Hank [BS/MSEE,
MSM $$$, Ph.D. Mgmt] teaches From: Inside Silicon Valley.
A handheld cube that lets you browse your Flickr photos. A headset that uses brainwaves to control how fast a bicyclist pedals. And Megaphone, a game that lets users play against each in public spaces with their mobile phones. Those were some of the concepts on display at the recent Yahoo Design Expo. Originally conceived by Joy Mountford when she was at Apple, the event brings together out-of-the-box design ideas by students from around the world. In this video, the Mercury News speaks with Mountford, now vice president of User Experience Design at Yahoo, and demos some of the projects.
A headset that translates brainwaves to bicycle speed…The concept is awesome but i really don’t think I would ride around campus with a helmet on my head that converts brainwaves to speed. The idea that brainwaves can be transmitted into actions has profound implications in the medical field.
All of the stuff on this video succeeds in being innovative, but none of it has virtually any sort of practical use yet. They are interesting ideas, but they need to be developed much further before there can be any practical implementation of any of them.
This was great to see that frontrunners like Apple are expanding their product network by hosting event like the Design Expo. Some of the gadgets are a little out there, but with the help of Apple could prolly turn into new mainstream technologies.
Its a great example of corporate entreprenuership since Apple is sponsoring inventions and innovations like the flickr cube and the brainwave bicycle speed control.
I especially like the new music innovations being a huge music fan myself. I can’t wait to see what turns up in the coming years in the technology field.
These expos set the stage for new technologies to come up. Rather than applying it for raw use, I would rather convert it for a different use of use the technology for something else. The brainwave tech might be used for lie detection purposes though I doubt its accuracy in this stage. So these are valuable ideas that must be further developed to create amazing products! Expos like these show the world that young guys are extremely capable of coming up with truly out of the box ideas. My favorite anyway was the Flickr Cube Browser, not coz I have a lot of photos but the tech used is amazing(big fan of technology)! You could prolly use the flower bed to spy on your wife!!
These people are defiantly thinking outside the box, but maybe they are a little too far out. I didn’t see anything that they created that I thought would be marketable. Maybe they should have thought of any potential buyers before deciding to go with those ideas. I think that this expo is a good idea because maybe you could go and take ideas from others and share your knowledge and come up with a really great product.
I am all up for inginuity, but that mouth/camera/screen thing was so useless. All he did was transmit a picture of his mouth over someone else. It’s won’t fool anyone. also, not only does no one need it, no body would want it.
On a positive note, the gel keyboard definitely has potential. That might has application in the DJ world.
It’s incredible what people can think up. I think the weakest idea presented was the Megaphone. Though I understand it’s purpose, I feel like it is taking a step backwards. Yes, it’s true that people still have old phones, but most people with old phones still have them because they are satisfied with them and do not feel like replacing them. If they really wanted to play games they would update their contract and get a phone that comes with games standard.
I like the gel keyboard idea, but I feel like it has already been done. My brother owns a keyboard that is almost 10 years old and it sensitive to the touch. If you press the key very hard the sound is louder, if you press the key very lightly the sound is soft. I don’t know how original this idea really is.
The talking flowers thing was interesting as well… more as a gag thing, but has no real life application in my opinion.
The ideas for new things are there, but implementing them is another story. I can see a lot of risks going into stuff like this and I don’t see them becoming trendsetters anytime soon.
A lot of what I’ve read so far is that the ideas are useless or nobody would want them. This may be true in some cases, but I have a different take on it. I classify inventors as a different breed of people. Inventors are always thinking, “what next? what next can I invent?” Usually the case for these is that their inventions are a generation ahead. It may be a great idea or something cool, but society is not ready to accept it yet. I’m looking forward to see what ideas we have today will be the ‘hot-thing’ of tomorrow.
While I think some of these ideas are a little “out there” I agree with Eric’s comment. The whole point of brainstorming and innovation is to start out wild and completely wacky and then bring the ideas back into a more narrow view. We did this in class with the random word generator. I believe one group had “country”, “chocolate”, and “sex toy” as their group of words. They then had to come up with an idea that had these three words in it. Ideas come from wacky places. The original idea may be crazy and seemingly useless, but after it’s honed and molded, it may just be the top selling item in the market. It’s always easier to start out wild and bring it back in then to start with something ultra-conservative and try to expand it. It’s kind of like commercial fishing–you catch more fish and have a better chance of catching a big one when you throw out a huge net than when you use a small net on a stick.
I agree that most of these ideas serve no purpose, with exception of the brainwave helmet.
That idea could have functional off shoots. It was mentioned earlier in the blog that none of
these innovations have a practical use. I’d imagine I blow the majority of my money on things
with little practical use…Their just fun. As far as profit goes these ideas look like they
could be successful in my opinion.
Well I agree with most of my classmates here, most things have no practical use, like that cube for instance, not only is it really big I’m guessing it’ll be expensive as well.
The guy who talked about blinking was just weird to say the least, did he actually say he sends 5volts in his eyes every time he blinks and he takes a picture every time he blinks? Was that dude really that bored he came up with the idea to shock his eyes every few seconds?
Oh and the brainwave thing, that was a bit weird as well, so did the dude make the cyclist puff because he was thinking really hard about exams? There are more precise uses of brainwaves already, well, not really brainwaves, but definitely brainpower. Researches once did a test with a chimpanzee and look for increased bra inactivity and pattern of that brain activity when the chimpanzee moved something on a touch-display. They then input their data into a computer connected to a metal arm full of wires and stuff. Then they opened the chimpanzee head and input a chip where there was that brain activity.
Now when the chimpanzee wanted to move something across a touch-display, he couldn’t because the researcher blocked the program, however the chimpanzee thought really hard about doing his task and the metal arm did it for him, using the chip and the data. So right now they have found a way to make a metal arm move by thinking. I admit it’s cooler to do this without usage of chips or anything of the like, but then you can’t control the brainwaves, you can only increase or decrease the amount of brainwaves, so again it’s kinda a useless invention
I do not see any use for any of these things. I would not invest my money into these products becuase I would
never buy them.