I posted a thread on the international kiteforum website about the project and asking for any issues people had.
Issues raised are;
- Size - windzup uses a dakine high rolla bag which can hold up to 5 boards but gets charged a $100 oversized fee
- Weight - need more weight for gear and less in the bag while still being durable and strong
- Windzup would find a 165cm bag that held both snow and kite boards useful
- snowkiter3 would like the option to extend his bag to hold larger boards aswell
US military funds mind-reading technology
The US military has provided a 4 million dollar grant to researchers at the University of California, Irvine; Carnegie Mellon University; and the University of Maryland to try and decipher brain waves. The researchers are reading brain waves of volunteers using electrodes placed on the head. They ask the volunteers to think of a word and then link the corresponding brain wave activity to that word.
One of the lead researchers dismissed the notion that this technology could be used to force thoughts out of people and said that "This will never be used in a way without somebody's real, active cooperation,"
If this technology was developed to the point that it could in fact read the thoughts of people thinking freely it could potentially be used as a market research tool. volunteers could be fitted with the electrodes and asked to perform a task or use a product and then their complete and honest and unfiltered thoughts recorded.
This could of course be taken further into the realm of conspiricy theorys by saying that everyone could be implanted with these electrodes a birth and then their desires identified for the purposes of creating new products. If its taken to this level it is also reasonable to expect that the governments of the world would use the technology to police their popluations.
So there is the obvious question of the ethics surounding this technology. If it is developed with good intentions it will almost certainly be used for less well intentioned purposes. So besides the question of when and for what purpose would it be ethical to use this technology this is the question of weather it is even ethical to develop it in the first place and risk its potential misuse.
The other question if the technologys value as a market research tool is being considered is what is it accualy reading when it reads thoughts? The article mentions participants thinking of words in their head. But what about the emotions and memories that a person experiences when using a product or completeing a task. These are equaly if not more raw and important that what a person thinks to themselves.
So in a recent article from the New Zealand herald they were talking about how Burger King has made incremental changes that increase the speed of their service by 3-5 seconds per customer that over the entire year leads to increased revenue growth due to shorter queues, and more customers. They achieved this through a more efficient software system that paid for itself in 3 months. They go on to say that the revenue increase was around .25% that for a company with 69 stores across NZ was well worth the investment.
They also have a case study of the IRD how they revamped their website that focused on ease of use for the customers which resulted in happier tax payers.
I guess the trend that is arising out of the article is how large companies are looking for ways to increase the efficiency of their companies even at a small incremental level.
Having worked in a fast food restaurant this isn’t really a big shock to me. Senior staffs are very stingy and it is slave driving work. However it is interesting to read about the effects on the large scale.
My opinion on the matter is if they treated the staff with a little more respect they might be happier in their job which results in better work ethics and greater job retention, but looking at the trend from a product design perspective maybe there is an opportunity here to increase efficiency in the fast food restaurants through the redesign of the products they use not just IT.
This just speaking from my experience from working in two kitchens before, but the repetitive nature of the tasks, the heat, the terrible uniforms, and products that haven’t changed since the restaurant opened make these places incredibly inefficient and horrible environments to work in.
What would be the value of a product that could reduce the time it took to serve one customer by 5%, or make employees more efficient so they worked 1 hour less every week or spend that hour doing other tasks? What would that be worth to Mc Donald’s? And what you designed for them could be transferred to Burger king, Wendy’s and any other restaurant of any size.
references
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10526898&pnum=2 retrieved today
The talk from orca yesterday was very interesting. The talk mostly was about the innovation through the materials and technical improvements but what was really interesting was the psychology behind the design.
Intimidation was the look they were trying to achieve through the suits. But because all suits are sewed together the same and all existing suits are black they had to look to an alternative to create a point of difference. The graphic design on orca wetsuits have always been prevalent from the suit looking like an orca whale to the fingerprint pattern on some of their older suits.
The latest suits have been looking at tattoos. The design was inspired from the moko, creating an intimidating look that looks very impressive, transforms the user to look like a modern warrior.
Another design is lined with quotes from the book "the art of war" about how to defeat your enemy and how you will crush them which also all about intimidation
India, population 1.13billion, is in talks with the US into signing an atomic energy pact so it could start the construction of its own nuclear power station.
Nuclear ethics aside this is going to have a massive effect on the world. India is still considered a third world country with high levels of poverty, illiteracy and malnutrition. The change it’s going through it has now become the 2nd biggest growing economy in the world. The addition of nuclear power plants will make the overcrowded cities more developed raising the standard of living in the country to a higher level.
A lot of people will consider this a good thing, but this will affect life expectancy and raise the population even faster. If the population of India started living a lifestyle similar to that of the states the price of food and petrol will raise even higher and it seems the country is at 1 minute till 12 which means the world is as well.
How can we as designers help this country have a higher standard of living but not have such a high impact on the world from learning from the mistakes of our developed countries? What happens when you have an overcrowded developed city?
Looking at an example of Los Angeles (3.8million), traffic becomes a major problem, pollution becomes a problem and LA has a population only one third of India’s biggest city (Mumbai 13,662,885). India has 6 cities that have larger populations than LA. How destructive to the environment would that situation be?
But then again who am I to say that India isn’t allowed to become more developed. Maybe it’s us who need to become less developed so there is less strain on the world.
In the article it goes onto say Japan is a strong advocate of non-proliferation because it is the only country to suffer a nuclear attack and is against India having nuclear power.
reference
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZXoVku1SHISxppM0_T47AGJUpPg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India
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Yeeha
More out of work but wages still rising
As wages inflate and the the essencial things such as petrol and food increase along with the unemployment rate the effect on design could go two ways. design could become a luxuary that most people are not able or willing to pay for. or design could become an essencial value adding activity that makes people feel inclined enough to part with their more limited disposable income.
Design may become focused on making essencial objects with added value instead of non essencial or decorative items being considered by many as 'design'.
Decorative or embelished objects may become the status symbols of the upper class that can still afford items of desire instead of nesecity.
I setup a questionnaire on an internet survey system named zoomerang on 13 July 2008. The aim of the questionnaire is to understand people thoughts and experiences of what are the Chinese traditional culture element and what are people life habit and living environment. By 22 July 2008, I have got feedback from 53 Chinese people who have completed the questionnaire. Their ages vary from 20 to 60, 49% people are male and 51% people are female. They are middle class people in China and most of them are government staff or company staff.
As a result, Chinese calligraphy, Traditional Chinese painting, Cheongsam, Chinese classical poetry and Chinese embroidery are top 5 Chinese traditional culture elements in their mind. 87% people would like to bring Chinese traditional culture element into the furniture design. Most of them also believe that quality and comfortable are quite important to them when buying a chair. 90% of them preferrs the product that has the function of portable, for example, easy to move it between living room and bed room.
