A half-century ago, some sci-fi images imagined 21^st-century drivers zipping around in flying vehicles, speeding along invisible highways. While cars may still be planted firmly on the ground and the highways solid, one futuristic idea is coming to fruition: self-driving cars in which drivers do nothing more than sit and monitor the dashboard while the vehicle negotiates traffic.

“After almost a hundred years in which driving has remained essentially unchanged, it has been completely transformed in just the past half decade,” notes Wired in an examination of Google’s autonomous vehicle and other efforts to rethink the relationship between car and driver. Google’s fleet of specially equipped Prius vehicles can drive 70 miles an hour on a highway, stop at traffic lights and merge in highway traffic—and has logged 140,000 miles in a year. Some reports suggest the company is hoping to introduce the system as soon as next year.

Traditional automakers are also on the case. General Motors, for instance, expects to develop a semi-autonomous car by mid-decade and self-driving cars by 2020. BMW’s Highly Automated Driving project has logged a few thousand miles on Germany’s autobahn with its “electronic co-pilots.” And China’s First Auto Works conducted a successful test run of a driverless vehicle, similar to Google’s Prius, last year.

Automakers tout safer driving as reason to adopt self-driving cars—which wouldn’t text or drive under the influence, and would have quicker reaction times than humans as well as no blind spots. But these cars would necessitate an overhaul of laws and insurance regulations, among other things, and present some thorny issues, as The New York Times reports. Meanwhile, new technologies such as pedestrian detection systems and parking assistants are already wresting some control away from us all-too-human drivers.

Image credit: bmwblog.com

With the exception of the ongoing and very public saga of Spider-Man, the inner workings of the theater world are opaque to most. But the New York Theatre Workshop is pulling back the curtain, so to speak, by inviting theater fans to follow firsthand how a play is produced, directed and staged—an interesting example of what we termed Unwrapping the Process, one of our Things to Watch in 2012.

Each season, the NYTW says it will designate one production as a “case study,” granting “unprecedented access to the artists involved in the creation of a new work as it is happening.” Over the course of eight weekly sessions led by the theater’s artistic director, participants will have conversations with the work’s playwrights, designers and director, and discuss financing, casting and the rehearsal process. They can chart the play’s progress by viewing early rehearsals, attending a preview performance and, finally, returning for the opening night; the total cost is $350. The first so-called Casebook begins in March with the new play Food and Fadwa.

Image credit: nytw.org

-From the Arab Spring to capitalism, Time brings us five hot topics from this week’s Davos conference.

-With food security on the agenda at Davos, The Financial Times takes a look at how governments, industry and other organizations are scrambling to address an increasingly urgent issue.

-Two executives attending Davos report in for The Guardian: Peter Lacy of Accenture Sustainability Services outlines the need to get consumers on board in order to scale sustainability. And Aron Cramer of BSR discusses his workshop on “Consumers as Innovators.”

 -Boston magazine looks at the rising numbers of Americans who are single by choice. And Fortune spotlights the “extraordinary rise” of Americans who live alone and the business opportunities they present—all in line with our 2012 trend Marriage Optional.

-The Washington Post reports on a survey it conducted with the Kaiser Family Foundation that paints a complex portrait of black women in America.

-The Financial Times reports that many luxury brands have yet to bond with China’s millionaires and looks at how they’re trying to change that.

-According to new Nielsen findings, a majority of global consumers have difficulty understanding nutrition labels and about half support calorie labeling on menus.

-The New York Times looks at the rise of luxury hospital suites—complete with butlers, designer linens and gourmet food—for the super-wealthy.

-The New York Times takes a look at how smart the “smart” appliances shown at CES actually are.

-YouTube’s audience is reaching mind-boggling heights, as ReadWriteWeb reports.

Continue reading “Weekly Roundup: Davos, single by choice and lab-grown meat” »

Vogue’s January cover featured 62-year-old Meryl Streep (possibly its oldest cover girl ever), while cosmetics brand MAC is currently featuring a collaboration with 90-year-old style icon Iris Apfel—pointing to more positive perceptions of growing older, a trend we’re calling Celebrating Aging.

