [LAUGH] the face-tech context. 21:59 And, this is probably the, the, the 22:05 wordiest three points you'll ever see ever. 22:07 But, I'm gonna give a, a, a nod to Josh Clark and 22:10 his mobile mindset because, I like frameworks of three and I like. 22:14 Global mindset. 22:18 Basically, the idea is that there are three ways in which 22:19 we use mobile devices, I'm microtasking, I'm local, and I'm bored. 22:22 So again my question is well, the 22:28 face-tech context, what, what would that be? 22:30 Cuz it has to be something. 22:33 These crazy nerds in Silicon Valley, they're not. 22:34 Idiots. 22:37 [LAUGH] They're onto something, what is it? 22:38 So, but first, again, very wordy and if you have any recommendations as to 22:41 how I can shorten these, awesome, come up to me afterwards, I, I love ideas. 22:46 But, the first, I've got a job to do and want my hands free to do it. 22:50 So, this idea of work context, right. 22:55 Who has a job to do and needs hands free? 22:59 Soldiers. 23:04 So we have Terminator. 23:05 He needs his hands free so he can shoot people, and 23:07 beat people up, and ride motorcycles, and do really really cool things. 23:10 Terminator kinda kicks ass. 23:16 We like terminator, he's kind of a Frankenstein character 23:18 who we, we, we sort of, you know, love. 23:22 And he has technology in his face. 23:25 And he's pretty much a cyborg, half, you know, part human, part, part technology. 23:27 Another Frankenstein type of character, RoboCop. 23:32 We kinda love RoboCop too. 23:35 We love him so much that we're bringing him back for a, for a remake. 23:37 We love these characters. 23:40 And they do cool, cool, cool stuff, with augmented vision technology in their face. 23:42 So you can do things like, play and record videos. 23:50 Police officers, need to do that. 23:54 It's part of their job, often. 23:57 RoboCop can get the prime directive, right? 24:01 Can access information on the go. 24:03 Very, very important. 24:05 He needs this to do his, his job. 24:07 So again, very specific context of, I have a job 24:09 to do and this is gonna help me do my job. 24:12 When you're a soldier, if you're a police officer, it's not 24:16 that crazy to have augmenting technology helping you do your job. 24:19 So, suddenly what we see here is, is what is otherwise dystopian contexts, right, 24:24 this film noir, these creepy films that 24:30 are, really essentially horror films, they're horror sci-fi. 24:32 But just like Frankenstein, we love the main character and they're kind of. 24:36 You know, whether or not they chose that, that type of 24:40 life of cyborg living, they do cool stuff, so, the second 24:44 context, this is something again, very wordy but I'm gonna call 24:49 I'm mobile and shouldn't use my hands or avert my eyes. 24:54 So, this is something that we see a lot in science fiction as well. 24:58 With RoboCop we have, mobile navigation. 25:03 And you can basically get directions on the go. 25:07 See where you're going. 25:10 Everything's overlaid. 25:11 It's wonderful. 25:12 You have, Iron Man. 25:13 The same thing. 25:15 You can fly through the, you know, the sky and get wherever you need to go. 25:16 And you can also check your email at the same time. 25:20 Awesome [LAUGH]. 25:22 But what was important is that you got to where you needed. 25:22 To get to. 25:25 And, you did it without necessarily averting your eyes. 25:26 And you can use your hands to, you know, 25:30 direct yourself while, while you fly and do stuff. 25:32 And, this concept is something that we see in science fiction a lot. 25:35 It's something that we see in the real world a lot. 25:39 It's this concept of the heads up display 25:42 or the HUD for short and that's essentially 25:45 what something like Google Glass could be, again 25:48 it's not there yet, it's not true augmented vision. 25:51 It just is a little screen in the corner of your vision. 25:55 But what it could be is something that helps 25:59 people, like soldiers or military or anyone who's just 26:01 traveling at a really, really high speed and really 26:06 should not avert their eyes or move their hands. 26:09 Not that foreign, no longer very dystopian even though. 26:13 The instances of these images in sci-fi might be in dystopian films. 26:18 So, again speed, motion, is the second context. 26:24 The third, third context is again, very wordy but I'm gonna 26:29 call it, I'm impaired and wanna do what able-bodied people can do. 26:33 So here, we have a, you know, I think this is a question that I, I had a lot. 26:39 Which is. 26:44 Well this is always so dystopian, these images are awful, nightmarish. 