On this episode of The Digital Life, we chat about the new “company town” and real estate development by Google and Facebook. As a part of their attempt to attract the best and the brightest to their tech organizations, Google and Facebook are acquiring and developing swaths of real estate in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is one of the most expensive places to live in the US and real estate values there continue to skyrocket. This means that the affordability of housing can be a significant obstacle to the hiring process. Of course, by adding strategically located housing not far from their office facilities to their expansive list of company perks, Google and Facebook encourage hires to work longer hours too. Join us as we discuss this latest wrinkle in creative class work.

Resources:
Robber Barons Would Have Loved Facebook’s Employee Housing
Company town 2.0
Google and Facebook are building the ultimate perk: housing

On this episode of The Digital Life, we chat about artificial intelligence (AI) and Juvet Agenda. In September of this year, a group of designers, innovators, and futurists gathered at the Juvet nature retreat in Norway to discuss AI, its trajectory and potential outcomes. The group explored making AI human centric, the big and small problems to solve using AI, and dealing with unintended consequences of the technology. The Juvet Agenda, an online publication that came out of the conference, highlights four major areas of discussion, including: power and control; bias, transparency, and authenticity; human and societal well-being; and perspectives for action. How do we understand and prepare for the opportunities brought about by AI? How do we consider AI within the toolset of emerging technologies? Join us as we discuss.

Resources
The Juvet Agenda
Clearleft

On this episode of The Digital Life, we chat with special guest Karen Kaushansky about designing new user experiences and interfaces for emerging technologies. Karen is an Experience Designer and Futurist, who works on products 5-10 years before they are on most people’s radars — designing new experiences from speech recognition to biometrics to autonomous vehicles. We discuss new technologies that should be on a designer’s radar now and how both the design field and the designer’s job is evolving. For instance, the design process for creating new experiences, like autonomous vehicles, needs to include ways of managing the unforeseen consequences of emerging technologies — a much different approach from design for more established product categories. Creating these new experiences requires understanding how a broad array of design factors intersect, from industrial design to interaction design to service design.

Resources

From Speech Recognition to Autonomous Vehicles
Evolving To Car 3.0
Microsoft and Amazon have decided to let Alexa and Cortana work together to control your smart home
Kuri

For our podcast topic this week, we chat about new developments in additive fabrication / 3D printing and the implications for the future of manufacturing. In the past, additive fabrication systems have used powered metal materials, which are both dangerous to inhale and have a risk of exploding. However new 3D printing machines from Markforged and Desktop Metal are impressive on many fronts — faster, safer and much less expensive than previous technologies. These 3D printers use plastic-encapsulated powders and extrusion systems, which can produce parts at 1/10th of the cost. They can currently handle copper and steel. Soon even aluminum and titanium will be coming. Designers need to pay attention to the overlap of digital and physical design advanced by these technologies. Join us as we discuss.

Resources:
DEVELOP3D LIVE
Markforged
Desktop Metal