| The Doors 50 50 GOOD IDEAS GENERATED BY THE WORKSHOPS KARMA CARD FLUID BRIDGES VIRT SCHOOL PILGRIM TRAVEL CENTRE INTERSKIN-SUIT INTELLI-CITY SMART BUILDINGS URBAN INDICATORS The Doors of Perception 3 workshops generated a lot of ideas for an `Info-Eco' future. Here's a shortlist of the 50 most inspiring, provocative and silly ideas, that address different perspectives on the central question: How can information technology contribute to sustainable development?
KarmaCard (virtual vs. real communities) A credit-card sized ID card which contains a wide selection of personal and public data, controlled by the owner, not by a corporation of government. The card acts as a sort of 'semi-permeable membrane' to the world; you let out only what you want, as appropriate. The card can act as a gatekeeper to online communities, museums, health care, social meetings in public spaces, etc. The purpose of the card is to encourage new possibilities for community (eco-restoration, elderly care, teaching each other, and so on).
Ritual Enchantment (electronic storylines) A Website for offering and receiving stories. It is designed as a `sanctified' site with a convivial atmosphere, self-regulating and open for evolution. The storyteller's voice can be used and appropriate sounds and images can be added. This might be a small step to help people connect with each other, with themselves and with the planet, which is our ultimate self.
EcoNet (mapping global processes) The `econet' uses a network infrastructure to enable `network-based understanding through collaboration', connecting appropriate people (scientists, policy makers, industrialists, media, local government, policy makers and above all practicioners, such as fishermen) at all levels (possibly from all over the world) to focus on local problems.
Through the Table Top (info-eco social care) The table is taken as a metaphor for new user interfaces. It can be in your living room or bedroom, in the park, the school, or the local shop or café. It will respond to familiar objects and to touch rather than keyboards and codes. This combination of hardware and software is called 'through the table-top'.
Café with Possibilities (info-eco social care) An existing café that is used in off-peak hours for `table top' enhanced communication among the elderly. Since 'through-the-table-top' aims at supporting real world transactions, the café can function as a meeting point where these transactions take place.
Garden Exchange (info-eco social care) `Garden exchange' is an online magazine, accessible through the 'table top' interface. It allows users to exchange surplus vegetables with neighbours, exchange recipes, join a gourmet club and discover a fund of ethnic and traditional knowledge about food, etc.
Memory Cookbook (info-eco social care) 'Memory Cookbook' is a service from 'through the table top', where people can store and retrieve (conserve, if you will) traditional recipes, thus preserving a valuable heritage -- providing a sense of cultural diversity and richness.
Open Table (info-eco social care) 'Open Table' is a service from 'through the table top' that aims at bringing people together for meals: people can 'publish' open invitations for others to share their meals or look for others to cook for them. It is even possible to ask someone who is far away to join you at dinner time virtually.
Memory Wall (info-eco social care) The "Memory Wall" is a social graffiti system. It contains the oral history of a community. The collective memory of people - once conserved and spread by story telling - is now available on screen-like `walls' of the format of former whiteboards. They can be found in several places, connected to each other. The Wall at the community center will display what was written on the Wall at the bus stop or at that blank wall around the corner. History will be accessible to all: from houses, shops, malls and walls. Older people can get in touch with memories long gone...
Granddaddy bank (info-eco social care) At an older age, some men feel that they've missed out on their childrens' growing up. At the same time, children need to listen to the life stories of men and to have male role-models. The granddaddy bank is a local electronic network offering male babysitters. To reduce the anxiety parents might feel about entrusting their little darlings into the hands of a stranger, an electronic photo album or memory wall will visualize the lives of the available babysitters.
Fluid Bridges of Communication (beyond being there) I accept to live in a small, local (in the physical sense) community. But I don't want to be isolated there: how can I still enjoy the excitement of knowing and contacting distant cultures? One possible answer is to connect my local community with other local (distant in space) communities. This could also be done in a permanent way (for example having children in a school of Amsterdam growing up together with distant classmates in a suburb of Beijing). The model of communication used here is called `fluid bridges of communication'. Information is shared continuously, and the communities evolve together.
Fluid Place of Communication (beyond being there) I have a `fluid curtain of communication' in my home. It is a beautiful, large screen, curving through my living room with curtains that can cover it. With the curtains closed, I may feel the presence of my friends in an intimate way, although I am not available for direct communication. When I slightly open the curtain, my friends are more present: I can hear their voices, see their faces.The model of communicaton is the `fluid place of communication'. I can access a shared environment, where the presence of my friends can be felt in varying degrees of intimacy.
