We like to think of the FringeHog Friday Five as a weekly starter-kit to the future: each week we feature five perspectives on “the future of” a particular theme from food to design to yes, boxes.  The science behind choosing the topics is simple: satisfy our insatiable curiosity about how to world is changing in both profound and minute ways. This week is a brief look back at some of our favorites.

Have an idea for a future Friday Five?  Drop us an email.

Five Things to do with your Genome

Genes are becoming the Legos of life, a super-size carton of biological toys that can be endlessly combined, cut, spliced and reengineered.   The average human has about 25,000 genes - that’s a lot of A, C,T & P’s floating around. Scientists are still clueless about what to do with most of them, so here’s a few ideas for putting your spare genome to good use (including hang it on a wall and use it as musical inspiration).

Future Cities

Does the world seem a little more crowded these days? If so, it might be because on Wednesday, May 23, 2007 a subtle but significant tipping point occurred: for the first time in human history, the world’s population became more urban than rural.  On that day say researchers, the global urban population exceeded that of the global rural population by 125,849 people. The after-shocks of this seismic shift are just starting to reverberate in cities throughout the world. This Friday Five features cities of the future, including megacities, “smart” cities and the increasingly popular carbon-neutral city.

The Future of Water

While more than 1 billion people on Earth - about one sixth of the global population - lack access to dependable, safe drinking water, yet industrialized countries readily pay a small fortune to drink tap water out of a bottle. Here at five views about the future of water, one of the most critical - and contentious - issues facing the humankind in the coming decade. 

Super Size Innovation

What will inspire the next world-changing innovation?  It just might be money.  The X-Prize Foundation calls it “revolution through competition”; I call it Super-Size Innovation. What it is: cash prizes to solve some of humanity’s biggest challenges. A new crop of public “innovation challenges” have emerged, all offering large cash prizes for armchair innovators who are able to solve some of our most pressing problems: global warming, space travel, clean water, to name just a few.

The Future of Robots

For nearly fifty years, robots have captured our collective imagination.  From Rosie, the arthritic robo-housekeeper in the Jetson’s to Robin William’s emotionally available Bicennential Man to every guy’s favorite cyborg assassin, the media has played to our fascination with all things humanoid. Here we look at the increasingly social role robots will play in the future, from violin-playing androids who care for our elderly to, um, sexbots.  

If you could have one superhuman power, what would it be? 

Admit it: we’ve all harbored some fantasy about what it would be like if we could fly or walk through walls or move objects just by looking at them. The wildly popular tv show Heroes taps into our inner superhuman desires, telling the stories of ordinary people who discover that they have superhuman abilities (including a cop who can read minds and a cheerleader who can heal herself). How closely does fantasy mimic reality?  Turns out pretty closely, in some cases.  The heroes on the show gained their powers via a genetic mutation, but several superhuman abilities are within reach, mainly thanks to some well-funded military research. This week’s Friday Five explores future superpowers we can look forward to, and what they might mean for society.

Bionic Eyes

This Discover article reports that engineers at the University of Washington are developing contact lenses that contain electronic circuits that would allow wearers to see information superimposed over their view of the world in front of them (such as driving control panels and immersive virtual games) and “surf the Internet on a midair virtual display screen that only they would be able to see.”  Someday, the lenses might also offer tele/microscopic vision, the ability to see infrared frequencies, or the ability to take pictures and videos.

Super Strength

From the Incredible Hulk to Superman, the ability to pick up large objects (such as cars and meteoroids) seems to be the most common attribute of superheroes.  So it’s no surprise the military is investing heavily in giving its soldiers super human strength.  Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is first in line, developing an exoskeleton - a frame that fits over the body designed to help soldiers move faster and farther, carrying heavier loads and weaponry.  The key?  The robotic frame contains miniature internal combustion engines moving each powered joint.  This New Scientist article provides an update on the research, which is expected out sometime this year.

New Limbs

This much-watch video from IEEE Spectrum showcases Dean Kamen’s “Luke Arm”, a robotic arm named after Luke Skywalker’s mechanical hand in Star Wars.  It’s amazing footage of a emerging vison of next-generation limb prostheses that are fully functional, neurologically controlled, and have normal sensory capabilities.  More than that, it’s also incredibly inspiring: the soldiers featured testing the arm (some of whom are double amputees) talk about the feelings of liberation and independence the arm is giving them.

