Sony CSL (Sony Computer Science Laboratories) opened their Lab to the public for a few days. If you were lucky enough to be invited, this was basically your chance to preview all the cutting edge technology and cool new designs, which will one day sit in consumer’s homes all over the world.
I must admit though, initially the thing that caught my eyes the most had nothing to do with technology whatsoever. It was in fact the T-shirt which Shigeru Owada - one of the researchers - was wearing. He turned that famous “I Love NY” T-shirt into “I Love SONY”. I thought that was very cute.
It’s always a little bit of ingenuity and a good sense of humor which make all the difference. (Sorry that I’m only mentioning his tee, instead of his research… his presentation was great too, of course!)
Another thing which caught my attention, was Kenichiro Mogi’s speech. Prof. Mogi is mainly known for his research for Qualia. In his speech, he talked about things like, “what pleases your brain,” and “how we edit memories.” I’m not entirely sure if I could follow all he said, but what I got was very entertaining. I found Kenichiro Mogi truly innovative. When one of the members of the audience asked him if he could explain the brain a bit more scientifically, Prof. Mogi’s reply was: “You should give up on that kind of thinking. What does ’scientific’ mean, anyway?”
Well - all this is just a short impression and most of the designs were still pretty far from being a “real” product yet (if only I could have taken some photos!), but maybe you can get a little bit of the feeling, what it’s like to walk through Sony for a day, being surrounded by wild thinkers, who are just about to create your livingroom of tomorrow.
Jon adds:
Filled with the anticipation of seeing some kind of awesome, prototype hovering car, I burst excitedly through the doors of the Sony CSL building only to be quietly told that if I did that again, I would be asked to leave. “SILENCE and show me hover cars!” I screamed as if on fire inside, and pressed past the pleasant receptionist lady into the Pandora’s Box of hover car delight that was the inner research offices of Sony CSL.
My first impression, apart from the distinct lack of any kind of hovering vehicle, was that truly we were witnessing a little window into the future and that many of the ideas presented would indeed have practical and desirable applications within the living room of tomorrow. Here’s a brief rundown of the ideas that impressed me the most:
PreSense was quite fun. The design took the form of a computer trackpad which was pressure sensitive, allowing another dimension of user interaction. The design team whipped up a simple photo-browsing application that allowed you to zoom in and out of photos according to how hard you were pressing the pad. It took a little getting used to, but I think it was intuitive enough and useful enough for it to go into laptops and things like that. I enjoyed the fact that the prototype enclosure for the trackpad was a glossy white box, which made the whole thing look eerily like an iPod…and indeed, if Sony decided to integrate this technology into an mp3 player for song browsing, it could be just the kind of innovation that the mp3 player market needs.
The Learning Dog, which is a title I have completely made up for a project with a much MUCH longer one, was also quite incredible. An AIBO dog had been given a programme that basically made it figure out completely by itself how to walk. After turning it on, the dog would sit there for hours, experimenting with different methods of walking. It hadn’t been explicitly programmed to try to walk, it was merely acting on (apparently) curiosity which was driving it’s motivation to move and discover how it’s own body worked. Quite spooky to watch really, but amazing at the same time. In 20 years time where will this technology be? Perhaps android children like in the movie A.I. will be a reality? Perhaps everyone will be able to have their very own semi-autonomous Oompa-Loompa? Perhaps I should stop watching movies.
Social Music was an interesting idea but one that I had some doubts about practical applications. The premise was that we would one day own some kind of wireless network walkman which would get music from a central server and stream it in real-time. Now the complicated bit - the modules themselves would be aware of other modules around in the area, and would change aspects of the music in real-time according to proximity. The concept was demoed using a Bjork track and for example, if one set of people gathered closely together, the drums would get amplified. When another person came into the area, the vocal track got louder. That kind of thing. I guess it is an interesting idea even though it does beg the question “but, uh, why?”. Well, one of the reasons behind it was apparently so you could be listening to music, and hear the bass get stronger or what have you, and think “ah that means Bob must be round the corner, lets meet up” etc. Whilst I doubt I’ll be rushing to the stores to buy one just so I can be alerted to a person’s presence when I am listening to music and probably want to be left alone ANYWAY, I like the idea of a central server streaming music to me in real-time. It will probably be a battery killer, but it would basically destroy the capacity war. iPods in 20GB and 60GB flavours? That’s fine but I wouldn’t mind a Sony wireless walkman with UNLIMITED storage space! Just think of all the music I could store and never ever listen to!
Jon out.
written by Kyoko and Jon
translated by Kyoko
visitor's sticker
I love SONY
Sony CSL floor guide
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