Fluid Net of Communication (beyond being there) When I am in my home, or when I go around the city, I may encounter the presence or the traces of others through more or less abstract visualisations. I may sense their presence in a comfortable way, but there may be no need for explicit communication. This model is called a `fluid net of communication'.
Slow City (urban footprints) As the city changes under the impact of teleworking and other factors, we need to look at the consequences: can the city be (re)designed in a way that reinforces and maybe creates new kinds of urbanity? The idea of the Slow City is appealing for its association with some of the precious things of the city: contemplation, accidental encounters, the unpredictable.
Virtually Second Hand (urban footprints) A system of virtual and real second hand shops can be used to redistribute goods. The online system informs people about how and where to shop. The real second hand shops feature repair, reconfiguration and recovery services.
Virtual School (urban footprints) A new kind of school. Children still go to study in a local classroom, but it's part of a city-wide school-network. Their classroom is connected with other classrooms around the city. They have an electronic window, a wallboard to create collaborative environments and they have access to a pool of teachers. But they also meet from time to time, for sport and social functions. This way, one classroom has access to all the resources of the best schools in the city.
Blue Button (virtual vs. real communities) A blue button on domestic phone sets randomly connects you with one of a 1,000 fellow blue-buttoneers (or maybe the chances of connecting with someone depend on how often you've conversed in the past). The blue button helps transform random encounters into longer term relationships.
Active Environmental Workshops Be a Tree (info-eco education/playware) A multi-user computer game for children, 5-7 years of age. The child enters a virtual park and can identify itself with the objects, plants and animals it meets. It can for instance become a rock, bird, tree, dog, etc. Through actions in the virtual world of `Be a Tree', the child becomes more aware of the `real' natural world around him.
EcoReality (info-eco education/playware) A multi-user computer game for teenagers and adults. The players re-enact the real world in the virtual, only now they have to take their `ecospace' into account with every decision they make. `Wrong' decisions do not only affect the individual, but the other players (`society') as well. The idea is that the players become more aware of their actions and the (ecological) consequences over time.
Pilgrim (travels to the edge) The Personal Integrated Learning Guide and Reflexive Information Machine is a device used by travellers with a multitude of functions, including:
- A global positioning system (pinpoint your location anywhere on earth within a metre)
- Global connectivity (instant access to info, including that from local people and other travellers)
- Guide (eco-smart guide)
- Factor 20 calculator (tracks resource usage)
- Digital scrapbook (images, notes, sounds, smells - can be personal or public)
- Entertainment (music, games, lessons, etc)
- Language translator.
Infopod Digi-visas (travels to the edge) All tourists are required to travel with digi-visas. These have replaced the paper visas common in the 20th century. Tourists submit their itineraries electronically, which are approved or altered by local eco/cultural communities, depending on current local conditions. Numbers of people, duration of visit, consumption of scarce resources are all taken into account in granting digi-visas. Changes in itinerary can be arranged instantly and automatically through PILGRIM. Exceeding the limits of a digi-visa may incur a penalty - either money or difficulty in obtaining further visa.
Travel visa Travel Point System Travel Centre The Smartifact Sites of ecological sensitivity are equipped with a wide range of camouflaged sensors installed in the landscape. A wall mounted, ultra-thin, full colour "screen", visualises the data from the remote location and displays it in the home. For example, data on temperature, humidity, seismic activity, ultra-violet levels, etc can be called up, allowing the visitor to extend and deepen their relationship to a site long after their physical departure. Such augmented sensitivity to a location would also enable people to monitor any environmental degradation which might be occurring, and to respond to this through channels such as the Internet.
Digital Postcards Travelweave Take Away Information Pack Interskin Suit (travels to the edge) The Interskin suit enhances the VR touristic experience. When virtually diving in the Great Barrier Reef, the tourist wearing the Interskin suit can touch and feel coral, and can `communicate' with cuttlefish -- e.g. by changing colour when they do. The suit stores all sensations of the trip in its memory, ready for replay at any time.
Home Reef Starter Kit Reef Farm (travels to the edge) A business that specialises in artifically grown coral reef, which is harvested for its coral souvenirs.
SIM-Reef (travels to the edge) A computer simulation game enabling the tourist to get acquainted with the Great Barrier Reef. The game teaches tourists about the Reef before they actually visit it.