Mind Reading

Perhaps the most potent (and the most controversial) of future superpowers is the ability to read minds.  Psychics claim that this is an inherent ability, but science is taking another approach: last year researchers used high-resolution brain scans to identify patterns of activity before translating them into meaningful thoughts, revealing what a person planned to do in the near future.  While the ability to truly read minds is likely still decades away, the brain scan technology is also driving developments in human-computer interfaces such as mind-controlled computers that would allow people to operate email and the internet using thought alone.  Check out this Guardian article for more.

Super Humans

Joel Garreau’s best-selling book Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies — and What It Means to Be Human discusses the implications of human enhancement.  In the future, how will “Natural” and “Enhanced” children compete in school?  In life? I’ve argued that we’re on the verge of a socially fracturing debate about what it means to be human; Garreau explores how this debate will affect us at every level. It’s a great read, one that will change what you thought you knew about the future.

Sixty years after the sale of the first Polaroid instant camera – the iconic camera that captured the imagination of a market by producing finished prints in under a minute – the Polaroid Corporation announced that later this year it will cease making instant film products.  It’s the end of era, but one that most of us probably thought ended years ago.

Science fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke once famously said that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  While the Polaroid camera may seem hopelessly old-fashioned today, there was a time when it did indeed seem like magic.

I was reminded of this on a trip last August to Ipuli, a rural village in central Tanzania.  Ipuli is the definition of remote: it’s 15-hour car ride from Dar es Salaam; set in the hills of the central Rift Valley it has no electricity, running water or cars.  I was in Ipuli as part of a Pop!Tech team to document a health-center project and our four-person crew came equipped with the latest hi-tech gear: video cameras, sound booms, high-end digital cameras. 

What garnered the most attention though, was my boxy little Polaroid.  Everywhere I went people followed me, eager to have their picture taken. But they were uninterested in my fancy, expensive Cannon; what they wanted was a picture from what they called the “magic camera.” With it I was able to instantly hand out prints to people, many of  whom lacking household accoutrements like mirrors, had never seen themselves before.

After the first day I was almost out of instant film. I tried to explain to the disappointed villagers the vast superiority of my digital camera: with it, I could take hundreds of pictures, not dozens!  And I could print them out, as many as I liked! And then I could post them on Flickr, and geo-tag them and…. well, you can guess how that conversation ended.  At that point my translator gave me an exasperated look and simply shook his head.

My digital camera was the epitome of high tech sophisticaton, but my Polaroid was magic - it captured a moment, and then created another, more potent one: when someone looked at the white-framed piece of film and saw their face for the very first time.  All without USB cables, electrical plugs, printers or computers.   Magic.

Technology roadmaps are like a GPS for the future: done well, they provide a theoretical and visual geography of the terrain of possible developments and a big-picture view of how a particular technology (or industry) might evolve. Taken together, these five roadmaps offer an interesting perspective on the futures to come.  Because this is the “Friday Five” the following is an abbreivated list of roadmaps. Are there others we should add to the list? Let us know!

Metaverse Roadmap

Because I couldn’t have said it better myself, this comes straight from the website: “The Metaverse Roadmap (MVR) is the first public ten-year forecast and visioning survey of 3D Web technologies, applications, markets, and potential social impacts. Areas of exploration include the convergence of Web applications with networked computer games and virtual worlds, the use of 3D creation and animation tools in virtual environments, digital mapping, artificial life, and the underlying trends in hardware, software, connectivity, business innovation and social adoption that will drive the transformation of the World Wide Web in the coming decade.” The overview is written by three of FringeHog’s favorite metaverse friends: John Smart, Jerry Paffendorf and Jamais Cascio. Even if you think you know something about the future of the 3D web, read this.

DARPA Tech 2007

For those with an appetite for the real fringe, DARPA Tech 2007 is for you.  In case you’re not up on your military acronyms, DARPA stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; it’s the central R&D organization for the U.S. Department of Defense. In a nutshell, what DARPA does is “mine the Far Side” - the high-risk, high-reward areas of research and technology that only the military budget of the world’s largest superpower could support. What this means in practical terms, is that the scientists at DARPA get to go to work every day and play with some really freakin’ cool ideas. Things like Programmable Matter and Inner Armor. Why should you care? Because many military technologies eventually make it to market : think ARPAnet, the precursor to the Internet, or MIMICS, the essence of our cell phones and miniature GPS devices. It may not look like a traditional technology roadmap, but collectively the presentations from this annual gathering of DARPA hotshots is the closest (unclassified) look at the long-term future you can find.