26:45 What about someone like Geordie, from Star Trek. 26:49 He's kind of awesome and in fact, in the episode The Game, where that crazy 26:54 Google Glass takes over the ship and, and 26:59 there's mind control and everyone's mind is controlled. 27:01 He's the only one who survives that whole fiasco because, his visor is awesome. 27:04 He can't see without it, he can see suddenly, it's pretty, pretty cool. 27:10 So, one example, another, and I'm gonna call this a 27:17 kind of disability, this is from They Live, it's a 27:20 John Carpenter movie from the 80s and it's kind of, 27:24 if you haven't seen it, I just, go watch it immediately. 27:29 But, the idea is that you have these alien invaders on Earth who have been living 27:32 dormant for decades and they've taken over the 27:38 planet, and you never know who they are. 27:41 Until one day, Roddy the Rod Piper he's in it. 27:45 He finds these amazing super sunglasses and he puts them on and 27:47 he sees that, half of the people out there are actually aliens. 27:51 And, they are telling you to do things. 27:55 Like the billboards actually say, to obey and 27:58 consume and do all this other crazy stuff. 28:01 And worst yet, they're all using iWatches. 28:04 And it's awful. 28:07 So, he has to save the day. 28:09 He becomes kind of a, you know a 28:10 soldier type but, kind of, you know, this visibility. 28:12 In this case, he didn't see without these glasses. 28:15 He wasn't fully able-bodied like the, the ruling class of this world. 28:19 So. 28:24 Again this kind of concept of, I can be really really awesome, with this thing. 28:25 But, in this instance, what happens, sunglasses 28:32 at night start to get really weird. 28:36 And people start realizing oh. 28:38 He's got the sunglasses. 28:40 So, even face technology that makes you 28:41 awesome still can't always be so conspicuous. 28:44 But, again, make you able-bodied. 28:48 So in terms of Thad Sterner's break down, if we look at this 28:51 a little bit deeper, are there any use cases that he talks about? 28:55 In other words, was he onto something, perhaps. 28:59 Are there use cases. 29:02 That might make sense. 29:03 That Google might be thinking about, or that they maybe are not thinking about and 29:05 are omitting from all of their PR material, and all of their crazy videos. 29:10 That, might make something like this actually useful. 29:16 So. 29:20 Breaking it down, a little bit, we have 29:21 okay, doctors, looking up information while seeing patients. 29:23 Does it fit a context, yes, they've got a 29:29 job to do and maybe they shouldn't avert their eyes. 29:31 Although the jury's out on something like this because. 29:36 Do you absolutely have to use face technology if you're a doctor and talking 29:39 to a patient, or can you pull out a tablet or a clipboard and do it that way? 29:44 So, it's important to note, even if it 29:49 makes things easier, there are certain interpersonal rules 29:52 that we have as humans where, you know, 29:54 sometimes maybe, I shouldn't have hurt my eyes but. 29:57 If there's this funny thing in between my eyes and your eyes, it 30:00 can be an affront so, you do need to be careful with that. 30:04 But, scientists, automatic access to information, sure, someone 30:07 in a lab, a surgeon, someone doing stuff 30:13 where you need information in the moment and 30:17 you might have your hands busy with something else. 30:19 Great. 30:22 Repair people get overlaid visual instructions. 30:23 Why not? 30:27 That could be really cool. 30:27 There, I had a, a contractor over a few months ago and he was 30:29 talking about putting a, a closet into one of my closets, and he said. 30:33 The instruction booklet, if I have to put 30:38 the closet together and keep going back to the 30:41 instruction booklet, cuz I've never done this type 30:43 of closet, it's gonna take me twice as long. 30:45 So I will charge you twice as much. 30:49 How cool would it be if you just had 30:52 instructions overlaid and you could just put it together, right? 30:53 He would get paid less, but that's another story. 30:56 I would get to pay less. 30:59 [COUGH] >> Perhaps. 31:00 Or you would be smart and charge twice as much and 31:01 take half the time but again, could save time and energy. 31:03 Construction engineers, right, visual instructions data in 31:08 the field, lot of different contexts so, 31:12 surgery. 31:17 We are starting to see stories like this, surgeons are starting to use Google Glass. 31:17 In the operating theatre. 31:23 Again, it's currently not the greatest device, so their batteries 31:24 die very quickly, but they're able to stream videos, of operations. 