I’ve been thinking recently whether Make Magazine’s cover will be as historic as the headline on the cover of Popular Electronics in January 1975 (pictured above). At the time only a handful of individuals had access to computers and the unique individuals who did grasped at the opportunity given to them and founded some of the biggest software companies of today. Is the same revolution on the precipice for the Makerbot? At first only ‘the geeks’ will dabble with such kits, but once it creates a niche buzz within that community these models will eventually become mainstream finding their way into homes across the world. A beast off machinery minimized for the individual, currently in infantile hardware state will the real revolution come from the software to be used alongside it?

Pictured below is the second generation of the Makerbot aptly named the Replicator. Take a look at the Makerbot Replicator’s promotional video

What might the world be like when we all have Makerbots? Perhaps it will be much like the smart phone drive, an app store to rule them all. Developers will create unique items, consumers will purchase them to print at home. Should the industry as a whole be worried by such tech? Yes of-course a change in thinking is needed to see how this might impact the future of product creation and development. Perhaps the same was said of the 2d printer, however that wasn’t the case until digital cameras came about with the ability of storing items such as photos online, now people rarly print-out their creations. Will the same become of products? Storing product designs online only to be created when the need for them arise. Supply and demand chains will need to be completely reworked.

A new generation of products created entirely in plastics will be prolific. Will the consumer become the creator, consuming their own product? Another question to ponder is will we as individuals strive for a more sustainable future if we control the output. Likely case scenario is that we would recycle the products we create to make new products we want. Will products themselves hold currency value if they can be recycled and re-used? With our abundance for plastic products we might be able to send back our precious metals for recycling in the future.

Match a Makerbot with a 3d scanner we could actually achieve full replication of a product, a very simple example could be cutting your own keys. Product piracy might become the latest battle with industry leaders and Governments fighting users  from exchanging and sharing copyrighted 3D product designs. Will there be new security concerns with this kind of tech being made available to the public? Imagine a scenario where its possible to forge our own coins? A mear imitation maybe but look at the current one pound coin problem this could prove to be quite the nuisance. Whilst metal work may be out of the question for now, how far away are we from that?  It will literally affect every aspect of commerce, even new concepts of design structures might be pushed in the future with this technology, fueling a new generation of architects and designers.

If we delve away from the home and into lab how might such machines be used in the future – will we see 3D printing on the scale of the Fifth Element regeneration chamber? A very scary but realistic reality of human cloning and fabricated organs. However fearful we might be at this tech getting out of control there is no reason to control or forbid it. We will all learn from our mistakes but for now we need to embrace it and push the envelope.

The future advancements of this machine and it’s practical uses are limitless. The star trek reality is coming closer and closer. We now hold tricorders in our hands. We have replicating machines in our homes (soon), we have civilian space exploration, whats next? I have more questions than answers but what is clear is when you make such technology available to the masses creativity will soar allowing the human race to push boundaries faster and achieve more than we thought possible in just one generation.

SOPA – Stop Online Piracy Act. If copyright holders can’t adapt to change and instead wish to destroy what they don’t understand they are the ones that will ultimately fail. Unbelievable ignorance from politicians as usual on tech related matters, I urge all to not let this injustice spread, do your research (links provided below, if lazy) and spread the word. I can’t understand how copyright holders have not got the hang of the internet yet.

Times have changed, cinema is not what the youth want today, £10 to see a film, these are teenagers! Please understand your audience and start marketing your products for todays world. Perhaps the problem is these industries have failed to hire the correct teams to deal with these problems, they need technical innovators, creatives and strategists – they should perhaps start thinking like a digital advertising agency. This is not just  a US issue, if this bill is passed it will impact the Internet on a global scale.

Please watch the video below to get a full breakdown on the issue. Rant it may be but how can you not over such a terribly thought-out bill!