EURON Roboethics Roadmap

As a follow-up to last week’s Friday Five on the future of robots, this week we offer up the EURON Roboethics Roadmap.  Developed by the European Robotics Research Network (EURON) the roadmap provides a systematic assessment of the ethical issues involved in robotics R&D. According to the report, the first version is concerned with the ethics of human beings involved in the design, manufacturing and use of robots. It covers a broad array of issues, including anthromorphization of machines, technology addition and the humanization of the human/machine relationship. (Note: the South Korean government is also working on Robot Ethics Charter).

Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems

Amidst the oft-reported hype about nanotechnology - somewhere between wrinkle free khakis and drug-delivering implantable nanobots - lies the future. The Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems aims to identify the gap between the basic nanostructured materials of today, and the potential of “productive nanosystems”, bridging the differences of expert opinion regarding when we can expect to see widespread commercial applications. According to the Roadmap, some near-term applications include sensors, metrology standards and quantum computing. Warning: it’s a dense document, chock full of tech jargon.  The two pages of abbreviations for terms such as Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube (SWNT) helps, but not much.

Microsoft’s Toward 2020 Science

Bill Gates may have left the building, but his fingerprints remain on Microsoft Research’s Toward 2020 Science, a 2005 report which sets out to produce a roadmap of the evolution, challenges and potential of computer science and research in the next fifteen years.  With characteristic Microsoft attitude, the report states that “it is, to our knowledge, the first to articulate a comprehensive vision of science towards 2020, the impact of the convergence of computer science and the other sciences, and to identify specifically what the science community and policy makers can do to ensure the vision we outline becomes a reality.” Uh-huh.  Hyperbole aside, this is a good read, the main thesis being that science-based innovation will eclipse technology-based innovation in a number of emerging fields. A wall-size poster of the map (suitable for framing, we’re told) can be found here.

What do futurists read?

At the 2007 “annual gathering” of the Association of Professional Futurists, we asked that question by requesting that each attendee bring one book that is a “must read” for every futurist. The result: a somewhat raucous book swap of eclecticbrain food from business to biology to black swans. Many thanks to APF members Wendy Schultz, Craig Bettles and Cindy Frewen for compiling and annotating the following list.

(Note: be sure to read to the end of this list for the “bonus books”)

Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - This fascinating book looks at what makes creative people who they are.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - A set of nested scenarios, set variously in the South Pacific, Amsterdam, England, California, Korea, and Hawaii, that step forward from the 1800’s to a distant collapse future., by David Mitchell - A set of nested scenarios, set variously in the South Pacific, Amsterdam, England, California, Korea, and Hawaii, that step forward from the 1800’s to a distant collapse future.?

Counterculture Through the Ages by Ken Goffman (a.k.a. R.U. Sirius)- A work of historical scholarship cleverly disguised in a colorful and irreverent narrative, Goffman offers insights into the personalities and perspectives that have produced some of the most influential countercultures in society.

Good to Great, by Jim Collins - Case studies of sustained greatness, notable for the solidity of its evidence and factual support.

The Tree of Knowledge by Maturana and Varela - Sweeping analysis and perspective on the systems perceivable everywhere, from the smallest micro-organism up to the edges of the universe.

The Hydrogen Economy by Jeremy Rifkin - Sensible overview of where it could go, and what it could mean.

The Hype about Hydrogen by Joseph Romm- A rebuttal of the wild hopes and unrealistic expectations attached to the hydrogen economy.

Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen - Examines multiple identities that people have and how those identities move us toward war and strife.

The Futurist by James P. Othmer- A novel about truth, “truthiness” and a consultant who has lost the plot.

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb- A critique of economic forecasting that focuses on “black swan” phenomena: improbable events that are unpredictable, cause massive impacts, and about which, after the fact, we devise explanations that make the event seem less improbable and unpredictable than it was.

The Reality Dysfunction by Peter Hamilton - A plausible far-future society colonizing space, using nanotech - offering an unusual impetus to move into space.

