The closing day. I missed the first session slot and my first session at 11am was sold out session. After changing venue I ended up in a session on the role of our new tech in spiritual thinking, remembering our diseased.
The topic went a bit broader on the function collected data plays and how to value this. Not real new concepts if you followed series like Black Mirror. One question from the audience triggered an interesting thinking: is our brain the center of our universe or is it just the embassy of our digestive system. It made me think how this relates to systems of sensors and AI. The sensors can have a much more important role.
Funny enough it connected nicely to the panel on the smart home I attended afterwards. One of the points there is how we need to speak of a conscious home more than a smart home. The sensors are getting smarter but need to open up to make valuable combinations possible. Philips is investing in a open platform and Nest is active in connecting other services to there own, so there is hope. Still the question remains how much smartness we can handle in our personal space. Something that was present in earlier talks too. See also the tweets on Storify.
Astro Teller -a keynote speaker, leading GoogleX laboratory developing moonshots- showed us how experiment and smart failure is key for (Google’s) innovation. The role of design is not covered well in my opinion though. And failure should not be a self for-filling prophecy. Failure could however been build in as part of the market product in the form of adapting to the user and usage.
Bruce Sterling wrapped up SXSW as tradition with some good points to think about. It sums up this years SXSW for me. The marriage between the human and tech will lead to new types of products that remain adapting to the user. Looks like that the ‘impulse shaped services’ can now become reality. The coming week I will process all the impressions with other visions and share this with you on March 24.
target is new 