31:28 And this is something that's very important to surgeons with learning. 31:33 They broadcast a lot. 31:37 Kinda like, we broadcast [LAUGH] a lot of, you know, case studies, for example. 31:39 They broadcast while they're doing things. 31:43 Could it be something that someday, a device like 31:45 Glass could actually overlay real information on the go. 31:48 And have better voice commands [UNKNOWN] commands. 31:50 Absolutely, and you know the thing about surgeons and face technology and 31:53 doctors and face technology, is they already wear technology, on their face. 31:57 They've been doing it forever since technology on your face came out and 32:04 was a thing and they don't look silly, in that context, when they're wearing scrubs. 32:10 They're in a theater, they're doing stuff, not that crazy, so of course, why not. 32:16 In the field, firefighters, construction engineers. 32:25 They all wear technology on their face already. 32:28 Could it help firefighters so they don't have to 32:32 look at maps and figure out where they're going? 32:35 Could you be in a building and just have automatic information telling you 32:38 what floor you're on, where you're going, where the nearest exit is, where there's. 32:43 You know, there is heat, body heat, million and million 32:47 applications, does this firefighter look silly wearing something on his head? 32:50 Oh, no we are used to it, and again he's got a job to do, it's all good. 32:55 High speed, mobility. 33:02 So, extreme sports. 33:04 There is a lot of technology currently being developed for, even consumers. 33:06 Skiers. 33:13 It's a huge market. 33:14 Professional skiers? 33:16 Sure, they would go for something, that's their job. 33:18 But even consumers, they get into gadgets. 33:21 They'll spend a few thousand dollars on something that 33:22 might help them on you know, a long trek 33:25 or figure out speed, or how to bet, you 33:27 know, get better jumps and all this other stuff. 33:30 There is a lot out there. 33:33 Again, Glass can't do much for skiers right now, but. 33:34 It could and there are developers working on even more specialized devices just for 33:38 skiers so again, mobility, great jobs, awesome. 33:44 Immobility. 33:50 We're starting to see this as wow, this is from a, an article that Google put 33:52 out, that talked about how Google Glass is helping people with disabilities. 33:57 Do things, like access information on the go. 34:02 That, where they, they couldn't before. 34:06 So this is, someone who really was otherwise very, very limited and 34:07 now can do things like get directions or pull up voice commands. 34:12 Even just talking on the phone when you don't have hands, motion, coordination. 34:16 Anything like that. 34:20 It's a really, really big deal. 34:21 So again, disability, something we see in 34:24 the movies and something that absolutely makes sense. 34:26 But, if you also think about this whole concept 34:30 of defamiliarization, whereas science fiction in the movies, just tells 34:32 us what's going on today, it's reflecting our current society 34:37 and what could be and how it could be better. 34:42 This is something that sci-fi didn't make up. 34:45 And necessarily, we have this, we have a strong tradition of developing technology, 34:48 wearable technology for people who want to be able more able-bodied. 34:55 It's not weird when you see someone with a 35:00 hearing aid or someone with a disability, wearing technology. 35:03 We accept it. 35:07 And it makes them kind of awesome and that's okay. 35:08 But, the thing about wearable technology and the important thing when actually 35:11 desi, designing devices like this is that they still have to be inconspicuous. 35:16 Even wearable technology for disability, the idea is you want it to be more 35:21 and more invisible so, while early iterations might be very conspicuous. 35:26 Ideally it's like Roddy the Rod Piper and They 35:32 Live, everyone's gonna know you have sunglasses on at night. 35:34 In that movie, they end up becoming contact lenses. 35:37 That is when the device really gets awesome. 35:41 So you can fight aliens with contacts, no one knows it, everything's great. 35:44 So, again, these three, three use cases. 35:50 One thing you might be wondering is, okay, is 35:53 something like Google Glass really only just a practical device? 35:56 What about all the use cases that, you know, the media's talking about. 