Check out this Google Doc entitled ‘Dummies guide to SOPA’: http://bit.ly/srY0QD

GoDaddy, one of the biggest domain registrars was until recently in full support of SOPA. A backlash from their customers made them quickly withdraw support but that has not stopped GoDaddy from interfering with the anti-sopa exodus. I urge anyone with a domain under GoDaddy to switch immediately:

More on this GoDaddy story over at Cnet: http://cnet.co/te2trf

Join the GoDaddy boycott here: http://godaddyboycott.org

A list of over 40 Internet companies opposing SOPA: http://tcrn.ch/sbrr5m

Anonymous will react to SOPA if passed: http://bit.ly/vuhO2d

If you do happen to live in the States then it is essential that you sign up for these petitions:

http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa

http://americancensorship.org

The renowned Typo conference normally held in Berlin made it’s London premier hosting some of the most exceptional design and creative minds of our time. This was one event Skive could not afford to miss. Unfortunately it turned out that we had in fact missed the opportunity to get our hands on any tickets. As the end of a Typoless Thursday played out I vented my non-attending misery the only way I knew how – on Twitter. As I searched for the #Typo11 hash tag a fellow tweeter (twitterer?) had posted that she had a spare ticket to the conference. For that one moment in time I had the ability to compose a tweet in mere milliseconds. To my amazement I had actually scored tickets to the hottest design conference in town! A quick call to my MD Sean to explain that if I don’t attend the conference it would be a crime against Skive. Of course without hesitation Sean gave me the all clear to attend; Excitement ensued. Must take this opportunity to thank Cat Townsend and The Blank Sheet Project for the free ticket!

Below are only a few snippets of lectures I attended. Wish I could write about all the speakers I saw but alas I have very little time to write this! If you would like to know all the big shots that spoke at the conference you can check them out here: http://typolondon.com/index.php/Speakers;7/1

MAKING MOVIES IS HARD FUN: BUILDING TOOLS FOR TELLING STORIES

First up one definitely not to miss, Michael B Johnson the R&D Lead of drum roll please, Pixar Animation. Michael took us through a run down of Pixar’s Emeryville campus. A new studio they had just built on their campus named Brooklyn in the beautiful green fields of their compound.

Michael showed us images of his fellow colleagues and how they all had a very unique space adorned with items of their hobbies and passions. One Pixarian had hundreds upon hundreds of toy dolls cluttering his vast shelf space. Lesson – surround yourself with your passion whether it be your work, art, or even your failed experiments. Michael went on to explain some of the tools his team had created to help the Pixar team to collaborate during projects. One particular tool – an iPhone app allowed staff to view storyboards and post audio commentary and scribbles straight back to the animators. Michael made it a point to illustrate how important using our voice and hands were when developing such collaborative tools. It is important to be aware of problems in the various departments and how information flows between one another. If people are getting mad at each other then ask yourself can we make a tool that makes users visibly better at their jobs.

Lesson- ”Quality is the best business plan” John Lasseter, Pixar.

RENAISSANCE OF SPACE

I’ll be honest I can’t even begin to explain founder of ART+COM Joachim Sauter’s magical installations, it is beyond anything I have ever seen before. The only way is to experience it yourself. However since that’s probably not possible the best next thing is to check out ART+COM http://www.artcom.de/

The most recent big campaign that you might have seen floating around would be the BMW spheres:

Lesson – Concept a physical design approach that encourages behavioural activity. Think beyond the LCD screen or projector. This man doesn’t only think outside the box he thinks outside the cube.

THE ART OF POST-DIGITAL

Tom Uglow the Creative Lead of Google took us through the companies recent experiments focusing around building a narrative in the browser:

Wilderness Downtown was created by Google to answer a very simple question: What would a pop video look like in a browser?

Sometimes using old school advertising like bill boards to drive awareness for your product is the right approach. Think about your audience – When Google was in the midst of releasing Chrome most people did not even know what a Browser was, only 8% knew:

Lesson – Research your audience!

Life in a day used the YouTube platform to crowd source a film. Idea started with 50 hours in a day where everyone was asked to record one hour of their day. This then led onto the film Life in a Day which takes you on a journey around the world.

