Inspiration for Thinking Big
One of the key elements of a product design case is the creativity of your ideas. Many candidates struggle coming up with Big (10X or Moonshot ideas). Too many these days are over (over, over, over) indexing on AR/VR and mimicking what Meta is doing with the metaverse. It is no longer the next big idea, it doesn’t show creativity in most cases.
Reading, thinking 5 or 10 years out is a better route to go. I find inspiration in the 10 ideas in 10 days exercise as well as reading everything I can get my hands on. I will start sharing some ideas I think can help inspire big thinking. This will get updated periodically as I read new things. But the following are good to get started.
The Tech: Facial Recognition Technology (Parallel Reality Display)
The Article: Delta is experimenting with flight information boards that know who you are and where you’re going
Source: Quartz @ Work
Case Inspiration: Creative combination of existng
The Highlights:
The company behind the boards, California start-up Misapplied Sciences, has created a new technology called “Parallel Reality” which can display information for up to 100 travelers simultaneously. The boards can project millions of light rays in different directions, and uses digital identification like facial recognition, to match information to passengers.
The Tech: Process to create oxygen
The Article: A space tech company stumbled on a new way to cut emissions on earth
Source: Quartz @ Work
Case Inspiration: Think about accidental product hits in the past when trying to solve other problems: Yellow Sticky Notes, Microwave Ovens
The Highlights:
Trying to make oxygen on the moon they found a new way to make steel
Steel factories emit around 3 billion tons of CO2 a year. A new way of producing it eliminates direct CO2 emissions and cuts energy use in half.
The Tech: Standardize and digitize the building processes
The Article: Net Zero with woode buildings
Source: Tech Crunch Daily
Case Inspiration: Think about the environment, get creative.
The Highlights:
“If the embodied carbon of every building were reduced by more than 90%, this would reduce 10% of annual global CO2 emissions, this is equivalent to three gigatonnes of CO2 every year. In real terms, this is almost 2x more carbon than completely transitioning from petrol to electric vehicles; and is equivalent to eliminating 1 billion domestic gas boilers,” he told me.”
The Tech: Bioscience
The Article: Scientists create eco-friendly cement from algae
Source: Weekend Briefing from Kyle Westaway
Case Inspiration: Knowing that boundaries are pushed in science, you can posit some of your ideas aren’t as crazy as they sound at first…
The Highlights:
Cement from Algae—A team of researchers claims that we can put a full stop to this cement-driven carbon emission overnight by replacing traditional cement with their new microalgae-based biogenic.
The Tech: 3D Printing
The Article: 3-D Printing Grows Beyond Novelty Roots
Source: NYT Daily Email
Case Inspiration: How could 3-D Printing solve a problem for your users instead of AR/VR default? Think.
The Highlights:
With the technology improving and costs falling, 3-D printing could be poised to play a major role in manufacturing.
“For 3-D printing, whose origins stretch back to the 1980s, the technology, economic and investment trends may finally be falling into place for the industry’s commercial breakout, according to manufacturing experts, business executives and investors.”
“3-D printing refers to making something from the ground up, one layer at a time. Computer-guided laser beams melt powders of metal, plastic or composite material to create the layers. In traditional “subtractive” manufacturing, a block of metal, for example, is cast and then a part is carved down into shape with machine tools.”
The Tech: Solar Panels
The Article: Solar Panels on Cars and Solar Roadways
Source: Me - Thinking about tech ahead of its time
Case Inspiration: Just because these ideas haven’t taken off, doesn’t mean they will not. What ideas might you have that are ahead of their time
The Highlights:
If these ever take off or if there are improvements in the tech, they could return. Could you find a way to use solar panels to solve one of your cases. Or at least keep an eye on tech that could save the world.
The Tech: Crispr (DNA Sequencing)
The Article: Guide to Crispr Tech
Source: Quartz @ Work
Case Inspiration: Thinking about how genetic modifications can change the world.
The Highlights:
Fought cancer. From the lungs to the cervix, Crispr has shown promise in combating many different kinds of cancers. Some experiments use the enzyme to harness the immune system to attack the cancer.
Improved crops. Using Crispr, researchers were able to make crops grow, look, and taste different, as well as offer more nutrients and make them more resistant to disease.
The Tech: Battery Tech
The Article: Tesla Battery killing off coal plants
Source: Quartz @ Work
Case Inspiration: How batteries big and small can change the world and make some crazy ideas seem more reasonable.
The Highlights:
Elon’s adventures are always good for inspiration. “Peaker plants sit idle for most of the day, but fire up to provide extra energy whenever demand for electricity spikes and the power grid can’t keep up. Tesla pitched Megapack batteries as a more climate-friendly alternative to peaker plants because they can store renewable energy when electricity demand is low, and then pump power back onto the grid when demand peaks.”
The Tech: The Metaverse
The Article: The Metaverse in 2040
Source: Pew Research
Case Inspiration: If you are going to mention the Metaverse, maybe talk about XR.
