Monday, January 28, 2013

Week 1: History and Future

In the documentaries The Trigger Effect and The Way We Are, James Burke takes you on a journey through technological advances. He discusses our nature to subscribe to it, depend on it and our ability to trust it even though we don’t fully comprehend how it works. The contrast is stark from the video to our current technological state. The contrast is illuminated further as you read From Aristotle to Augmented Reality by Jean-Pierre Isbouts and Jason Ohler. The article starts with a look at the ancient tradition of storytelling, then covers every succeeding media evolution spanning 1000s of years and concludes with the fact that now “it is difficult to predict media evolution more than five years into the future” (Isbouts & Ohler, 2011). Media development and technology are changing at such a rapid pace.
Here is evidence of how fast technology is changing. In 1994, the Today Show on NBC aired a segment featuring a news reporter along with co-hosts Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric discussing, “What is the Internet, Anyway?”

This clip was only 19 years ago. In less than two decades the internet and become a staple and necessity for our everyday lives.   
Once again, the development and implementation of new technologies are changing. In 1982, the Compact Disc (CD) technology replaced the cassette tape and in 1995, the Digital Versatile Disk formerly known as the Digital Video Disk (DVD) replaced Video Home System (VHS). I don’t think anyone would have imagined that DVD/CD technology would “come” and “go” within a couple of decades.
Media development and technology are on a trajectory that has endless possibilities for consumers. Last year, www.techlicious.com made a post on their blog entitled, “Five Tech Products that Will Be Dead in Five Years.” The list included some items that would make most consumers apprehensive about the validity of the list, in particular the extinction of DVDs/CDs (http://www.techlicious.com/blog/five-tech-products-that-will-be-dead-in-five-years/).
On Thursday, January 25, 2013, The Situation Room on CNN aired a news report entitled, “DVDs might soon go the way of VHS.” The news segment discussed the decline of the DVD/CD and the alternatives that consumers are opting to use (http://cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2013/01/24/tsr-simon-end-of-the-dvd-blockbuster.cnn.html).
During an interview, Professor Nir Tessler at Israel’s elite Technion University discussed the future of the television set. The video is entitled “Why a physical TV set will disappear from our living rooms.” Tessler discusses how there will be no need for color or art on walls and describes creating an atmosphere in a room with the click of a button.
What Tessler is describing sound very similar to a technology currently being used called, Projection Mapping.

The thing we know is there are researchers, engineers, and analysts looking for ways to improve and enhance our lives through existing technology and the invention of new technology. There are infinite possibilities of what they might produce and market to consumers. As a kid, I was a huge fan of the animated sitcom, The Jetsons. I just have one question; where is my flying car?

Sources
Isbouts, J.-P., & Ohler, J. (2011). Storytelling and Media: Narrative Models from Aristotle to Augmented Reality.