CPfNE - ARUP

CPfNE - ARUP - STEEP - crit #2

2006-10-29T09:34:00.000Z

Here are the notes, quadrants and group charts for phase 2 of the CPfNE - ARUP project, courtesy of Alex. for higher res pix visit my flickr ARUP set here.

In Real Life - CPfNE - ARUP - STEEPtarget market profile monologues

2006-10-27T00:41:00.000Z

In Real Life

This is Duncan,

He is a city worker; he works for a large corporation that deals with transaction systems for the New Stock Market. He thinks it is an amazing place to work in, everyone is young and attractive and the workspace is really dynamic. They get really good bonuses if they show good results. And he often does. He is actually on the Top 3 list this week. He feels really good about that. It’s like a hardcore workout for his brain.

The company takes really good care of it's staff. They are well catered for at all times and there is a fierce competition within the office that keeps them wanting to work harder all the time. That attitude continues after work too, to unwind they play squash, get pissed and have a laugh…

Although he enjoys his job Peter finds it very stressful. It's not a normal job, it could be described as legal money laundering. When he was young Peter wanted to become a food critic or work with his father in the family restaurant, but then his parents divorced and his father had to sell the business. He likes to say that he now works in Energy but in reality he cooks in the canteen of the off shore energy plant. Peter doesn't speak to his father any more, he doesn't have time for In Real Life relationships.

He just has to send off a few documents and then he's going home. He could walk as he doesn't live far but he likes to indulge himself at the end of a stressful day. Half an hour’s sensory depravation is worth 4 hours sleep or so they say.

Peter is actually leaving work early today to update his profile at the station, it doesn’t take long but it’s important he gets it right so you he has the right experience on the train. He will visit his agent who will do a few tests on his pulse, his eyesight, his saliva, that then he will buy a sensory journey package. He usually gos for the executive – total immersion but sometimes he buys a lesser model so that he still has a small sense of reality. Sometimes he likes to be able to see the other people on the train. He finds it funny to realize that there are so many other people doing the same thing in the same place but without having any impact on you whatsoever, it’s comforting. Once he took the train without any intervention at all, he didn’t like it, being so stressed at work all day he really needs that time to unwind.

Post War Asylum Seekers Anonymous

My name is X,

I am on my way to my visit my parents. It is 4 days till Christmas and my family, which consists of my father, his new girlfriend, her brother (also my 2nd stepfather but that’s a long story), my mother and her girlfriend (or should I say stepmother), my 3 stepbrothers and my half sister with her triplets (please don’t ask who the fathers/labritories are), are meeting in what was previously known before the earthquake, as California. It is the first time for all of us to get together and indulge in food and drink, and to compare our former self’s with our current ones.

The journey will take 72 hours and I will probably be asleep for at least half of that time. The procedure will be painless, or so they say. I am not traveling alone. Inside of me I have my travel companion, which is the result of last weeks meeting with Z. He will never know it was his.

To tell you the truth, I love service stations; they are the only places where you can feel totally anonymous but still been cared for; kinda like a clinic, or at least what I remember what a walk-in clinic was, before the war. You really only start to exist once you have entered the train station service center; in here I at least get a number bracelet. With in the station i am constantly monitored and it feels safe, and when I reach my destination, the only evidence of me ever having been there are the bandages and the memory, if I decide for the option of keeping my memories of the experience. The doctor/patient code of Discretion is one of the only rights I have left.

Do-gooder (Dorothy)

Today it’s all about choice, but of course you have to make the right one.

Before you travel you have to think about the impact it is going to have on the people around you. Driving is out of the question as we all know. Even though the price of petrol has dropped of the scale since the Americans managed to tap into their ‘unreachable’ oil wells, it’s still impossible to afford the pollution tax. I usually just take the train as somehow it’s easier to justify when you are not actually making the pollution yourself, ‘Out of sight is out of mind’ as the off shore power companies say.