YouTube Space Lab

Google has recently partnered with NASA, yes that’s right NASA those space cowboys, asking teens to come up with a science experiment for space and upload a video explaining it to YouTube. If the idea won, it would be performed on the International Space Station and live streamed on YouTube to the world. They hit a specific demographic teenage boys who love science. Lesson – Target a small community to reach a broader community.

LAURENCE WEINER

If you are unsure who Laurence Weiner is then I can save you the Google Search: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Weiner

You can actually watch Laurence Weiner’s speech here so I will save you my review too, but all I can say is: The dude was on another level:

http://www.typotalks.com/video/en/index.html

Lesson: Information without explanation, now that’s design.

GARY HUSTWIT

If you haven’t already done so check out filmmaker Gary Hustwit, most renowned for his directorial debut ‘Helvetica’, a documentary about typography:

Gary Hustwit has released the final documentary in his design film trilogy. Urbanized focuses on the design of cities, and features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners, policymakers, and thinkers. Can’t wait to watch this one, so interesting:

THE KING IS CUSTOMER

This session was a really odd but thoroughly entertaining session for all typo goers. King Bansah of Ghana made a guest appearance in full ceremonial dress as part of Julian Zimmermann’s communication and design degree showcasing a design profile for the King. Eric Speikman translated King Bansah as he explained his tribe and his responsibilities. King Bansah was well educated and extremely humorous having mastered many skills in his years he is a fully qualified mechanic and brilliant craftsman. he detailed how he must provide for all his people and in order to do this he makes guest appearances and at times performing song and dance routines. Zimmermann’s aim was to portray the King as very Royal and Exotic through design:

MORAG MYSERCOUGH

For me this was the best session I have ever attended at a conference. Truly inspiring Morag Myerscough took us on a world wind tour of her life and work. She was full of energy it as if she was on a caffeine drip the whole way through. You could tell how much she loved what she did as she took us through her career and bubbly personality. I was amazed at how much she had accomplished over her time and it seemed as if she had only just begun to scratch the surface. You can view all her pieces on her site:

http://studiomyerscough.com/

CHIP KIDD – WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

Chip Kidd (yes that’s his real name), was the last speaker for Typo 2011 and he did not disappoint. What an absolute character! He had real attitude with a touch of hilarity and a side of genius to top it off. Chip Kidd mainly focuses on the book cover he designs, but is more famously known for the Jurassic Park logo. The logo was create for the book and was later used for the movie. The movie producers took the book logo and added the bad ‘Jurrassic Park’ typography.

Chip’s most recently has completed his latest book cover for IQ84:

You can check out his website here: http://www.goodisdead.com/

THE END

The best tips I took away from Typo 11 are:

• Have the courage to fail
• Share your experience
• Inspire your people. Never motivate as then they do what you want to do, instead teach encouragement.
• Reinvent yourself
• Be ready to say no
• Learn from your failed experiments
• Stay playful

I believe so passionately on this topic:

“We all have multiple identities. It’s part of being human. We’re all multi-faceted people.”

Perhaps this rings more true for me due to my Gemini characteristics, but typically most of us have a professional, social, and even rebellious presence on the internet. Having your online identity directly tied to your real world identity is dangerous in a world where Governments are actively patrolling social networking sites and punishing people for their comments. How dare they infiltrate our social circles and tell us what we can and can’t say to our friends, our family. The internet is and should always be about the freedom of speech!

Facebook and Google are currently fumbling their way trying to correct this rather complex issue providing tools to allow us to draw lines between these different personas. It is becoming more and more complex to keep our private online lives private. Nobody understands these tools and are continuously caught out by them. This perhaps might be the only way we do get to grips with such an issue – trial and error.

As the digital world rapidly permeates into the ‘real world’ this issue will become all the more controversial, will we allow a ‘mirror’ identity to exist? I guess the easiest example to portray is the popular film Minority Report. Will the future be reminiscent of the scene of Cruise walking into The Gap, is instantly recognized by the tech with his fashion taste laid out for the world to see. Not so long ago we were all talking about using facial recognition software to identify the culprits in the London riots through Facebook. That tech reality is getting closer and closer. In fact that reality already exists, its just not mainstream yet.

