Reboot, the yearly unconference on innovation, new technologies, creativity and visions will be held again on June 25-26 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark. More information will become available on: http://www.reboot.dk/

The CES is the place for debuting new products, but a lot of the exhibitors were also showing what the near future will hold. And everybody is here, from all kind of product lineups which have something to do with electronics. If you’re not here as a brand, you do not exist.

What was there to find, considering our focus of the Future of Work? The premises are very huge, so I can’t see it all in one day: today I started at the southern en central halls at the core for the show at the Las Vegas Convention Center. I got there by monorail: again, you had to stand in line to get a cab, but the monorail was very quiet. If it had something to do with status, I was happy to lower mine and get there without waiting in lines…and get free espresso shots arriving at the monorail convention station!

Interaction

What striked me most was the way you can get tactile feedback now on small devices like PDA’s. I already saw in a shop in Europe a BlackBerry having a moving display, but now there were more devices having a “punching”display: when you touch a button, the display shortly trembles: the effect is close to pushing a real button! Immersion (www.immersion.com) is one of the leaders in developing this for PDA’s and so. They also had bigger screens (I guess they were about 19”) with the same effect. The bigger the screen, the harder it is to have it move. Using this with multi-user screens like Microsoft’s Surface table or the interactive wall of Soco (www.socoamsterdam.com) would be great. But it is harder to implement: you don’t want to feel the screen when a teammate is touching it next to you. Maybe a solution might be using thin flexible displays which can partly move?

Talk about punching: there was a demo of an “impactvest” ($139,-) from TNgames (www.tngames.com) which can be used for playing 1^st person shooters and also gives tactile feedback: on your body! The Canadian army used it for simulation purposes and the effect was scaring! Now you really did not want to get hit in such games. Another use could be using it as navigation system for blind people: punch me left to go left!

The, for the individual worker: every time I ask this dumb question to people: what would your future workspace look like? The answers differ, but a lot of times I get “a kind of cocooning system which totally encloses you comfortably with a lot of screen estate so you can work really concentrated”. Well, it is here (again): NovelQuest has this device where you can roll into a kind of giant scorpion which can open and close like your entering a jetfighter. [photo]. They leased it to companies, customized: for example ING ordered orange ones to use in American internet cafés as a marketing instrument. Maybe having one of these at the “werkplaats” at the Rabobank in Utrecht? If you would like to work in it or not, it fills in desires from a lot of people…

One of our concepts in FWS was getting a personal “green fingerprint”: what is your contribution to a better planet (or: to the pollution;-)? Nokia had a prototype which automatically logs the way you travel. It knows how you travel by using data of movement sensors and location information combined. It measures how long and you can get statistics about your contribution to CO2-production. It does not compare it yet to other people or groups which would give it a more “peerpressure”effect to get really green (or abusing it to get yourself on top of the polluting lists;-) but they thought it to be a good idea for a future version. Hmm…

Also they showed the GreenGuide: a holiday guide (“Le guide vert” which tells you about the greenishness of your destination. LonelyPlanet partners with it, you can use it online and on the latest Nokia Mobiles.

Another gimmick: finding back valuable items with your mobile phone or the other way around: sticking a tag to these items can have you retrieve them thourgh use of a radar on your phone. And you can retrieve your phone by touching such a tag which let’s your phone make a noise!

Nokia showed a lot of social tooling, mobile working instruments and entertainment services, putting less effort in promoting their hardware but more in the usage of the devices they make. OVI is the Nokia platform mostly used here (http://ovi.nokia.com/services/).

Hitachi showed a prototype of a TV which can be controlled by gesturing. We are all waiting to see the next thing after the mouse: Gesture interfacing might be a contender. It worked well, and you can never loose your remote again.

But what if you lokked at a sportsgame, your team scored, the crowd (in your room) cheers…and pop, your watching the cooking channel@#&*!

Hitachi (and others) showed youtube-like services, build into your TV. So you don’t need to go to the computer to upload, but can do it from the comfort of your livingroom. Or send grandma a videomessage, which she can easily reply to in video.

Chumby showed prototypes of their future form factor: they partnered with a lot other companies and one of them makes digital photo frames. And that looks a lot better on your wall than the Chumby we know now. Of course this frame has the same functions, so you can interact with it, use your channels and download new widgets.

Well that about wraps it up! As you can imagine, I havent’seen half of it yet. But there is time till Sunday and I’ll keep you posted!

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The 7 teams were then challenged to come up with their vision of working and living in 2028. Session leaders of each team were briefed about the case a week earlier and came up with solid and creative plans to tackle this case and try to win the challenge.

Shortly after the students started their creative sessions, the prime minister of the Netherlands, Jan Peter Balkenende visited them to have a look at some first results and try out some of the creative techniques that were used.

At the end of the day, every team presented its vision in a one-minute pitch. This one-minute proved to be very short but all the teams did a good job at bringing their vision across. You can view the pitches below. Important themes in the students’ visions were individuality, flexibility and working in a virtual world.

A jury of three, Han Brezet (professor of sustainable product development at Delft University of Technology), Melek Usta, (member of the innovation platform and director of Colourful People), and Henk Volberda (professor of strategic management and innovation), judged the outcomes of the teams and selected a winner.

The winning team came up with the concept of ‘I’Merk’ (‘I’ Brand’). The core of this concept was that in 2028, knowledge workers will be hired for their character, characters together will form a company. The members of the winning team will join the prime minister on a working visit.

? – Eerste pitch | download video

Forum – Tweede pitch | download video

Een dag uit het leven van – Derde pitch | download video

I’Merk – Vierde pitch (Winnaars) | download video

Passie & Bellen – Vijfde pitch | download video

Free – Zesde pitch (2e prijs) | download video

Supermarkt – Zevende pitch | download video

Prijsuitreiking | download video