Anyway, I’m commuting every morning now so I have bought myself membership to the conscience spa, it’s like a members lounge for frequent travellers where we can try to offset a bit of the impact we have on the environment. Of course I could just join the crowds trampling across the energy concourse but I want to have a bit more impact than just brightening the lights, and it doesn’t hurt to wear the badge so people know you are doing your part!

The badge is brilliant actually, I can remember travelling up to London to go to the Science Museum with school and we kept having to press a plastic card onto the gates whenever we wanted to go in and out of the tube! I know! They didn’t even know who I was! But it really gave us a sense that we were in control, I know we can use our biochips to sort everything out but there is something really nice about showing your badge to be allowed into the sustainable seats!

My spa session is the medium impact session, I wish I had more time in the mornings so I could do the full impact but I like my sleep too much, 2 hours is enough I think. This morning I uploaded about 30 power units on the step machine and still had time to click on the amnesty international button a few times on my way out, it’s great that I can make such a difference to so many people’s lives isn’t it!

So I’m waiting for my train to arrive and you know what I saw someone throwing their McDonalds food wrapper on the floor! I mean it’s bad enough shopping in those places but you don’t have to advertise the fact, and we all know there is a proper place for every type of waste, it’s not fair to expect the work force to have to sort our rubbish before it’s reintegrated. I can hardly believe there are still those sorts of shops here but I suppose some things will never change.

I personally shop at fresh and wild, it’s a bit old fashioned but at least you know where it all comes from, what goes in must come out after all and you don’t want to pollute the system. In fact, don’t laugh but I really think the best bit about this station is the toilets, it’s really great that from everything we take from this world, we can give so much back.

STEEP research notes

2006-10-26T19:03:00.000Z

here is the notes that were aggregated and sent to all of us as a word .doc by Arlete. thanks Arlete!

Train Station for the Future 2026
ARUP live project

Research Phase
STEEP

Social //
Mobile workers
Virtuality – loss of sensibility
24 hour society
dissolution of nationalities
buyable identities (pseudo)
ghetoisation
upcome of very contrasting social mannerisms
tech antagonism
Asian majority
always on and traceable society
habitable transportation
society of fear
loss of social time
selection of few with whom interact

Technology //
Energy – self powered – mobile power generators
Biometrics – tagging exists
Comfort
Increased ownership of technology
Smart materials – solar cells – invisibility (technology theory exists now) – memory materials

Economy //
Higher wages – higher expectancies
Environmental responsibility – competitive responsibility – charity
Personalised services – business
Unique authentic market products
Wealth gap
Indirect servitude
Fourth world – two-tier economy – immigration
Merger mania
Weightlessness
Experience economy – less fixed assets
Taxes sustainability
Carbon credits
Reduced face to face business

Environmental//
2010–50% - Kyoto protocol – GHG emissions
renewable energy – recycle – reduce
pollution – electricity – air – water – land
green house effect – greenhouse gas – heat
global warming – high temperature - seas rise – land disappears – climate change
nuclear – change in fresh water – population - wind, solar, wave to tide energy – consuming chemicals - health problems
Energy resources?
Nuclear?
Water
Biochemistry
Genome

Politics //
Global governance
Terrorism
Borders - surveillance
Space
Nation?
Globalisation – migration – human rights
Identity – identity tracking
Perpetual traveller - bio-passport
Global constitution

Human Upgrade / Genetic Profiling Spa and Asylum Seekers Paradise

2006-10-25T20:13:00.000Z

imagine having a physical performed by a doctor at the train station to find that you are pregnant and then abort the fetus on the train before visit your parents at the train’s final destination. This is the idea behind the Human Upgrade / Genetic Profiling Spa and Asylum Seekers Paradise.

As profiled by the politics group from the STEEP group presentations, it is almost certain that World War Three is eminent. After this war, people will become more and more tracked for there genetic qualities in order to maintain the survival of the human race.

