Insights 12.21

Design:

• Fashion is often considered the more frivolous and aloof corner of the design world, but the collective patterns that emerge there carry real meaning. What we wear to armor, costume, or camouflage ourselves in day-to-day life is less peacock and more canary in a coal mine: an early indicator of things to come; a response to the hidden, atmospheric changes afoot. Ayesha A. Siddiqi (one of the best trend forecasters/analysts around) reflects on what the styles of the twenty-teens say about our times and anxieties: " The retro tech futurism of the 90s is an appealing era to mine for aesthetics now because the future as imagined from the 90s was so safe. All the electronics were colorful and hardwearing. A deep contrast to the millennium we did reach, where our screens are spies ready to slice our thumbs with their shatter prone cracked glass."

• Nicolle Matson from Asana details the process behind designing a time-and-task visualization tool for their users that goes beyond the Gantt chart.

Labor Pains:  

• An op-ed in The New York Times cites research from MIT and other sources to argue that automation may have a pernicious domino effect: first hollowing out working class labor jobs, which then drives the economically and spiritually depressed cohort to seek political remedies. Some of the connections made in the column are a bit spurious, but the idea that economies are being remapped by automation faster than many in the labor market can keep up is sound, borne out by data and anecdote alike. 

Automatons:  

• There's yet another food delivery robot (this time from Postmates) entering the market, despite the risky lives of such machines: bursting into flames one day, getting vandalized another. 

• Past CLEAR design lab client RightHand Robotics has just raised $23MM in Series B funding. The company develops and manufactures robotic systems for applications like piece picking of goods for e-commerce operations. Whether it's packing boxes in a fulfillment center warehouse or scrubbing the floors of cavernous brick and mortar retailers, more companies see strategic investments in robotic systems as a necessity for staying competitive or coping with regional labor shortages. 

Social Beings:  

• Some would-be, could-be social media influencers are faking sponsored content posts to appear more successful.

• The year in memes, as reported by WIRED UK. 

More next week. 

Insights 12.10

Design:

• Airbnb's design studio Samara (which was formed, at least in part, by their acquisition of Lapka) has announced a fairly vague, techno-optimist sounding project called Backyard. From Airbnb's own PR team: "Backyard is an initiative to prototype new ways that homes can be built and shared, guided by an ambition to realize more humanistic, future-oriented, and waste-conscious design." Those pronouncements seem willfully naive of the company's own impact on neighborhoods, which some reports suggest contributes to displacing residents by driving up rent prices. We do need to prototype better futures on the local level, but if Airbnb wants to achieve the kind of sustainable, human-centered solutions they mention in their announcement, they will be better off collaborating with those already living and working in communities engaged in grassroots efforts, rather than letting designers dream up new concepts totally detached from the world as it stands. 

• Microsoft is showcasing a new design system for Windows, but with an eye toward a near-future where augmented reality technologies are common, and require a different kind of UI vernacular. 

Feeding the Future:  

• A good read on the promises (and tough realities) of making indoor farming practices work at a scale that could truly feed the masses. 

Roadmapping the Future:  

• Taking sci-fi world-building practices and using them as inputs for business strategy has become more popular over recent years, and hints at the sort of existential fears lurking inside some of the largest corporations and institutions. Whether it's disruption by nimbler startups or a climate change induced black swan event, organizations that have amassed power in the 20th century want to remain viable as far into the 21st as possible, to the point that they are turning to services that get ever closer to fortune telling, told through branded, rose-colored glasses. 

Energy:  

• Maersk, the biggest container shipping company in the world, says they are working to hit zero emissions for their shipping fleet by 2050. The goal is distant, but the company's very public declaration is a positive step for an energy-hungry industry. Corporate promises like this all too often amount to empty statements that are later walked back, though Maersk seems to have a decent track record on energy initiatives, citing a per-container emission reduction of 46% since 2007. 

Automatons:  

• A good explanation of why automated manufacturing processes for even mildly complex products remain relatively rare, despite significant technological advances: "Highly automated systems are brittle and have limited room for error. In the language of systems and signals engineering, they are high-frequency systems, where the manufacturing process has to account for many specific and determined steps, with little room for deviation from a specific program or routine." Unfortunately for those of us looking to be unburdened by putting robots in charge of domestic chores like folding laundry or tidying up, the variability of the home presents the would-be automaton with exactly the kind of unpredictable scenarios that flummox today's machines, "AI powered" or not.   

More next week. 

Insights 11.27

• Unlocking more unique design possibilities for common objects may be what propels 3D printed consumer goods into the mainstream, years after the peak of the hype cycle. Fast Company profiles Gantri, and their 3D printed lighting products. 

Feeding the Future:  

• Some fascinating graphs and explanations for changing food consumption trends in the United States, like how World War II impacted American appetites for ice cream and mozzarella, or the incredible rise of chickpea consumption as more people developed a taste for hummus. Today's mix of factors that may have long shadows of influence on the American diet: reduced meat consumption by non-vegetarians, and trade wars that are impacting the price of imported/exported agricultural products, skewing the cost of raw materials for all kinds of prepared foods. Changing food habits takes a good deal energy to overcome cultural inertia, but once they do change, they tend to be equally difficult to break. 

Building Things:  

• In theory, higher wage countries should be purchasing the lion's share of industrial robots, as the return on investment is much faster. In practice, manufacturers in lower wage countries (Thailand, China, Mexico, etc.) are  purchasing industrial robots at a rate far outstripping the U.S. and Western Europe, when a wage-based approach to measurement (rather than the more common industrial robots per X number of workers measurement) is used. Put another way: manufacturers in lower wage countries are adopting industrial robots much more quickly than they are 'supposed' to be. 

Body/Image:  

• Among the topics in a wide-ranging conversation between Jaron Lanier and E. Gwen Weyl, is how simulated experiences, like haptics and VR, can help to learn more about the long, sensory lineage embedded in our brains: "...the notion that you could radically reorganize the body and the brain could still control it was not something that could have been tested before. And it is remarkable. One thing that's probably going on is that the brain remembers body forms that our ancestors inhabited, because as far as the brain is concerned evolution is a slow, gradual process. So the brain remembers what it was like to have a tail."

• According to Cheddar, Snap Inc. is working on yet another generation of their Spectacles products, this time with a camera on both sides of the frame. Stereo cameras should enable Snap to overlay the kind of augmented reality filters their chat app is famous for (and other companies have copied) onto first-person video clips. Given the pace of their hardware product development, and the incremental, in-market approach they are taking, it seems clear that a full AR product is coming down the pike in the not too distant future. 

Labor Pains: 

• Samsung has admitted fault, and agreed to settle a long-running lawsuit from employees and their families. The lawsuits allege that exposure to chemicals at the company's manufacturing plants led to cancer, death, and permanent injury for numerous workers. This case (and Samsung's admission that it failed to do enough) is a reminder that the futuristic aura of the bright, shiny new objects we consume is sometimes a veneer, obscuring the dirtier realities of manufacturing and global trade, and the horrible compromises on worker safety that are all too common. Other sources on that same story say that the Samsung is refusing to disclose what the chemicals linked to these illnesses are, citing the need to protect trade secrets.

Social Beings:  

• In defense of the food photos all over the internet: "So why are we obsessed with sharing pictures of our food? Because it’s decidedly human. It brings us all a little closer, if only through a shared appreciation of our best meals."

More next week.