Awakening Tech

October: Immersive digital installation launched in Diesel’s new flagship store

Diesel has enlisted the help of German artist Andreas Nicolas Fischer to create a ‘living’ artwork in its flagship store that responds to Twitter posts. The installation, set in an enclosed atrium, serves as a gateway to the store, displaying an abstract digital organism, designed by Fischer and controlled by an algorithm sensitive to posts on social media.

Key Development: As consumers increasingly expect to be entertained and enchanted by retail environments, architects are introducing responsive elements that draw inspiration from living organisms.

October: Norwegian startup Zwipe and MasterCard announce the launch of world’s first contactless payment card with fingerprint recognition

The Zwipe MasterCard, due to be launched in 2015, is the first of its kind to combine the security of biometric authentication with the speed and convenience of contactless payment.

Key Development: The implementation of fingerprint technology into traditional card-based payment is necessary for companies such as MasterCard to keep up with the digitisation of payment and the added security that biometrics can provide.

November: HP launches a new desktop computer that aims to change the way we interact with digital content

Part of HP’s Blended Reality, a line of products designed to provide a tactile digital experience, Sprout does not feature a conventional mouse or keyboard. Instead it comes with a touchscreen, overhead projector, 3D scanner and touch mat that encourages users to interact with images projected from the in-built, overhead projector onto the touch mat.

Key Development: To enhance the user experience through seamless haptic interaction, technology brands are introducing gesture-controlled interfaces for computers and connected devices.

November: Game studio Funktronic Labs combines motion-tracking technology with Oculus Rift for an immersive virtual experience

Entitled Collider, the work uses the Leap Motion, a device that attaches to the Oculus Rift, allowing interaction with the virtual world. By grabbing and pulling at the air in front of them, users can control the speed and intensity of the experience.

Key Development: Virtual technology opens up incredible opportunities for brands to create memorable immersive experiences and increase levels of interaction with their content.

November: Developer PAN Studio launches a mobile game that merges online experience with physical reality

Run An Empire encourages players to claim local territory by running, jogging or walking around the area. Working with the phone’s in-built GPS, the game works by mapping the route of your run. All players use the same map, which means nearby users can compete to capture the most vulnerable territories.

Key Development: The app taps into people’s innate competitiveness, combining the strategy of online games with the ability to affect the outcome with physical activity.

January: Storefront Gallery exhibits an interactive room that morphs around visitors

The exhibition featured an enclosed space surrounded by breathing membranes that inflated to become soft and mouldable. Morphing around the body and applying different degrees of pressure, the installation imagined a future in which static, rigid environments are replaced with self-configuring spaces that serve different functions.

Key Development: The rise of soft robotics and self-assembly technologies hints at a future in which dynamic physical environments will increasingly feature.

February: Halo Sport is a pair of headphones that makes your brain work better

Halo Sport headphones increase the brain’s ability to learn new skills. It does this through neuropriming – using pulses of energy that increase the excitability of motor neurons, thereby helping the neurons to connect more readily than normal. It also helps an athlete to get more out of their muscles, because improved signalling to muscles enables them to work harder.

Key Development: Forms of neurotraining used by the military are being made more accessible to the public.

March: Expedia develops a project that gives severely ill children a virtual travel experience

Expedia worked with St Jude Children’s Research Hospital to offer three young cancer sufferers an immersive travel adventure. The children were paired with Expedia employees who journeyed to Argentina, Miami and Mexico, and live streamed their travels using 360-degree cameras, which the children viewed in real time in a special six-sided room. Due to the broadcast’s live nature, the children could ask the employees questions and direct their actions.

Key Development: Brands are using virtual reality to create empathetic experience that enable consumers to see the world through someone else’s eyes.

April: Telecoms company Oi launches a new interactive logo that responds to sound

The logo, which forms part of Oi’s refreshed identity, responds to the volume and pitch of customers’ voices when they visit the brand online and in stores. Volume affects the size, while pitch varies the shape and colour. Customers can also save their own unique version based on their own voice, a nice touch for a brand that specialises in communication.

Key Development: Designers are using technology to create responsive typography and branding that resonates with people on a personal level.

May: Designer Keiichi Matsuda release his terrifying vision of a world immersed in augmented reality

Matsuda’s conceptual film uses post-production techniques to imagine a world in which media is all around us and our interaction with the physical world is covered by a layer of augmented reality. The film also raises questions about how wealth will influence our access to different levels of technology and create barriers between different social classes through alternative realities.

Key Development: Virtual and augmented reality technologies are growing at a phenomenal rate and will introduce new opportunities as well as dangers.

June: Artist Margot Bowman examines the relationship between identity and algorithms in a project for Mini

Data Portraits raises questions about the way that humans are perceived by algorithms that are designed to determine who we are and what our interests might be. The project was commissioned by Mini as part of its centenary celebrations, in which it examines how the demand for personalisation will be affected by the sharing economy.

Key Development: The world’s Mega-systems are combining big data with a human touch to create products and services that offer a mix of personalisation and inspiration.

July: Automotive care brand Midas has used advanced lie-detecting technology to prove the trustworthiness of its mechanics

Automotive care brand Midas submitted 20 of its mechanics to a high-tech lie detector test using a high-speed precision camera to track the involuntary eye movements that result when a person is lying. The Midas mechanics tested had an average reliability score of 88.3%. The results formed the backbone of Midas’s subsequent The Eyes Don’t Lie campaign.

Key Development: Advances in technology are providing powerful new tools that brands can use to reassure consumers that they are trustworthy.

September: Campfire is a new interactive app that brings bedtime stories to life

Campfire harnesses voice recognition technology and the Internet of Things to promote the parent-child relationship through traditional bedtime. Usable with any book, the app synchronises with wifi-enabled lighting and Bluetooth speakers to respond to the parent’s tone of voice and adapt the visual ambience and background sounds accordingly.

Key Development: Generation I kids are increasingly technology-savvy, but brands must consider what cost this has for personal interaction and respond appropriately.

September: An installation at Tate Britain helps visitors understand the thought process of AI

Recognition proposes new perspectives on understanding art, positioning artificial intelligence (AI) as a benevolent and useful technology. The installation uses a complex algorithm to compare and match images based on object recognition, facial recognition, composition and context. Pairing current affairs images with classical art, the system offers a list of aesthetic and contextual similarities that make it a match.

Key Development: Technology is increasingly mimicking the world of human emotions and reflecting who we are as a society.

October: The Smell of Data project alerts users to potentially hazardous websites using scent

The scent diffuser emits a metallic scent whenever a user connects to an unprotected wifi network or a nefarious website. The project plays on existing learned behaviour already embedded in many consumers’ psyches. ‘Compare the smell of data with the smell of gas,’ explains designer Leanne Wijnsma. ‘We were taught to find this smell dangerous – and we know exactly how to act when we smell it.’

Key Development: Designers are exploring how technology can be more intuitively integrated into our lives by appealing to our deep-seated responses to stimuli.