Since people could already be using train stations to leave areas rendered uninhabitable by war, one could use the train station as a place to fix themselves or profile their genetic makeup for compatibility with other humans, as discussed by the environment group.

People could see the train station as a point of physical and mental check-up and upgrade. Seeking asylum within the train station, one could purchase new body parts or fix the one’s they already have. A retail service industry could grow out of such a need to survive.

ARUP - STEEP - quadrants and mindmaps - curtesy of Alex

2006-10-23T09:56:00.000Z

Guten Tag meine Kollegen,

here are the ARUP - STEEP quadrants and mindmaps, curtesy of Alex.

i have tried to scale the files down to a more download friendly file size, but if you would like the full quality pix for print, you can find them on my flickr page at full resolution. here is the link to the flickr set:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smallcaps/sets/72157594341094596/

viel Glueck!

STEEP - technology group - downloadable pdf

2006-10-20T09:18:00.000Z

a pdf collection of our research thus far:

right click and download the .pdf here

STEEP - technology group - biometrics

2006-10-19T19:12:00.000Z

Biometrics:

People are becoming more and more comfortable with the idea of using their own body as an object that can be modified. Plastic surgery, lazer tretements for eye defects and fingerprinted security systems are already comonplace. Businesses and even nursery schools are buying in to security systems fit for a top security government building (see link 1) and the first UK face transplant is about to take place following the success in france earlier this year.
We walk around with mobile phones and ipods clipped perminantly to our ears, and our computers can connect to the internet almost anywhere, how long will it be before these machines that we can't do without become part of our bodys?
A survey by EDS on the way people will shop for their groceries in the future reveilied that
“20%of teenagers and 17%of adults would use Biometric paymens such as fingerprinting or iris recognition, and surprisingly 8%of teenagers and 5%of adults were open to the idea of having a chip inerted into their body to use as a payment method”
“already 66%of teenagers and 62% of adults are comfortable with self scanning checkouts and on average it is the teenagers, the key shoppers for the future who are quicker to embrace new technology”.(see link 2)
The following artical is taken from a report into the inplantation of Radio Frequency ID tags (RFID) into humans (see link 3):
VeriChip sells 11-millimeter RFID tags that get implanted in the fatty tissue below the right tricep. When near one of Verichip's scanners, the chip wakes up and radios an ID number to the scanner. If the number matches an ID number in a database, a person with the chip under his or her skin can enter a secured room or complete a financial transaction.
"It is used instead of other biometric applications," such as fingerprints, Fulcher said.
Fulcher said the basic technology has been around for a while. For 15 years, Digital Angel, a sister company under the Applied corporate umbrella, has sold thousands of tags for identifying animals. The U.S. Department of Energy employs Digital Angel's technology to monitor salmon migration. Several implants have been placed in household pets and livestock.
"We believe the tags can last 20 years," Fulcher said.
About 7,000 VeriChip tags have been sold, and approximately 1,000 have been inserted in humans. The chips only work with VeriChip's scanners. Along with scanners, VeriChip also sells complementary security systems for opening or shutting doors after the identification process.
Mexico has evaluated the chips as a way to better identify children in the event of a kidnapping. The Baja Beach Club in Spain has used them as electronic wallets to buy drinks. Sales have also taken place in Russia, Switzerland, Venezuela and Colombia.
But FN Manufacturing, a South Carolina gun maker, is evaluating the technology for "smart guns," which contain sensor-activated grips so that only their owners can fire them.
The chips themselves are inserted into humans and animals with a syringe. When emerging from the syringe, the chips get coated with a substance called BioBond, which insulates the chip from the body and allows it to adhere to local tissue. If removed, it becomes inactive.
Also, VeriChip is working on an implant that will contain a Global Positioning System. Such a device would allow an individual with a scanner to pinpoint someone's position on the globe.

