The Future of time

January 30, 2005 9:28 PM

The Future of time "Designers from more than 72 countries explored and visualized personal and portable timekeeping 150 years into the future" (via Gravity Lens)
posted by dhruva (19 comments total)

Flava Flav wouldn't wear any of that wank shit, boyeeee!!
posted by Stan Chin at 9:46 PM on January 30, 2005

My stomach is my watch. Time for dessert. Good post dhruva.
posted by alteredcarbon at 9:46 PM on January 30, 2005

Sadly, red eye will still be a problem in the future.
posted by drezdn at 9:54 PM on January 30, 2005

Some of these are kinda creepy.
posted by teferi at 9:58 PM on January 30, 2005

By then, people won't even need watches everyone will either work from home or be on welfare.
posted by delmoi at 10:48 PM on January 30, 2005

Re: teferi's second link
Can't people tell the difference between "loose" and "lose" if they're going to put this much effort into something?
posted by stopgap at 11:02 PM on January 30, 2005

I want the old future, the one in which we would all work ten or twenty hours a week at marvelous, fulfilling jobs and wouldn't much care what time it was.
posted by pracowity at 11:14 PM on January 30, 2005

I still can't figure out the low tech diary one in the notables section. Pretty cool though.
posted by riffola at 11:58 PM on January 30, 2005

The floating bracelet is kinda cool.
"Using proximity sensors and the metallic content in a persons blood (of which there should be plenty by 2154) ..."

Heh.

Seems much more innovative than the winner, which is almost in reach of today's technology.
posted by sour cream at 1:04 AM on January 31, 2005

Oops. Floating bracelet.
posted by sour cream at 1:05 AM on January 31, 2005

Cool, except for that stupid Eco one, which made me want to punch the kids.
posted by HTuttle at 2:01 AM on January 31, 2005

I am with pracowity on this one. Instead of living in a utopia where all my needs are met I am going to have a watch implanted in my goddamned arm? Well bully for me. Where did all these stupid "designers" come from? God I hate them; the more of them we have, the stupider shit looks, and the more expensive it becomes. Why does everything have to be round and smooth and bland? I get especially angry whenever somebody says "wow" or "neato" because some designer with a Finnish or Japanese name somewhere found a way to squeeze some more money out of "early adopters" by making an existing object smaller and rounder. Am I wrong to see all modern "design" as an attempt to remove any touch of humanity from the objects that make up our wretched lives? We are literally "de-signing" our lives by removing all traces of meaning, all proof that the creation of these objects involved actual men and women. Soon we will all live in houses full of pods, blobs, lumps, and wear watches that are undifferentiated from our own skin.

I hope I die before the future.
posted by mokujin at 4:48 AM on January 31, 2005

fun post, dhruva, thanks!
posted by madamjujujive at 4:49 AM on January 31, 2005

mokujin: Am I wrong to see all modern "design" as an attempt to remove any touch of humanity from the objects that make up our wretched lives?

Why yes, you are completely wrong about that. Design is merely an attempt to devise a product such that it is appealing to a large number of customers. Even if you're not into all that smooth round stuff, don't worry, there'll be enough designers catering to you and other retro aficionados. There's no escaping it, you see...
posted by sour cream at 5:25 AM on January 31, 2005

very cool--i like the sticker one the best.

weird that they picked a date so far in the future--most of the entries are close to being produced today or within our lifetimes i bet.
posted by amberglow at 6:03 AM on January 31, 2005

Anyone else bothered that such imaginative geniuses with superlative mechanical and graphic design can't spell worth a damn?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:19 AM on January 31, 2005

The Energistime:

When you touch the end of the tentacles, they roll up around any part of your body: Arm, leg, neck, wrist, ankle, knees...

It's the ellipsis that worries me.
posted by effwerd at 6:35 AM on January 31, 2005

Why yes, you are completely wrong about that. Design is merely an attempt to devise a product such that it is appealing to a large number of customers.

But mokujin said modern design: Am I wrong to see all modern "design" as an attempt to remove any touch of humanity from the objects that make up our wretched lives?

And if the modern practice of design is, as you say, simply to "devise a product such that it is appealing to a large number of customers" (a la McDonald's), maybe mokujin is right.
posted by pracowity at 6:58 AM on January 31, 2005

In the future, everyone will be on welfare and iBots will do all the work. Nobody will need a watch because timekeeping will be another feature integrated into the 8TB cell/camera/mp3 player/GPS/hologram projector/particle beam weapon.
posted by mullingitover at 11:08 AM on January 31, 2005