At this point, phrases like ambient computing, ubiquitous computing, and even (shudder) the Internet of Things may be floating around in your brain. Are we back here again? If the answer is yes, it may not be a cause for despair. Béhar quotes Embodied’s book moxie companion robot, elliq’s elderly care and happiest baby robotic bassinet as examples of AI-powered devices that actually “solve specific human needs,” but it should be noted that Béhar is involved in all of these products. He says: “We are designing these experiences to be integrated directly into the actual physical element of these products, rather than your smartphone. “This alleviates the dependency on doing everything on a personal device, and we found that these solutions are not socially disruptive and, in fact, are more magical to use.”
Last week, Sir Jonathan Ive was presenting degrees to graduates of the Royal College of Art and Imperial College at the Royal Festival Hall ceremony in London, befitting his role as elder statesman of design. Stephen Green, director of the joint Innovation Design Engineering program between the two universities, suggests that Ive is the perfect candidate to pick up and metabolize all the post-smartphone and display experiments we’ve seen come and go over the last decade. . be it voice agents, which Green believes should be used in combination, not alone, wearable devices, Bluetooth beacons for greater fidelity at the location level, signal processing, olfactory sensors (OK, maybe we’re not ready for that last one) . .
“Historically speaking, that was the beauty of Apple under Steve Jobs,” Green says. “In short, a marketing person with great technological vision and capable, with what is sometimes called design leadership, bring together an incredible team of people and investors around him to make that happen. So obviously Jony Ive has a lot of those ingredients that are needed, with the support that can coalesce around him, to achieve an amazing critical mass to make something innovative. Because much of the technology and possibilities exist.”
The iPhone of AI
The original rumors and reports were, of course, referring to an “AI iPhone,” in the sense of a super-successful device that allows everyday people to access cutting-edge technology. The dominant component in any era-shaping system devised by LoveFrom and OpenAI is likely to be self-defining. against the iPhone. Mentions of social disruption and reliance on screens chime with Ive’s somewhat elusive comments over the years about smartphones and social media addiction.
Ive has gone on record to say that he has limited the time his children spend in front of the screen. When pressed by Anna Wintour on stage at the WIRED25 Summit in 2018 about whether we are now “too connected,” he responded: “The nature of innovation is that you can’t predict all the consequences. In my experience, there have been surprising consequences. Some fabulous and some not so much.”
A possible kindred spirit, both in terms of breaking smartphone norms and San Francisco culture, is Anjan Katta, the founder of Daylight, whose DC-1 tablet goes against the grain with a paper-like screen. 60 fps. It says harmful components of our current consumer technology, including blue light, flickering and addictive notifications, can make us sicker and more anxious. “As someone who has first-hand experienced the extreme downsides of modern technology, including eye strain, circadian rhythm disruption, exacerbation of ADHD symptoms, and mental health issues such as anxiety and depression,” he says, “I agree wholeheartedly the push to create personal computers. devices that don’t consume such a large portion of our time and energy.”