Augmented reality, the mixing of the virtual world and the physical world, is becoming increasingly more simple. Who prints out a PDF A4 on strafwerk.nu (Dutch) and allows the program to watch through the webcam will see a BMW appearing on their desk. It's astonishingly simple.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The essence of this innovation is the simplicity. Augmented reality gives brands the ability to show animations of products the moment a screen is near. However, before the masses start to use this (and brands get on with real innovative applications), all hurdles have to be taken away first. Software installation is an example of such a hurdle. And that works fine here.

Now it’s waiting for the first iPhone application. Then brands will follow quickly.

Singing and talking are treated differently by our brains. That's shown by new experiments. You need all sorts of brain functions for talking: you need to think of what you want to say, then you need to formulate it in words and then you need to use the muscles in your mouth and throat to make the sounds. It's possible to disable a selected area of the brain using magnets so that you can, for example, still formulate worlds, but no longer pronounce them. It's also possible to turn of certain sections that allows you to sing just fine, but when the same words have to be spoken you no longer can.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

If we can turn off certain areas of the brain, will we start to concentrate more on the areas that are still being used? That might speed up the learning process considerably.

From 4 November onwards readers of Totaal TV (Dutch programming guide of Veronica Publishing) enrich their TV guide with 3D objects or videos. Readers hold their TV guide in front of the webcam of their own computer. On screen, the images turn into videos or become visible in 3D. Augmented Reality adds 3D-objects and videos to live images. Readers who hold up an article on Ilse DeLange will see the article reflected on the screen (like a mirror as it were). Something is added, however. In this image a picture from the article will turn into a video of the 'making of' of the new album 'Incredible'. TouchingMedia (Dutch) claims a world scoop with this innovation.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how paper is given an added dimension. But not just paper, soon we can get an automatic demonstration with everything we see and which stands still. If a car passes and we take a picture? The car manufacturer ensures a fitting personalized animation. We see someone on the street? We’ll see all kinds of movies with this person in action. In live action (as reflection of the real past) or as animation. See an animal? We’ll be handed documentaries immediately. See a tool and we’re shown animations on how to use it. And if we still don’t get it, we ask. This is how brands and consumers can enter a dialogue with the product as subject. In this case, Totaal TV enters the dialogue regarding the magazine, but a third, namely Ilse DeLande, can easily mingle into the conversation. This is how the virtual world is starting to be a little more like the normal world. And with that it also becomes more understandable.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

Google Maps Streetview, the photographic display of the street like you're looking into it, is now also available on the iPhone. The photographic image can be seen full screen while a small version of the map appears in the bottom right corner.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Currently as old photographs with people from the photographic era. Soon all changes (new billboards, renovations), but also traffic will be adapted dynamically. Like you’re watching through a camera. Then you can get additional information with everything you see. Spoken, through your ear piece. This future is fast approaching.

People who stay at home can follow the participants of the Zevenheuvelenloop (Zevenhillrun; Dutch) using the internet, thanks to ChampionChip GPS Tracking (Dutch). Each runner has a special tag on their shoe. This technology is used for the first time in the run. People who run with a team can only see how others have done on the internet afterwards. You can see all kilometer times, speed, progress and the class of others walking with a GPS Tracking.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

We’re mapping everything in real time. Soon we’ll stick cameras everywhere with ease. They’ll be configured in such a way that we can follow their faces like we’re running along with a camera. And then coach them through the ear piece they’re wearing. If they allow it of course

You can now ask for a detailed map (Dutch) of Artis. On it you won't find just the formal street names, but also the paths around the monkey rock, the elephants and the penguins.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how we map the physical world ever better. Soon live cameras will be mounted with the names of the elephants and we can zoom in on the sound using a microphone. Inside buildings we’ll get maps too. One for each floor. And furthermore we can get virtual extensions. Stairs in the buildings like Escher could shape it so beautifully. Or walking through a building as it looked fifty years ago. In the virtual world, or in our glasses in the physical world. And with everything we see we can ask questions. With everything. Absolutely everything.

In the game Brullende Bolides (Screaming Bolides; Dutch) of the municipality of Rotterdam participants have to shout as loud as they can. The louder you shout, the faster you go. For this you use the microphone on your computer. During your screaming ride, the Coolsingel, Blaak and the Euromast fly past. This lets you discover the city in high speed. Create a hilarious sound and challenge your friends to scream an even faster time.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands start to react to us. Not just to what we type or click, but especially what we say, how we look, how we move. This is a primitive example of what’s to come.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

The Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Dutch royal library) has made the typed out texts of the ANP radio bulletins between 1937 and 1984 available through a special site. The collection of ANP Radio bulletins covers 1.5 million typescripts from the period 1937 – 1984. The years of 1939 – 1946 are missing. It's possible to search through the texts.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

And so we’re mapping the world of yesterday ever more precisely. Soon we can travel through time and relive everything nicely. That’ll change the history lessons in schools fundamentally. Digitalizing our past is part of this.

