Please do your creative thinking Virtual Inventor headset. For Product Designers, the future is virtually on the collective conscious prototype horizon. Feel free to explore the possibilities with industrial design, mechanical, electrical and software engineering that enhances the human User Product Interface and Prototype experience. Two earthly frontiers loom in front of us, harnessing the forces of gravity and extending and enhancing human life.
Conspiracy theorists claim the government has already tackled the gravity portion with “gravity beam” propulsion drives and teleportation capabilities like movie magic, with Lunar and Martian bases already operational. Alien technology conspiracies aside, with weightless deep space vacuum environments and the necessary space ship speeds seem daunting. With NASA’s Helios 2 satellite (Guinness® world record) which achieved geocentric speeds travelling around the Sun in January 1989, at over 350,000 km/h or 220,000 mph was not even close to the speed of Light at 299 792 458 miles per second is far from enough speed to get to our closest neighboring star Alpha Centauri or planets at over 4 light years traveling at light speed. The search for achieving light speed space propulsion interlaced with mastering the forces of gravitation technology still remains.
A frontier much closer to home involves human biomechanical technology as machines and bioengineering has been effectively applied for human augmentation. Made famous in the 1980’s as a million dollar bionic man or the G.I. Joe® soldier of the future, the idea was to repair or create the Super Human. This Super Human’s physical capabilities would also require enhanced intelligence with individuals tapping into collective consciousness technology by internet service providers through a global library of information.
The goal is a roadmap for storage, retrieval and transfer for all participants to combine the information into a usable data format. Incorporating this massive collective intelligence of all academic and common knowledge would be applied to the biomedically or biomechanically enhanced human in the future. The prosthetic limb implanted nerve stimulation controller, heart pace maker, biomechanical shoulders, hips and knees are among the commonly accepted devices today. Electrodes are used to measure brain waves, and they can also be used to stimulate areas of the human brain with advantages to awaken potential.
Technology calls for “Smarter” biomechanical advancements. Ultimately, central computer biometric implants or sensors could record thoughts and movements, building a “virtual you”. Opportunity has arisen with the “Internet of Things” to do much more virtually online. Imagine a virtual inventor headset and similarities to the virtual games that many enjoy. Now go into your online shopping Virtual Store. Walk up and down the aisles, peruse and select your merchandise until your cart is full. From the convenience of home with the sensory experience of being there, it is on to the “Cloud” as your cart is full and delivered to your door. Through New Product Design and the User Product Interface, Virtual Reality comes alive and perhaps this is truly one of the last frontiers ! Also visit our WhiteLight Design Strategic Development Process.