We surveyed 1,055 people in the U.K. and the U.S. while preparing our 2012 trends forecast and found evidence that people are celebrating their age—but women are more likely than men to say they’re embracing their age and that people shouldn’t dread getting older. They are also more likely to have shifted their perceptions around age milestones, regarding 40 as the new 30 and so on.

One reason for the gender gap, suggested by AgeWave founder and CEO Ken Dychtwald, is that “Women and men are not running the same race, because women have a longer distance to go.” He also notes that women are more likely to have fluid identities—e.g., lawyer, mother, wife, caregiver, etc.—while men have a harder time shifting their identity as they move into later stages of life. (For more of Dychtwald’s insights around aging and perceptions of age, see our Q&A.)

Brands can remind both genders that “The best is ahead of you,” as a Żywiec beer campaign does in Poland, encouraging consumers to look forward positively rather than back wistfully.

The smart home—which involves Wi-Fi-connected appliances and home owners using their computing devices to manage their utilities and energy consumption—was one of the hot topics at this year’s CES (as it was last year as well). People are getting used to controlling their lives from their smartphones and tablets, and Samsung, LG and various other appliance brands are hoping the home will be the next frontier.

Among the more promising developments at CES was Lowe’s Iris smart home management system: A partnership with U.K. company AlertMe, Iris will allow people to manage their homes from anywhere, via any smartphone or computer. We’ll see if Iris is as user-friendly as Lowe’s is claiming when it launches midyear. Another encouraging entry, already on the market, is the smart thermostat Nest, which learns your behaviors and regulates heating and cooling accordingly. It’s garnering as much praise for its design as for its functionality—co-founder Tony Fadell is an ex-Apple executive who helped bring about the iPod, and if Apple has taught us anything, it’s that design is key in winning over consumers.

Google is looking to get in on the smart home as well, via its open source Android operating system, which it sees as a platform for connecting people to their appliances. At a CES panel, executive chairman Eric Schmidt explained the goal is that “when you walk into your house with an Android device, you have all these things with computers that adjust as necessary.”

That scenario isn’t in the immediate future, however. The New York Times this week took a skeptical look at the smart home goods showcased at CES, questioning the point of most of them—at least for now.

The words “As seen on TV” are getting a second life thanks to the second screen. eBay, for one, is looking to forge deeper relationships with television networks in a bid to make the most of the fact that 86% of tablet and mobile phone owners use their gadgets while watching the tube. Currently, users of eBay’s iPad app can specify which channel they’re viewing to see relevant retail items—a hockey jersey for those watching a Blackhawks game, an Entourage box set for viewers of the HBO reruns.

While these offerings feel a little stale, the potential is more inspiring. eBay hopes to sync devices automatically with shows and to offer viewers a chance to buy wardrobe, set décor and other items featured in new broadcasts. The concept offers marketers unprecedented product placement opportunities, with multitasking viewers able to make impulse purchases based on beauty shots of sponsoring products. (But as always, ham-fisted attempts and invasive bugs are likely to provoke viewer ire, and a word from Liz Lemon.)

eBay is not the first to dream this dream. TiVo introduced a product purchase option in 2008, and HSN has offered a “purchase by remote” option since 2005. But the opportunities are expanding as more viewers divide their attention between the TV and their mobile gadgets. TV Wallet joined the gold rush late last year with a shopping widget for the History Channel; viewers can browse products via picture-in-picture technology, though the company is also aiming for mobile users. And Shopkick announced a deal with The CW Television Network in 2011. In one form or another, TV commerce looks set to come to a couch near you this year.