With Windows 7, the successor of Windows Vista, users can control applications through touch. You won't need a scroll wheel to scroll through a document, but you can do it with a touch of the screen. Users can touch the screen with their fingers in more than one place at a time. That makes it possible to, for example, zoom in on a picture by pushing two fingers apart.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The computer will be the next medium that will respond to our gestures. Currently through touch, soon from a distance. If we then make a circle in the air we can, for example, turn a 3D space. Coupled with our reaction with voice and facial expressions brands will be given a fantastic dialogue medium.

Almost three-quarters of the Dutch internet users in 2008 takes care of its banking via the internet. Three years ago this was less than 60%.

On ShapeWays consumers can create a 3D design and then have it produced for personal use. The material that's used is a white flexible kind of fabric that is most reminiscent of plastic. Because it uses 3D print technology, pretty much all shapes are possible. As such there are examples of vases, coasters, toy cars and hundreds of art objects. It's also possible to share the designs with others.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

In the world that’s created we can look up each product that fits our needs example. Wherever it was made in the world. And if it still doesn’t meet our exact desires we can also have it custom-made. We can determine what we do ourselves. The Marketing ‘P’ for product ends up in a wholly different light. The product stays, but then exactly as that one individual consumer wants it.

Bløf, a Dutch pop group, lets its fans watch the recording of its new album 'Oktober' (October) in 3D using the Pickering Player named after The Pickering House, a mansion near Dublin, Ireland, where the new Bløf cd was recorded. The online version is a pared down 2D version in which you can watch along with the recordings from eight different camera positions. Once you've bought the CD, however, you're shown a fully 3D world.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands, what pop bands simple are, are building 3D worlds. Each brand will soon have its own 3D world that will replace the concept ‘website’ as we know it today completely. Texts will disappear to the background, only images will remain.

Soon we can sing ourselves. We can be in the virtual Pickering House ourselves. Or can have a holographic projection of the whole room into our living room. Adapted to the shape of our own home, if need be. The result can be shared with friends. Who thinks we’ve already come a long way is wrong. It’s only starting to become fun…

Related trends

• Brand worlds

This robot face ('animatronic head') was designed by David Hanson. The software was developed by the University of Bristol and drives 34 small motors that shape facial expressions (tip: Heini Withagen).

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

More and more real. Currently programmed. In a little while the face will copy us. Sooner or later robots will also understand what we’re telling them. That when we say ‘I’m taking out your battery’ it’s a threat, that it should be prevented and that a robot will become truly angry. Currently a toy. Later as real as a human. But after 2020, that’s true.

Einstein as robot. A movie from 2006, but pretty real all the same.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

They remain science projects. But the recreation of people who once lived, even the sharing of memories you’ve had together. Maybe you can laugh about it together still. It’s coming closer.

Related trends

• 2025-2050: Roboworld

The past few days I've attended a European futurist congress and met Aubrey de Grey, a very special man. I estimate his age at around forty, mumbles, has a long beard and if you talk to him he keeps working on his email on his Apple. A man who deserves attention. A man who claims, well-supported, that humans can live forever in the future. We can always get an accident, of course, but in principle we'll always be young. His argument is documented in his book Ending Age. Below some twists regarding the implications.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Of course this is perfect for futurists. A young body, but with the experiences of someone of 40, 140, 1040? What are you going to learn from your parents of 340 and 920? Will you be going to school at all? Will you be having children because it always postpones because it’s always possible? Or will you make families dozens of times throughout your life? For fun? What’s raising a child for twenty years in all of your life? What happens to 300-year-old friendships? What happens to the world population? The numbers will rise rapidly? Before you know it we’ll be over 100 billion. The world definitely won’t be able to take that. The enthusiastic reactions of the futurists were that the only solution lies in colonizing space. We have to. A very special scenario, but if we believe this man definitely not unrealistic. Not in 2010, maybe not in 2030, but around 2050, the time of the pamper planet, people up to the age of 50 can be restored to a young existence and live forever. Readers of this blog are warned: stay healthy and live forever or make a few health errors and belong to the last generation of mortals.

By the by, Aubrey is still looking for rich sponsors and will come to Leiden to speak at a biogerontology congress soon.

MarketingFacts, a Dutch marketing community which I contribute to every now and again, is starting its own magazine. Where the online community reaches chiefly online marketers, MarketingFacts wants to use this magazine to service traditional marketers who'd like to know more about online marketing and new media. The magazine will be published bi-monthly and wants to offer deep going and high quality information regarding the trends and status in the most important sub-areas of online and digital marketing.

MarketingFacts Magazine is free for anyone who deals with (online) marketing. The run will be 10,000 copies. If you want to receive the magazine as well, you can sign up here.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Paper will be a static redux of what happens in dynamic communities. Whether that’s through a website, a PC, a Twitter-like application on a cell phone or the spoken word on the street, brands will pick up this ‘talk of the day’, combine it, distill it and return it. Paper is like a photo of a community in time: it was like that at that moment. Publishers who’ve started with paper will have to set up the process in reverse, and that’s a lot more difficult.

Furthermore this process fits with the brand coming out, in which communities, strong communities, communities that’ll be in 1 building even, call it companies, become open and transparent. MarketingFacts is lucky to be able to start on the other side.

Related trends

• Brand coming out