36:01 You see you know. 36:06 People like the New York Times coming up with apps of, yeah it's gonna 36:08 be awesome, you can get news on your face while you're on the go. 36:13 There was a series where a bunch of journalists, all tested it out. 36:17 You'd see, an in gadget journalist walking down the street reading the 36:21 New York Times and they would say, yeah this is really cool. 36:24 I can get headlines, I just got an email notification, yeah, yeah. 36:27 This is, this is awesome. 36:30 Right and so, is that something again that 36:32 we see traditionally in science fiction, I would argue 36:35 no, unless it is kind of nightmarish, but, 36:38 if you think about it within the framework of. 36:42 These three key areas, right? 36:46 Got a job to do, want my hands free, to do it, I'm mobile and 36:49 shouldn't use my hands or avert my eyes 36:53 impaired and wanna do what able-bodied people do. 36:56 Could there be a context for a brand like New York Times, building apps for. 36:59 Wearable devices like Google Glass. 37:05 And, I would say, absolutely. 37:07 If you design an app for impairment, let's say. 37:10 It ends up being a completely 37:14 different design problem than designing something for. 37:16 I've got a job to do and need my hands free to do it or, I'm mobile. 37:19 And right now, we've got, an app for I'm mobile, so 37:24 I can read the news while walking down the street, which I 37:27 would argue is not a problem that most, anyone has and 37:30 not one that can't be solved by just pulling your phone out. 37:35 It's not really that, it is dangerous to. 37:37 You know, read with your phone while crossing the street. 37:40 But, it's not a huge, huge problem. 37:42 But impairment, let's say you can't use your hands. 37:44 If you could read the New York Times from your face, that 37:48 could be really, really pretty cool, but a completely different design problem. 37:50 Again, different kind of budget line would come from the New York Times. 37:54 The design team would approach it completely differently. 37:57 You'd have more focus on voice commands and other things. 38:00 So. 38:02 Again it's really important to know what context, which we are designing for. 38:02 Because when we're not designing for really, 38:07 really important problems that people actually have. 38:10 It ends up being, you know, we have nightmares and then we also have comedy. 38:14 We're, we're mocking this. 38:18 We think this stuff is really, really silly. 38:20 You, you hear people talking about Google Glass 38:22 and it's not usually in a context of. 38:24 That's so cool. 38:27 I want one. 38:27 It's usually, what's the point? 38:28 Or we, you know, we just mock it, like on Saturday Night Live. 38:30 But, the thing is, it's starting to be adopted. 38:34 We can mock it all we want, but you 38:38 have, so for example, the New York City Police Department. 38:40 They're doing a, a test on right now of, of Google Glass. 38:44 Is it creepy, nightmarish, dystopian? 38:47 I would say yes, maybe, [LAUGH] maybe a little bit. 38:50 But they're not thinking of it like that, it's helping them do 38:53 their jo, they're gonna see if it can help them do their job. 38:56 But, already just from recording on the go whether 38:59 you're violating human rights or not, they do that. 39:02 Police officers do that in the United States, so if they can do 39:05 it a little bit more easily, why wouldn't they adopt devices like this? 39:09 Because, you know, when you think about new technology, right? 39:14 So, 39:17 if it helps, helps you do stuff. 39:20 We can mock the Segway all, all we want. 39:22 But, it's being adopted. 39:25 Police forces across the world are adopting 39:27 Segways because it helps them do their job. 39:29 Are we as consumers running out to by the newest Segway? 39:32 No. 39:35 Absolutely not. 39:37 Did Segway hope that we would all run out 39:38 to buy a Segway when they first thought of it? 39:41 Absolutely, but again it's a different type of context. 39:44 Not really necessary for every day life. 39:49 So, in terms of this type of technology being 39:52 adopted again, I would argue that yes, resistance is futile. 39:56 At least it could be a little bit amusing if not, you know, creepy. 40:01 We can hopefully laugh at it which is, is great. 40:05 But it's gonna be, the future. 40:08 It's our job to make sure that we design responsibly. 40:11 That we think about the context in which people are actually gonna use it. 40:15 And that we do what designers, developers and 40:19 technologists do every day, which is solve problems, 40:22 not just throw things out into the world 40:25 cuz they're cool, even though that's really fun. 40:28 Throw things out into the world because they're cool 40:31 and they solve problems that people, we actually know have. 40:33 Thank you. 40:38 [APPLAUSE] 40:42