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando De Soto - Tackles some of the most difficult questions in development - why has the development of capital been such a mysteryWhy is poverty a cycleWhy hasn’t capitalism flourished in more countries more than a decade after the fall of Marxism?

Everyware: the Dawning of the Age of Ubiquitous Computing by Adam Greenfield - One of the most accessible recent books on technology trends, Everywhere introduces the technologies that are enabling ubiquitous computing and discusses the impact these will have on healthcare, privacy and daily life.

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins - A look at how the prevailing model for creating wealth, which has its roots in the industrial revolution, applies no longer. Instead, the authors introduce an alternative model that uses radical resource productivity and investment in Natural Capital.

Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century by Robert E. Horn - A provocative look at the impact visual language is making in education, business, science, and technology.

Why? by Charles Tilly - Tilly introduces a framework for how we as social beings create of explanations, including the use of conventions, codes, technicals and story.

The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles? by Bruce Lipton - A former medical school professor and research scientist who has turned his attention to changing the framework of biology, Lipton’s experiments examine the molecular mechanisms by which cells process information.

World Changing: A User’s Guide for the 21^st Century by Alex Steffen - A 600-page compendium of innovations and ideas for creating an environmentally and economically sustainable future.

Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen - Offers practical advice for understanding and handling confrontations.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond - In incisive historical account of human economic and social collapse through the ages, exploring everything from the patterns of population growth to overfarming to social mores.

The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility by Stewart Brand - An iconic book on the value of foresight focusing on the key principles of longevity, maintainability, transparency, evolvability, and scalability.

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert - Drawing on cognitive neuroscience, philosophy and behavioral economics, this is an engaging read on the limitations of the human mind to lead us to happiness.

After the official book swap was over, we noticed a few under-the-table trades taking place. They were all so good I’m including them here as well:

Breakpoint by Richard Clarke - Set in 2012, the novel centers on a terrorist threat against the United States that seeks to “disconnect the globe” by destroying computer grids, communications satellites, Internet cable centers and biotech firms. A sweeping, on-the-money analysis of the future of technology and a great read all wrapped in one. (thanks Bruno G for the recommendation)

?

?

?

?

?

The Speed of Dark, by Elizabeth Moon- Set in a near future, with the biggest change being increased understanding of cognitive neuroscience and genetic manipulation. The main character is a high-functioning autistic adult, and the novel is told from his perspective. He is faced with a major decision that has the potential to re-write his identity. It’s fascinating. (thanks Wendy!)

Steel Couture - Syd Mead - Futurist: Sentinel II by Syd Mead and Strother MacMinn - A stunning visual reference of futuristic concepts by the legendary industrial designer Syd Mead. For those unfamiliar with Mead, over the last 50 years he has designed and illustrated for corporations, motion pictures (including Blade Runner, Star Trek and Aliens) and a wide range of transportation projects. Unfortunately this masterpiece is out of print, which makes it all the more special that good friend Lloyd Walker gave me his copy. (mahalo nui, Lloyd!)

Call it fate, destiny, kismet.

It’s not often I fall in love at first sight, but it happened when I stumbled upon a Granville Island art gallery last week in Vancouver, BC. One look and he literally took my breath away. Seated casually on a chair, head turned away from me - I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Mind you, this was no ordinary guy.

Made of stainless steel recycled machine parts, the object of my affection is the creation of Cory Fuhr, a self-taught Canadian artist who is developing a cult following with his provocative sculptures.

“The Dancer”

“Evolution”

And my personal favorite: an author who “Couldn’t Sleep”.

All are breathtakingly beautiful expressions that explore the boundaries between humanity and technology. Working out of a converted barn originally built by his grandfather, Fuhr’s sculptures may have a modest beginning but many have found their way into prestigious art collections as well as films and television.

Walking around the pint-sized gallery, it’s obvious about the only thing more visually arresting than the sculptures is the artist himself. With his rock-star good looks Cory Fuhr looks more like a GQ cover model than a Canadian farm boy. And to top it off, he talk like neither:

“Anthropomorphic transmogrifications have fascinated and inspired my work through my life. The conflict of engineered forms and untouched landscapes challenges humanity to reconcile our organic form with the monstrous artifice of our creations. Through my work I explore a possibility of acceptance or reconciliation.”

Make that two things that take my breath away.