Image credit: tvwallet.com

At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, we saw some interesting interactive screens—one of our 10 Trends for 2012—that turn windows into information hubs. Samsung demonstrated the Smart Window, a transparent touch screen that fits windows up to 46 inches; it allows users to watch TV, view tweets, check the weather and, when they’re ready to hit the hay, make the window opaque, blocking out light. While in-car apps have been available for some time, Mercedez-Benz is taking this a step further with a prototype gesture-controlled windshield called the Dynamic and Intuitive Control Experience. Drivers simply point at icons on the transparent heads-up display, and the screen provides augmented reality information (for example, identifying landmarks as the car passes them); it can even make restaurant reservations. Audi demonstrated a similar system, also controlled by gesture. With Corning and others pioneering new types of interactive glass, expect these displays to eventually become integrated into our daily routines.

-With the Western version of liberal capitalism flapping about, The Economist‘s January special report focuses on the rise of a new form of state capitalism in emerging markets.

-According to the Global Risks 2012 report, world leaders are pessimistic about the likelihood of global catastrophes in the next decade, thanks to income inequality, fiscal woes, water supply crises and cyber attacks.

-Noting U.K. consumers’ declining use of material goods, Fast Company’s Co.Exist asks “Have We Reached Peak Stuff?”

-As global economic uncertainty persists, Time’s Michael Schuman mulls over “How to Save Capitalism.”

-The Economist reports on a Harvard Business School study that finds widespread pessimism among businesspeople about America’s competitiveness.

-The Guardian dubs 2011 “the time when many ever-optimistic Americans began to give up hope.”

-Various EU leaders are urging youth to migrate for work as high unemployment persists.

-A U.N. report says putting women at the center of energy development programs is the key to bringing communities out of poverty and improving health.

-USA Today takes a look at the state of the luxury market in China.

-The Economist sketches a demographic profile of America’s 1%.

Continue reading “Weekly Roundup: 24-hour day care, profiling the 1% and DIY cheese” »

This week, Google debuted Search plus Your World, which tailors search results to users’ Google+ interests and connections. In some corners of the Internet, it was “instantly reviled,” as PCWorld notes. According to research, while many consumers on the one hand appreciate information tailored to their preferences, a substantial proportion also say they prefer to see things through an unfiltered lens.

While preparing our 2012 trends forecast, we surveyed 1,055 adults in the U.K. and the U.S., finding that 78% prefer to see the full picture and sort through results themselves, and 83% want to know what’s being filtered out. This fits in with previous research we did, for our Social Commerce report, which found that many consumers (72%) feel “like Big Brother is watching me” when they see personalized recommendations on websites that are based on their Facebook profile.

As we state in our trend Reengineering Randomness, while most people welcome the extraction of irrelevant or less interesting information and options from view, breaking through the personalization bubble will become an increasingly important way for brands to attract consumers’ attention.

British department store Selfridges is tapping into several key trends with its new 3,500-square-foot pop-up “library” in the flagship London store. Two of our 10 Trends for 2011 play a role here. There’s De-teching—more people choosing to log off, at least temporarily—since one stated aim is to “to prompt people to switch off their mobile phones, computer and television screens and rediscover reading, literature and the inspiration power of words.” There’s also Retail as the Third Space: the idea that retail will increasingly serve as a “third space” that’s only partly about shopping, with unique experiences and environments becoming more important for physical stores. Here, visitors can relax on sofas to look through the “inspirational books,” attend an event (there are some classes and storytelling sessions), play around with a typewriter and so on. Four publishers worked with Selfridges to select the books (which cannot actually be borrowed), and several celebrities curated their own selections.

Also important is the trend we’re calling Objectifying Objects, which has more people fetishizing the physical and tactile; for example, this has spurred appreciation for stationery (one of our 100 Things to Watch for 2012) and coffee table books. At Selfridges, a Words Words Words shop sells “beautiful books,” stationery and other word-inspired goods. And the library gives shoppers something tangible to relax with, an alternative to their Kindle, iPad and other screens. Selfridges has said the pop-up is also a comment on library closures that are taking place across the austerity-focused nation.

Separately, Selfridges is getting up to date on tech trends, with fitting rooms that feature cameras, allowing shoppers to examine themselves from all angles and to send the images to friends.

Image credit: Selfridges.com