Tag Archives: 80s

As a society, we’ve always been fascinated about gazing into the future through the lens of sci-fi filmmakers and writers. I’ve certainly wondered from an early age when some of these ideas could become reality. I can remember watching 80s films like Star Wars which were packed with robots, augmented reality, cybernetic implants, laser technology, and then eagerly watching 80s TV shows like Tomorrow’s World to see whether someone had done it yet.
Nowadays, thanks to the power of the internet, vastly superior computing power, collective information gathering and a lower cost of experimentation, a lot of those imaginary concepts are coming to life, at least in the form of prototypes, and at a startling rate. In the same way that we’ve seen an 80s revival in fashion of late, I am sure that the next decade will see the revival of 80s ‘future’ technologies.

Back to the future

In fact there’s so much that’s already here. Here are a few great sci-fi technology moments, and some corresponding recent technologies in the fields of digital advertising and communications, you’ve probably seen many of them before, but it goes to show how far we’ve come.

Holographic games – Microsoft surface – AR interactive avatar webcam battle – neurosonics

Augmented reality – Layar Mobile

Virtual Reality – Photosynth+Flickr+Video

Laser technology – Laser Graffiti

Talking cars – TomTom iPhone

Gestural interaction – Multitouch surfaces

Now whilst there is a fair splash of optimism in this next thought, after seeing what has already been done, it definitely feels as though there is little holding us back from a lot of those seemingly far-fetched 80s ideas.

It was acceptable in the 80s

Of course, some of those ideas should stay in the 80s, being absolute usability nightmares (think giant dashboards of hundreds of flashing buttons), visual cliches (again, flashing boards of lights, fancy flash intro-style animations of CIA satellite surveillance or star trek visualisations), and some might still be a little costly to create (not sure the death star is a viable alternative to WMD or advertising yet either), but nonetheless, this shouldn’t stop creative folk harking back to this era and its goldmine of ideas.

See, Hear, Smell, Touch, Feel

The creative possibilities are huge for these technologies, not least because they escape from the confines of the various screen devices that we’re all hooked on, but also because the engagement levels could surely be much higher because the context for interaction can surely be more relevant. We operate on so many different levels to take in information – visually, aurally, via touch, smell, emotion ñ and each of these levels work on thousands and thousands of different cues. We’re only working on a few of each of these in any medium.\n\nThese types of technology could take not only digital campaigns but also integrated campaigns to a whole new level. What’s great is that many of these ideas are already ingrained into the psyche of the western world. Everyone from kids to grown-ups are expecting these kinds of technologies to be available anyway, because the TV told them so, and they can probably work out how to interact with them more easily than something like Photoshop.

Contextually relevant technology

One of the reasons we started WEIR+WONG was to take full advantage of this explosion of technologies, and place more focus on providing relevant experiences for consumers and users in different contexts. The future’s not just going to be a series of windows on Kevin Kelly’s machine, it’s going to be a whole series of sensory devices and experiences giving access to the machine. The more people understand their brands and the ways that people use and enjoy interacting with them now, the better they’ll understand this context, and the better they’ll be at using technology to enhance that experience and give new meaning and value to consumers.