Anyway to end this ramble – I believe more research is needed into this area and perhaps we should take a step back and re-think what it is exactly we are trying to achieve and how our identities online and offline will be affected.

Skive are regulars at the Flash on the beach event down in Brighton and shall be again this year. The inspirational sessions towards the end of the day are always a great listen! And lets not forget the ‘networking’ that comes at the end of the day. It really is a great chance to meet people in the industry so even if you don’t take away all the knowledge you can still get a few very interesting contacts out of it. Be sure to look out for us as we are always up for an in depth conversation on the future of the web!

Write up coming soon.

Day 1 – 100% Denial. Ah its cool don’t fret its never let me down yet. I know once I dry it and power it up again it will work. I place my iPhone on the beach to dry and go back into the water. Once I get back home theres still water in screen so I remove the SIM and put it in a bowl of rice (A Google search prompted me to do so).

Day 2 – All the water seems to have evaporated. Hope stil lives that it will work now once I charge this bad boy up. I plug it in and leave it on charge for the rest of the day intermittently pressing the power button and the middle button in.

Day 3 – It all begins to set in as I come to terms with my loss; Acceptance. I spend a day weeping. I put my SIM card into my old Samsung E900. I find my entire life a year ago on this phone – old pictures, messages, memories. At least I have a contact list again even though its a year out of date.

Day 4 – Inability to check the weather in the morning during clothing session results in unfavourable body temperature throughout the day.

Day 5 – As my iPhone sits on my desk seemingly in pristine condition, I frequently forget its broken and find myself out of habit pressing the middle button and swiping my finger over a blank screen.

Day 6 – Morning wake up alarm from my Samsung is excruciatingly painful and haunts me throughout the day. The sound it makes means even trying to tinker with the snooze function is not an option. I can still hear the ringing in my head as I brush my teeth, shower, get on the tube. Nightmare.

Day 7 – Hating on my old Samsung for its terrible T9 input, the cancel button deleting entire text messages, not having GPS and ending up having to communicate to actual people on the street to find my bearings, the inability to check my Facebook and Twitter to see annoying people ramble.

Day 8 – I start to find peace with my Samsung, I realise I have not charged the little guy in 3 days and its still on full battery. During the day I don’t take my phone out of my pocket every ten minutes and put it back again. I start becoming human again in social situations and instead when I find myself in awkward situations I don’t automatically hide behind my phone, I instead zone out and dream as I stare blankly into space.

As the days passed I learnt that I have become way to obsessed with my iPhone, it has changed the way I work, the way I communicate and the way I think. However I still believe it has always been an absolute must have gadget in this modern internet age we live in – iPhone 4 here I come.

Shipping NOW! With built in N-Wireless and 250GB hard drive. They have finally solved the overheating and noise issues lets just hope they tested it properly this time.

Project Natal has been re-named to Kinect during its unvieling at E3. Kinect will change the way we play games especially with its face, body and voice (without headset) recognition software, this could change everything! Not just gaming.

Kinect is the next generation of game interaction and its going to open up a can of innovation when its released on November 4th world-wide. Here is a video detailing how advanced Kinect really is, welcome to the future:

I can’t wait for Star Wars on Kinect, It will sprout a whole new generation of the Star Wars Kid. Kinect and a cieling mounted projector is the way to go. Imagine Guitar Hero and Rock Band on Kinect – you won’t even need to collect all the instruments and cluter up your living room, you will just truely be an air band.

Nintendo 3DS

The new DS will let you play games in 3D with no glasses required. To be honest though it still looks fugly, come on Nintendo people want sexy products these days squeeze in some Apple esque design features. The camera on-board will allow you to even take your very own 3D pictures. Now thats pretty sweet but guess you can only view them on the device itself otherwise it will just look fuuuuzzy.

