Emily is an artificial character that moves exactly like a human being. She is, after all, based on the video recording of a real person. And copied so precisely that you can't tell the difference. As such Emily displays all the emotions that a regular human being would also display.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The virtual world is becoming more and more real. With this technology we’ll be able to pretend to be someone else in a year or ten: we’ll be recorded, placed in a model and shown as someone else. Including the changing of our voice! This way granddad can come to life again. Scary!

Brand agents, artificial employees that represent brands, won’t start to look like this until around 2030. Only when we can present the dialogue on an adult, human level will we be able to accept that brand agents also look like humans (that’s why I’ve picked the name ‘mensmerk’ or, translated, ‘humanbrand’!) And the technology to listen is developing very slowly, but steadily. And that’s what I’m tracking nicely on this website. For now there’s plenty to look forward to!

This screen acts like a normal mirror, until you stand in front of it a little longer. Then your reflection will slowly disappear.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The virtual world is more and more a 3D reflection of the real world. Sometimes even literally. We’ll see what we want to see. Currently as a joke, but soon we’ll look better in the mirror, to make us feel good, we’ll get dressing tips or someone could caress us virtually, a feeling that’ll really touch us. This scene is coming closer and closer.

Disney World, the theme park in Florida, can be found on Google Earth in complete 3D vision. On this page there's a video and instructions.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

And so brand worlds are taking shape. Currently as a separate part of Google Earth, soon the website itself will be in 3D. Then we’ll be looking through the window of an airplane and we can go where we want. Afterwards we’ll be recognized, be able to meet our friends, rebuild the environment, make suggestions, and absolutely ultimately, visit the real park itself. This scene is coming ever closer.

Related trends

• Brand worlds
• More 3D

The NS, the Dutch railway company has built a 3D station world on virtueelproefstation.nl. Here consumers can test the new Leiden trainstation, that'll be the pilot station for others in the Netherlands. The website can only be run properly under Internet Explorer. Furthermore the 3D model can be seen on Google Earth. This way choices that are expensive in the physical world can be tested more easily. The site is a part of the website mijnproefstation.nl where the NS shares a lot of information about surveys in new stations and where consumers can react. There are also, for example, contests for children that can share their vision. (This 3D information is found under the heading 'entertainment'.)

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Increasingly more brands build 3D worlds which they invite consumers to become a part of. For fun, to learn something, to contribute or combinations of these. Brands are experiencing a brand coming out and realize that the product doesn’t just become better when one involves consumers, but it also charges the brand emotionally. It’s a completely different way of viewing the reality as what we’re used to.

Related trends

• Brand coming out
• More 3D

This new photo frame by Kodak is connected to Flickr through a wireless home network. It automatically shows you the newest photos on your own photostream, of those of someone else if they register on your photos (and if they're public). You can also look up the news, weather and sports through the touch screen. Obviously you can also play videos. Other than that, the frame fronts can be replaced by something more suited to one's own interior.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Photo frames are slowly becoming completely screens connected to the virtual world that’s beginning to emerge. We’ve already got contact with the weather, sports and news brands. And that too is what brands will have to take into account, that they’ll be contacted from small threadbare touch-screens in one’s home. Beyond that it’s waiting for the next development in the photo-industry: that if we make a picture, it’ll be published online automatically (and also back-upped) and linked to other people who are taking a picture in the same spot at the same moment.

On HappyMeal.com, the children's gaming site of McDonald's, McDonald's has made an announcement about a new version of this site (the HTML title is after all Happy Meal 3.0). In this world children can meet each other, chat, watch videos, dress up their avatar, above all play lots of games.

In a contest children can suggest a name for this world and then vote on it. At the moment they can choose between ScaddImon (a mixture of McDonalds letters), McD Zone, McDonaldLandia, McIsland, McWorld (of which the last is winning and the .nl domain name is still free too.) There's also a link to the physical McDonalds: who enters a code from a Happy Meal box or bag, or other products, can gain exclusive items.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how brands realize brand worlds’ that are furnished by consumers, their fans. Those brands are only made stronger by this.

Related trends

• Brand worlds

An outfit designed by a player of The Sims 2 is now available in almost 1,000 H&M stores world-wide. The clothes are the result of a design contest in which all Sims-players could take part. The context involved designed a piece of clothing based on the style of H&M. The uploaded creations could then be seen in six virtual fashion shows. Entries by at least 1,000 designers were judged by over 100,000 people. It generated around 500 million impressions. The winning design is recognizable in H&M stores by a special The Sims 2 label and brand.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands facilitate the design of a product, like they borrow their right to exist from the facilitation of consumers, in their lives. A brand is, such as it were, a huge group of people of which the most active people involve themselves full-time, sometimes even longer. These people are serving the community. Every part of what they do has to add value to the life of the consumer. H&M understands how this process works and is taking leaps in the brand coming out, the process in which traditional brands reinvent themselves.

Related trends

• Brand coming out

The technology to copy humans with animations is going ever further. In this movie you can see that movements are built up from the bone and onwards. This makes animation far more realistic.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The virtual world will become so real that we won’t be able to tell the difference. We’ll look at movies that have been completely animated, see friends perform who aren’t aware of any evil or we’ll have a video conference with granddad, exactly how he looked 50 years ago. It’s becoming more and more real. And in this world we’ll soon enter the dialogue with brand agents, artificial employees that speak in the name of the brand.