World Heritage Site-based Gaia University Intelligent City (urban footprints) Accepting the city as an intelligent organism that responds to change in its surroundings helps in conjuring up information technology-based ideas that reduce the ecological footprint of the city: how can a city reflect on its behaviour in an intelligent way?
Smart Movement (urban footprints) A psychological advantage of the private car is that it has the apparant feature of certainty - you know where it is and that it will get you from here to there. You may not know how long the journey will take but at least you know with certainty when the journey can commence. With public transport (say, a bus) by contrast you know that you probably won't get to exactly where you want to go, but you generally know roughly how long the journey will take; but perhaps the critical psychological issue is that you don't know when the journey will begin. A simple feedback system showing the arrival time of the next bus is relatively easy to introduce (using transponders to mark cellular position and by monitoring the traffic situation and speed of the bus).
Traffic Warning System (urban footprints) As an example of intelligent feedback and monitoring: good timely warnings to inform drivers about upcoming traffic jams can enable drivers to make choices regarding traffic flow.
Singapore Lash (urban footprints) Monitor devices in the city measure the air quality. The city is shut down (i.e. roads, train stations, airports) when preset levels of congestion and pollution are reached.
Smart appliances (urban footprints) Refrigerators can monitor conditions like how frequently the fridge door is opened, how much ice is built up on chiller coils, external temperature, etc., and adapt temperature and defrosting cycles to suit conditions: eco-feedback on a personal level.
Smart buildings (urban footprints) A building that can take care of itself... in relationship to the environment. Its walls function as skin -- sensitive to outside as well as inside conditions like air quality and temperature. Its intelligence takes the 'tactile' data and responds... acting to optimise energy consumption, establishing itself as a comfortable as well as responsible member of the urban community.
Ecological Behaviour Bill (urban footprints) The amount and ecological quality of products bought is measured, as well as the mobility of the household members. This is done through a special credit card which allows entering the types of products and their eco-points into the information system. Through the monthly EBB (Ecological Behaviour Bill), the user is given economical incentives from the positive points acquired in the buying of environmental products, the reduced consumption of water, gas, etc., and on the use of `sustainable' transportation.
Virtuous Circles (urban footprints) Communities can form "Virtuous Circles" where eco-savings are rewarded in tax reductions which cause property values to rise there.
Shopping in hell (urban footprints) Teleshopping could enable us to do `shopping in hell', i.e. the kind of shopping we loathe to do -cat litter, detergent, etc. Teleshopping will not replace the `fun shopping', i.e. that which requires tactility or stimuli in general. Teleshopping could reduce packaging and waste production in home, by facilitating consumption of fresh versus frozen food. It could in this way contribute to the local economy, by consumption of locally purchased food.
Virtual Table (urban footprints) The "Virtual Table" which is a "real space" in the form of a table where you can sit down with telepresent others.
Database of Urban Environmental Indicators African Drum (eternally yours) The african drum can be used as an example of and metaphor for `eternal products': durable products that age with dignity. Using an African drum involves intimacy, physicality, effort and care. The drum is able to absorb and reflect events in time; it is repaired, improved, and its use is embedded in daily communal life.Taking these characteristics into account when designing `modern' communication machines might make such products a bit more `immortal'.
Memory Stone (eternally yours) The memory stone is a pleasurable object that contains the owner's personal diary--there may be picures, sounds, text, clips from the past. The control is designed in such a way that it takes more effort to delve deep into the past and less effort to plan the future.
The memory stone's communication interface is like a chain of beads, that can be used as a toy and moved rhythmically. The owner may contact faraway friends by shaking the beads and thus play music together. Furthermore, every bead - they all have a different shape, texture and softness - represents someone: a friend or a family member, maybe even a group of people. By handling a bead in a certain way, for instance by pinching it, other persons may be contacted and communicated with.
And.... If the above ideas don't deliver, the following two are guaranteed to solve all our problems:
Superbug (health and inefficiency) `Superbug' represents millions of genetically engineered benign bacterial and viral species (comparable to e-coli or Yakult). By infecting humanity with the benign Superbug, there will be no room for the more dangerous plague-causing species anymore. Superbug buys us time to downsize the human population to more sustainable quantities.
Nanotechnology (eternally yours) Whenever people want to get rid of something, they do so by throwing it in the canal. Here, billions of bacteria and tiny nano-machines take care of breaking down the object into its atomic essentials. Now, whenever someone would need something, they would just have to think of it and through some miraculous interface it would be generated from the nano-soup in the canals.
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url: DOORS OF PERCEPTION editor@doorsofperception.com |