Of course Biometric technology doesn't have to be implanted under the skin, it could easily be something that is quite far removed. Technology exists that can enable people to play simple computer games with the power of their mind. Brain ball is a game that was developed by Swedish Designers which uses the players stress levels to move the ball into their oponants goal. The more stressed you are, the worse you do, so it is the relaxed player who wins:
Brainball: Winning by Relaxing. (taken from the brainball website, see link 4)
Brainball is a game where you compete in relaxation. The players' brainwaves control a ball on a table, and the more relaxed scores a goal over the opponent.
Brainball is a game that goes against the conventional competitive concept, and also reinvents the relationship between man and machine. Instead of activity and adrenalin, it is passivity and calmness that mark the truly successful Brainball player. Brainball is unique amongst machines since it is not controlled by the player's rational and strategic thoughts and decisions. On the contrary, the participants are dependent on the body's own intuitive reactions to the game machine.

At first glance, Brainball seems similar to a traditional two player game - two people challenge one and other and take their respective positions at each end of a table that is laid out with two goals and a little ball. The rest of the game's equipment is more special. Both players wear a strap around their forehead that contains electrodes and is wired up to a biosensor system. This system, that is used to measure the body's biological signals, is tightly fastened to the frontal lobes and registers the electrical activity in the brain - so called EEG (electro¬encephalo¬gram). The players brain activity is graphed in a diagram on a computer screen so that the public can easily follow the players mental processes during the match.

The brain waves that move the ball forward, increasing the chance of victory, are called alpha and theta waves. They are generated in the brain when one is calm and relaxed. A considerably stressed player will therefore lose. The matches outcome is rarely obvious since the transition between calm and stress, and vice versa, can occur quickly. Often, the ball will roll backwards and forwards for a few minutes before the game is concluded. In this way, Brainball is an exciting and social game where the audience can follow the match by watching the ball on the table, the graph on the screens and the more or less relaxed expressions of the players.

Other examples of brainwaves being used to play computer games include the following artical where a teenager played two levels of space invaders just by thinking about it:
Oct. 9, 2006 -- Teenage boys and computer games go hand-in-hand.
Now, a St. Louis-area teenage boy and a computer game have gone hands-off, thanks to a unique experiment conducted by a team of neurosurgeons, neurologists, and engineers at Washington University in St. Louis.
The boy, a 14-year-old who suffers from epilepsy, is the first teenager to play a two-dimensional video game, Space Invaders, using only the signals from his brain to make movements. The teenager had a grid atop his brain to record brain surface signals, a brain-machine interface technique that uses electrocorticographic (ECoG) activity - data taken invasively right from the brain surface. It is an alternative to a frequently used technique to study humans called electroencephalographic activity (EEG) - data taken non-invasively by electrodes outside the brain on the scalp. Engineers programmed the Atari software to interface with the brain-machine interface system.
Eric C. Leuthardt, M.D., an assistant professor of neurological surgery at the School of Medicine, and Daniel Moran, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical engineering, performed their research on the boy who had the grids implanted so that neurologists and neurosurgeons can find the area in the brain serving as the focus for an epileptic seizure, with hopes of removing it to avoid future seizures. To do this, the boy and his doctors, Dr Mathew Smyth and Dr John Zempel, had to wait for a seizure.
The technology used in both this and Brainball can also be used for more serious purposes. By identifying specific areas of the brain that controll particular movements Scientists have enabled a severely paralized man to move a prostnetic hand using only his thoughts.
“With a tiny electronic chip implanted in the motor cortex of his brain, a 25-year-old man paralyzed from the neck down for five years has learned to use his thoughts to operate a computer, turn on a TV set, open e-mail, play a video game and manipulate a robotic arm -- the first successful steps toward using the mind to directly control machines.” (see link 6)

All the articles and websites that the information I have used has come from can be found below, and there are further links on the delicious pages to other technologies that are relevent to this research.