Marek Michalowski of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, US, and Hideki Kozima of the National Institute of Communications Technology (NICT) in Kyoto, Japan, programmed the squishy, yellow robot, called "Keepon", to pick out the beat in a piece of music and move along in time. It can also track the rhythmic motion of a person or another object and move in time to that. Inside the hollow robot's silicone body are motors, wires and a mechanical device called a gimbal that tugs it like a reversed marionette. Keepon responds by nodding, bobbing, twisting and shaking in time to audio or visual stimulation.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Robots are the next step after the media context has grown up. That’ll take at least a year or ten, but then robots will slowly begin to enter our lives. They’ll also seem more and more natural. We might not be able to imagine it, but eventually robots will replace many dancing instructors. Human teachers will only take the best to a higher level. And then in hindsight this movie will only be a sweet, cute beginning.

Google launches its own 3d world under the name Lively. In this world users can create avatars, communicate with others and build their own spaces and objects.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

All brands are building on their own 3D brand worlds. The most fortunate and online oriented brands are at the forefront, but soon every brandsite will be a 3D world, instead of the 2D websites we encounter at the moment. And eventually this will also go for the smallest brands. And in those 3D worlds we won’t need to create our own avatars, we usually come as ourselves, just like entering a store. And sometimes we dress up, give ourselves a different name, like in the theatre, playing sports or at the carnival.

Related trends

• Brand worlds
• More 3D

Dutch popfestival Lowlands is now also available on the iPhone. Not just the map, but also the program can be seen. What's playing now on which field? It happens in the blink of an eye.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

We’re getting more and more information about the world around us. Now we see that the application optimalizes the program for the current time. Soon the iPhone will recognize which field we’re on, what band is playing, which number is being played and which song text goes with it. So that we can sing along immediately. In meantime our camera is running and we can watch other fields through the cameras of our friends.. And then, it seems to never end, all camera images will be joined live which allows us to fly over the field in 3D, like we’re standing everywhere at once. And that also works from home. This is how the virtual world becomes a screen over the physical world. This is very nice, we should certain enjoy it, but it’s still just a beginning.

Dutch housing site Jaap now also shows homes that have been placed for free on second-hand site 2dehands.nl by individuals. This allows consumers to sell their home without the use of a broker through a big housing site. 2dehands.nl is currently the only Dutch demand and answer site that offers this service for free. Currently around 1,000 of the individual homes are transferred to Jaap.nl.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

It’s becoming ever more clear that new brands are formed that prioritize the concern of the consumer. Based on being free of charge, freedom, happiness, these brands search for how to add more value. Currently you can place your house for free, soon Jaap can help you select people to get more for your house. With ratings, with other people’s experiences. Because eventually a home broker does have added value, but then seen from the consumer. Currently brokers are often focused on what’s on offer. This situation is changing quickly, but is far from stable. Jaap’s step now prioritizes consumers a little more.

Related trends

• Experiences

Supercook puts together a recipe based on the ingredients in your home. You look at what's in your fridge, pantry or kitchen cupboards, add your ingredients and the search engine will find recipes that allow you to make a meal immediately. Useful when you want something quickly and don't have time to go to the supermarket (or when it's closed).

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands will assist us with everything. Currently with what’s in our home, soon these groceries, recipe databases and our preferences will be combined. In your car on your way home from work you can consult with your food coaching brand to go out, have something delivered, pick up a meal or ingredients yourself or making something based on what you’ve got at home. Because soon your food coaching brand will have access to your kitchen cupboards and will read your supply through small (rfid) chips that will be in every product sooner or later. Then food coaching brands can grow into a complete brand. We’re truly at the beginning of what’s about to come.

The Telefoongids.nl (The Dutch white pages) has launched a new mobile website.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The most important thing in this development is that the telephone number we see can also be called directly by clicking on it (like a Skype address in our browser). That means that we don’t need to see the numbers we’re looking up anything, we can just press a button ‘call’ and in a later (though not too much later) stage simply say ‘call’. That means that we switch in a dialogue with the word ‘call’ to a spoken dialogue (or from asynchronic, like visiting a website, to synchronic, like calling). Telephone numbers will disappear to the databases they belong in, next generations won’t even know the principle of a number and the white pages can grow out into a social coaching brand. This is a step.

At Kaap Hoorn, a restaurant in the Dutch city Haren, visitors can now order and pay through their cell phones. A visitor can look up the menu on their cell phone and place an order. It's paid up front by RaboMobiel. The receipts are printed after payment is received.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Step by step we’re saying goodbye to paper. Not just customer passes, not just magazines, but we’ll also see less of all small paper, such as menu cards, flyers or doctor’s receipts. With as most important reason that brands want to communicate and communication happens per definition in a dialogue not a monologue as we were forced to by paper.

Ask.com shows itself in an Olympic look for the Olympics in Beijing.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how brands show their involvement with society. New brands, not just suffering from such rules as ‘thou shallt not touch the logo’ know exactly how to do this. Sometimes it surprises me how slowly these design elements penetrate the traditional brand landscape. This form of brand visualization is definitely something that’s waiting for us in the coming years. It charges brands with warm emotions, exactly what brands want, but apparently don’t quite grasp yet.

Related trends

• Brand visualization