The Future of Shopping
I am often amazed at what other people find amazing. For example, my mother recently sent me the below video entitled “The Future of Shopping.” In this video a women is at a clothing retailer and browsing a digitised catalogue of their wares. She is able to “turn the page” by waving an arm and interact with on-screen buttons to select an item.
However cool such an interface may be– do not get me wrong, it is very, very cool– I fail to be as taken as the people around me. The reason behind this is probably the fact that I tend to view things as their individual parts rather than the subject as a whole. Take, for example, the Google Sky Map application on my phone. This application allows you to point your phone in any direction and show you what stars, constellations, planets, ect one would see if the Earth was not in their way and in the absence of bright lights. All the required technologies have not only existed for a while but everyone is familiar with them in one form or another. Google Sky Map is just a clever application of nearly static images combined with a compass and GPS; They are old horses with new tricks. A neat application but hardly as amazing as everyone seems to think that it is.
Is everyones head that far in the sand? There seems to be a huge market for companies intentionally underestimating people…
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The Future of Shopping
2 thoughts on “The Future of Shopping”
Finding neat ways to combine existing technology can take its share of creative energy too; I would rather a commercial show me something that is indeed possible in the future because its a simple mix of existing ideas rather than something more theoretical.
As for the considering it amazing thing, anything that shakes up the established way of doing something as common as clothes shopping is probably going to turn heads because of how accessible it is to just about everyone. A person can see it directly affecting them, y’know?
I suppose it is me. I suppose I do not care nearly as much about the final product as I do about making the stuff.
I do find it very upsetting that the ignorance of the public would applause this and ignore the individual parts. The work being done on such an interface is ignored until Minority Report comes out. Not knowing is no excuse when the world is at our finger tips. Anyone can know or build virtually anything with no formal training. Anyone can be an expert in mathematics, history, or anything and shopping gets everyones attention.
Buy shoes, shut down the space program, buy shirt to go with shoes. Great.