Japanese Nintendo Wii owners can order pizza from their game console from the coming spring. The pizza will be delivered within half an hour. To facilitate the food orders through the Wii, Nintendo Japan has collaborated with the delivery site Demae-can.com. Apart from pizza people can also order Chinese or sushi through the special Wii channel.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
Brands are preparing for an enormous revolution: namely being present on a whole bunch of (mobile) screens. By now the time of ‘the’ internet is far behind us. The luxury that we only had to worry about the size of the sreen. It’s about about being present everywhere. And later, on call, when you hear your name ‘as brand’, you have to get to it right away.
CNN reporter Jessica Yellin is projected as a live hologram into this show. There are 35 cameras on her physical location. Where her hologram is filmed, the camera position is carefully measured. Exactly that angle is 'beamed over'. We see a 2D image, but because we can move around it, it appears 3D. However, when another angle is added, when the recordings happen with multiple cameras simultaneously or there are more people around it, only one person or camera will get the right image, others will se the 2D images 'from the side'.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
More and more real. Currently in 2D, later in 3D. Then we can be projected into a group of people, no problem. And when you’re wearing the right clothes (with camerastrips), the group will be projected around you again. So that you can see look the ‘projected’ people straight in the eye. And the brand agents? They’ll merrily walk between them and won’t be distinguishable frm the real thing by then (human brand!) Outrageously far this, but the real work has yet to come.
Doctor have managed to let the blind see (something) again. Linda Moorfoot, blind for over ten years, can see her granddaughter dance again. This thanks to an implant to the eye ball. The miniscule weight of the camera lets it move with the eye's movements. The images are vague as of yet, she sees an image built up of 16 large black and white blocks and reading or facial recognition is still out, but newer versions are already on the way with over 1000 blocks (pixels) which should enable facial recognition.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
Later we’ll be able to repair all accidents and flaws in nature. This’ll unburden health care and daily support immensely. Blind that can walk by themselves? You won’t need a guide-dog anymore.
Using Flu Trends, Google predicts the spread of the flu. Google's researchers have discovered that there's a relationship between people who have the flu and who search for flu-related words. From their own research it shows that there are more flu-related queries during the flu season. The movement of this trend
To inform the insurees of the height of the profit, InShared is the fist insurance company that makes it's premium-damage equation permanently public. On the site you can find exactly how much premium InShared has received in total and how much damage the insurer has had to pay. The figures are actualised each quarter. From the total income, InShared reserves 80% for paying damages; the remaining 20% are reserved for the company and potential losses. All the money in the 80% that's not used for damages goes back to the insured.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
A brilliant example of the brand coming-out: the process in which companies start to operate completely transparentl, and enter society as a network. In a next step, consumers will be stimulated to keep the collective claims as low as possible, for now it’s on an individual basis. Involvement will be rewarded, you can see that reward as salary, through which thousands of employees are found. And in the step after that the salaries of employees will be known too, all bonuses, but also what exactly they do. This is how a brand grows from being a closed system that offers products into a dynamic open network in which people network to add additional value to each other’s lves. And wherein the brand has only become stronger. Much stronger.
Social network Facebook is growing with 600,000 new users each day. Currently the counter is at over 150 million. About 70% of this growth comes from outside the US.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
The amount of companies with a huge customerbase is ever rising. When I wrote my book I identified Vodafone and Citibank with 300 million customers. The amount of companies/brands that operates world-wide, has a shred customer database worldwide and which can help customers worldwide without having to create a new account will happily continue to rise in the coming years. The waiting is for the first company with a billion registered users.
Dutch company Spotted by Locals has won the international Open Web Awards in the category "Travel". Spotted by Locals is a European network of (currently) 20 cityblogs on which local bloggers write about their favourite places in the city they love. The site is aimed at experienced travellers that want to experience cities in a local way and would like to miss a highlight or two to avoid the tourist masses. Currently there are 95 "Spotters" that, after a personal conversation, are contracted to write about their city.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
The artificially created difference between ‘tourist’ and ‘local’ will disappear. It’s about people with a comparable living pattern that are brought together world-wide. Someone who appreciated a couple of restaurants in Barcelona, will also appreciate comparable restaurants in Amsterdam or Sydney. It really is about the individual experience and that’s clearly visible in this example.