1 – Biometric security system in a nursery school (http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/eveningchronicle/eveningchronicle/tm_objectid=16599131&method=full&siteid=50081-name_page.html#story_continue)
2 – survey results for future shopping trends. http://www.eds.com/services/whitepapers/downloads/shopping_report.pdf
3 – Report into the use of RFID tags for human ID
http://news.com.com/Under-the-skin+ID+chips+move+toward+U.S.+hospitals/2100-1008_3-5285815.html?tag=nl
4 - brainball
http://smart.tii.se/smart/projects/brainball/index_en.html
5- Space invaders
http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/thought-controlled-games-brain-to-computer-interface/
6- chip in brain
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060713/NEWS07/607130345/1009

text: in collaboration with the project group. Translated to English by .

STEEP - technology group - personal space as leisure vacation

2006-10-19T18:57:00.000Z

we have been exploring the idea of a future distopia, along with group research that includes future materials like ones that provide personal invisibility. some conclusions explored as consequence to this research could be the idea of the need of more and more personal space.

as the world's population continues to increase in size, the need for personal space will evolve from the current "ipod generation". If one can feel comfort in the confinement of one's own head using personal music and entertainment devices, then the idea that people could go on vacations from their hectic working life just to feel alone becomes a real possibility. buying virtual private space could be the next big boom in leisure entertainment.

image the idea that each vacation goer could dawn personal invisibility suits so that when you board a train, you would always have the sensation of being alone.

another idea would be that people could buy vacation time that includes voluntary sensory depravation. if you are tired of all the noise that you experience from day to day, you could buy a vacation package that would limit the sensation of sound for your holiday. if your eyes were tired, you could sit in the section of the train that would limit the visual sensation.

STEEP - technology group - A Floating Chernobyl

2006-10-19T18:41:00.000Z

notes derived from the following sources:

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/62416c853623e010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

- While the U.S. hems and haws over reviving nuclear energy as a less expensive alternative to oil, Russia has dug back 30 years in our nuclear history to find a solution for some of its own energy woes: the floating nuclear power plant.

- The Russian plan is to mount two reactors on a football-field-size barge, float it to a port, connect power lines to the mainland, and turn on the reactors, providing communities with affordable electricity. The plant will store waste and spent fuel in an onboard facility that workers will empty every 10 to 12 years during regular maintenance overhauls. After 40 years, the normal life span for a nuclear plant, the decommissioned plant would be towed away and replaced with a new one.

- “The Russians have learned a lot about safety from the U.S. Department of Energy, Sweden and Norway—who probably all wish [the Russians] would focus on things other than a floating nuclear power plant,” says Chuen, who adds that she wishes the planning process were more transparent. “Maybe it will turn out great, but I just hope they did all the research to make sure it’s safe.”

STEEP - technology group - Human species 'may split in two

2006-10-19T18:31:00.000Z

notes derived from the following sources:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6057734.stm

- Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge.

- People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species.

- The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.

- "While science and technology have the potential to create an ideal habitat for humanity over the next millennium, there is a possibility of a monumental genetic hangover over the subsequent millennia due to an over-reliance on technology reducing our natural capacity to resist disease, or our evolved ability to get along with each other, said Dr Curry.

STEEP - technology group - energy generating dance floor

2006-10-19T09:53:00.000Z

notes derived from the following sources:

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/energy-generating-dance-floor
http://www.enviu.org/cm/cm_index_site.html

- the concept involves the idea that clubbing can be sustainable in terms of its energy consumption.

- an energy generating dance floor is an attractive way to make an already appealing activity have a low impact with the environment.

- this idea, combined with using collected rain water to flush toilets, biological beer and color changing walls that react with heat (i.e. energy in the form of heat produced by a dancing population) a examples of how the act of clubbing can be integrated into a sustainable lifestyle.

- it's fun and easily accessible providing to a target group that would normally not be associated with sustainable living.

- would hopefully expose to party goers the "eco chain of clubbing" concept to a wide audience :-)

- also addresses the economics of running a club entails.

- balances three core elements of society:
- people
- profit
- planet

fii_research del.icio.us blogroll

2006-10-18T17:26:00.000Z