The Highlights:
“The metaverse is the realm of computer-generated, networked extended reality, or XR, an acronym that embraces all aspects of augmented reality, mixed reality and virtual reality (AR, MR and VR). At this point in time, the metaverse is generally made up of somewhat- immersive XR spaces in which interactions take place among humans and automated entities. Some are daily interactions with augmented-reality apps that people have on their computers and phones. Some are interactions taking place in more-immersive domains in gaming or fantasy worlds. Some occur in “mirror worlds” that duplicate real-life environments.”
Diverging points of view:
54% of these experts said that they expect by 2040 the metaverse WILL be a much-more-refined and truly fully-immersive, well-functioning aspect of daily life for a half billion or more people globally.
46% said that they expect by 2040 the metaverse WILL NOT be a much-more-refined and truly fully-immersive, well-functioning aspect of daily life for a half billion or more people globally.
The Tech: Google Glasses with AR twist
The Article: Google’s new smart glasses won’t make you look like a creepy cyborg
Source: Quartz
Case Inspiration: Strategy and Design
The Highlights:
Google quietly acquired North, one of the most promising smart glasses startups on the market
“We plan to test AR prototypes in the real world. This will allow us to better understand how these devices can help people in their everyday lives,” Juston Payne
Focals, mostly looked like normal glasses, except for thicker arms, which contained the system’s computing and battery components.
Google’s first smart glasses product will probably remain an enterprise business product rather than re-entering the consumer market.
While the popularization of smartphones has gone a long way toward reducing concerns about being photographed in public, Google still appears to be sensitive about this aspect of any new smart glasses product.
The Tech: 3D Printing (for tiny things)
The Article: BMF raises an enormous round to 3D-print tiny things
Source: Tech Crunch
Case Inspiration: Design
The Highlights:
The kind of 3D-printing processes BMF offers its customers are tailored to the small, high-precision markets.
“It’s hard to describe in words how small parts like that are… It boggles the mind, and it unlocks some pretty incredible use cases for 3D printing.”
The Tech: Solar-Charging Vehicles
The Article: Sono Motors reveals final design of its solar-charging Sion EV
Source: Tech Crunch
Case Inspiration: EV Tech for Design
The Highlights:
Its outer shell will consist of 456 integrated solar half-cells that will collect power from the sun and enable self-sufficiency on shorter journeys.
The vehicle will still use a traditional charger to refuel, but the constant drip feed of solar should be enough to take care of most urban commutes, the company says.
The Tech: Robots that can perform tasks in an unstructured environment
The Article: The Everyday Robot Project
Source: Google Blog
Case Inspiration: Design
The Highlights:
Building robots that can operate autonomously in unstructured human environments, like our homes and offices, is a complex, unsolved problem.
It requires tackling and integrating some of the hardest hardware and software challenges in the field of robotics today. The Everyday Robot Project is building a new type of learning robot — one that can eventually learn to help everyone, every day.
What would you suggest as another tech inspiration?
The Tech: Solar Energy
The Article: Transparent Solar Panels Replace Windows in the Future
Source: Interesting Engineering
Case Inspiration: Design: Rethinking the Basics
The Highlights:
The headline says it all. “Transparent solar is a cutting-edge technology that gathers and uses light energy through windows or any glass surface, regardless of the angle. It has the potential to be a game-changer in terms of broadening the scope of solar.”
The Tech: Solar
The Article: Once Seen as Fleeting, A New Solar Tech Shines On
Source: Princeton Engineering
Case Inspiration: Design: Old Tech Improves
The Highlights:
“ Perovskites are semiconductors with a special crystal structure that makes them well suited for solar cell technology. They can be manufactured at room temperature, using much less energy than silicon, making them cheaper and more sustainable to produce. And whereas silicon is stiff and opaque, perovskites can be made flexible and transparent, extending solar power well beyond the iconic panels that populate hillsides and rooftops across America.”
The Tech: Carbon Capture/Reduction
The Article: Dutch students devise carbon-eating electric vehicle
Source: Reuters via Quartz
Case Inspiration: Thinking Creatively
The Highlights:
A student team has developed a sustainable electric passenger car that captures more carbon dioxide (CO₂) than it emits while driving. It is a prototype, called Zem, that purifies the air through a special filter. By storing the captured CO₂ and then safely disposing of it, Zem can contribute to reducing global warming. — BrainPortEindhoven
The Tech: Electric Cars
The Article: This 17-Year-Old Designed a Motor That Could Potentially Transform the Electric Car Industry
Source: Smithsonian
Case Inspiration: Design
The Highlights:
Robert Sansone’s research could pave the way for the sustainable manufacturing of electric vehicles that do not require rare-earth magnets
The Tech: Robot Arms
The Article: Amazon Debuts Sparrow
Source: Tech Crunch
Case Inspiration: Design
The Highlights: “The new arm is a more sophisticated take on the company’s existing robotic arms, adding the ability to pick and place specific objects in bins. The arm’s computer vision and AI are capable of identifying and moving “millions” of items, according to the company.”
What would you suggest as another tech inspiration?
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