Through Readen Commerce's personal assistant you can automatically take care of your business appointments. Your flight delayed? Your appointments will be automatically informed and your dinner moved. And that's just an example.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
We’re connecting everything real time. Later when you’re in an interesting conversation, but your next appointment is delayed you’ll simply not be told to end your conversation. You can keep chatting a while longer. Just like parents with their children. Only on the moment you leave, you’ll get a signal, and if you want fifteen minutes earlier so that you can finalise things. And of course coming this this coming years with (worldwide, realtime) traffic information. In time the car will show up a little later, the heating will turn on a little later and the groceries are delivered a little later. Human’s whole time management (both business and private) will be taken from one’s hands and this is an example in that direction.
Wikipedia has a mobile site. You can also click on spoken articles.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
With everything we see we’ll get answers to all questions. Currently by starting Wikipedia, but later we’ll call out “Hey, Wik! What kind of tree is that?” and then we’ll be answered immediately. It’ll be the ultimate for kids whose parents sooner or later won’t want to answer the ‘why?’ quesstions and increase the intelligence of a new generation enormously.
Kevin Warwick is the first cyborg (Cybernetic Organism, part human part machine) in the world, the first man directly connected to computers... He's professor in cybernetics at the University of Reading, England. Here he does research into, amongst others, artificial intelligence, robotics and 'biomedical engineering'. He let his own body be implanted with a kind of capsule that wirelessly connects his nerve system to the computers in the building. What he didn't expect was that he'd get affection for the computer in the building. It happened, though.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
We don’t just use technology to control everything, we use it to measure everything too. With this type of technology you can let the blind see (again), let the deaf hear (again) and let people with paraplegia walk again. Those are really only the simple uses. In 2050 we’ll also be able to obveserve things we normally wouldn’t be able to. Seeing in the dark is a simple example of this, but it gets more interesting when you can, for example, feel the earth’s magnetic field and therefore always know where you are. That kind of use will fit seamlessly with the free human, the human that wants to explore the earth everywhere and always in perfect safety. Furthermore with this type of technology we’ll rediscover what we actually already knew: that everything is connected to each other. In this way we can start to train our spiritual skills. And that’s Pamper Planet all over.
Kogan is an Australian electronics supplier and has made, amongst others, the second Google Android phone in the world, the Kogan Agora. During its announcement a call was made for a new name and there were many responses. It doesn't appear that the name was really chosen. The phone is expected on the market shortly.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
Brands are experiencing a brand coming-out, involve consumers on every level, so also in thinking about the name. Currently as an unorganised ‘mess’, but later with arguments, votes for arguments, etc. So that the best ideas float at the top and not the ideas of the people who make the most noise. Because the world that’s being created it won’t be about shouting anymore, but it’ll be about listening.
Apple has registered a patent for a 3D desktop. On such a desktop a folder has become a folder that falls open and in which documents stand next and behind each other.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
The strength isn’t in this one concept. It’s in screen that react your head too. So that you can look ‘a little further’. Then you won’t need a mouse either.
Scientists have discovered that sheets with carbon nanotubes, tubes of carbon atoms rolled up as wire on nanoscale, can make sound. The sheets are so thin that they can be transparent, and in principle very big. When such a sheet is put over a (flexible) screen the sound can literally come from all directions and the screen is made (a lot) lighter.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
Eventually screens will be holes in the wall, with a view to whatever world you wish. The sound will come from exactly where you think it’ll come. This discovery brings this situation a little closer.
Scientists have succeeded in adding four extra base pares to DNA. Of course DNA consists of four base pairs, that make up the genetic code. This is the basis of all life on earth. Now, Masahiko Inouye and his colleagues of the University of Toyoma, Japan have developed four new artificial base pairs (Journal of the American Chemical Society, DOI: 10.1021/ja801058h). The plan is to research how this artificial DNA can replicate itself.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
We’re recreating life. We’re researching how we can develop new life that’ll assist us in all kinds of ways, that’ll help humanity along, on the most fundamental level. Because we’re not doing this kind of research for fun. When in 2050 the time of the robots will be behind us again, how can completely new life forms help us get further? What can new life forms do that robots can’t? And it has to be something that no organism on earth can do now. Green people that turn sunlight into oxygen aren’t part of this for example. We can make that by combining existing codes. But it is about physical life (and not on spiritual/energy level) that can replicate itself. Gaseous life that cleans the air? Self-expanding space-shields that life on energy in space and which we can use to travel through time? Self-repairing metal (useful for robots, no?) If anyone has a suggestion…