Playstation Move

A Wii rip-off but will have better accuracy and of-course better graphics. To be honest I was expecting more from Sony considering how Microsoft are really innovating in this sector at the moment. Also lets not forget they  already blew it with the latest PSP offering so the games for this kit better be spectacular – I do think if I was wielding a light saber in my hand I would want something tangible like the Move controller in my hand.

During the event Google’s CEO really shot down Apple and really made a point to show the products and services they were delivering were completely going to cater for their shortcomings. In short heres what we can expect from them:

Android Froyo

The new version of Android comes packed with brilliant new features and performance improvements:

JIT – Android’s Dalvik now runs a Just In Time compiler allowing Android to run 2-5 times faster!

Android Intent – You can now send specific instructions to your Android device. For example say your on your desktop and you’ve found the place you need to be tonight on Google Maps. You can literally press a button on Maps to send to your device. An Android Intent will be sent to Google’s Server and pushed to your mobile and will automatically open Maps for you with that given location. The demo was just awesome and is such a great feature to encompass this Cloud to device API.

Chrome – The Android browser will be fully capable of running Flash (FP10.1) and it has their open source implementation of V8 (a Javascript Engine). V8 is fast as hell and a test against the iPad’s Javascipt engine saw it run laps around it, unbelievable performance from this release. V8 gives a 2-3x javascript performance boost.

Google Voice Translation – This is a very useful travel feature – Google can now use their voice recognition software to translate speech and then read it back to you. It can translate French, German,  Chinese over the Cloud.

Tethering – You can now tether your Android to any other device and not only that but it can now act as a Wireless hot-spot for all the devices you carry with you. This will work amazingly on the HTC EVO’s 4G capable mobile.

Music Sync – Allows you to stream your music from your computer to your Android device. This is an insane feature, so so cool!

Enterprise Support – Android now includes new security features and allows for Microsoft Exchange support.

Google TV

After a few initial technical glitches during the session involving getting tangled with wireless keyboards google unveiled limitless internt capability on your TV. They have collaborated with satellite companies to allow seamless integration without changing your TV source. For example if you wanted to know when Seinfeld is on instead of visually searching through the messy tv guide you could simply begin typing ‘Seinfeld’ on the keyboard and it will tell you if it’s on now or in the future. If the later you can record for later.

You still have full web capabilities using Google Chrome and your Android device can be used as a control as well as allowing voice commands to be sent directly to the box, pretty nifty! Google is really beginning to push their voice recognition software to all their products now.

Google Web Font API

Google simplifies the process of delivering custom fonts to your website. All you have to do is drop in a line of code and it will do the rest. At the moment their catalog is a little limited for choice but this will grow in time. Check it out: https://code.google.com/apis/webfonts/

Buzz API

Now you can integrate Google Buzz into your web applications: http://code.google.com/apis/buzz/

Chrome Web Store

Chrome will soon have it’s own Webstore and will support HTML5 applications and amazingly natively run Unity applications. This is astounding and totally the step in the right direction where gaming on the web is concerned.

Google wave

Is now available to all. So if you don’t have it give it a go and see if it changes your workflow.

I find myself in agreement with Ben Cohen’s views on how businesses need to learn to use their power not just for self interest but to benefit society as a whole. Brands are slowly learning that their customers now demand they be more responsible both environmentally and socially.

A recent example of this was the Nestle Palm Oil debacle with Greenpeace. Nestle has since amended their ways and have announced that they will align themselves with The Forest Trust. Their recent news adds:

TFT, a global non-profit organization, will help Nestlé to build responsible supply chains by identifying and addressing embedded social and environmental issues. Nestlé is the first global consumer goods company to become a TFT member.

Businesses are beginning to change their ways and policies, its just a pity the public had to inform them of the impact they have on our planet. Cohen gives a small example of how the US is currently spending $730bn a year on the just the Pentagon alone when for just $30bn you could end world hunger or for $15bn provide universal education to the people who need it the most. Obviously there are bigger hurdles to overcome and you can’t just throw money at a problem but in order to get a task like this off the ground it requires co-operation from the big guys.