Well this is interesting. Via a Wonderland post I’ve come across a piece over on TechRepublic that includes this bit:

What noted science-fiction novel did Xbox development chief J Allard use as his inspiration for the Xbox 360, a book he listed as required reading for his entire project team?

The tome in question is none other than Neal Stephenson’s 1992 cyberpunk epic Snow Crash. (Check out the Trivia Geek’s blog review of the book.)

While the Xbox 360 won’t necessarily usher in a dystopian future of franchised suburban nation-states, post-religious spoken-word mind control, and mafia-owned military-grade pizza delivery vehicles (all major fixtures in the book), Allard hopes that at least one plot device from Snow Crash—the persistent virtual world known as the Metaverse—will take one step closer to reality by way of Microsoft’s new game console.

I’ve not given too much thought lately to how Google’s entry affects my earlier prediction:

Prediction: Microsoft is building a virtual 3D world.

And I’m talking virtual world as in Snow Crash’s “Metaverse�. I’m making this prediction based on not just recent news, but on some very old things.

Certainly, Google’s entrance has affected how things will play out (and I read a very good piece on Google yesterday relating to some of this, but I need to digest it all). Then again my prediction is about what Microsoft is attempting to do and not whether they’ll be successful. Right now, it looks as if my thoughts were on the right track.

By now those of you who regularly read this blog and who are industrial designers are probably aware I don’t have much patience for some of the stuff that masquerades as evidence Industrial Design is being taken seriously by the business community as a whole. So needless to say, all this talk about “Innovation” (capital “I”) wears thin with me; especially when it’s wrapped up in overblown headlines like “Boeing is back! Innovation lives in aerospace.” Right. Grafting 787 design solutions onto 747 aircraft (design circa 1966) tells us something about Boeing’s State of Innovation (you can read my comments over there).

Well, there’s more discussion about Innovation (again note the capital “I”) over on Design Observer and this time it’s pretty good. I think Michael Bierut’s “Innovation is the New Black” piece hits the nail on the head. In the meantime, just like in the early 90’s, I’m waiting for the design community to get another black eye. And I have a sense of from where this haymaker might be coming. Stay tuned.

Via WorldChanging.com comes news of a pretty neat concept for an appliance that’s won the Electrolux Design Lab 2005 competition. Called the “Airwash”, it’s a device that uses compressed air and negative ions to clean clothing. Sounds kinda odd at first I’ll admit, but it helps to remember that air and water are both fluids. So if you think of “washing” clothes in a fluid, then using air doesn’t sound so outrageous.

Whether or not the Airwash ever makes it past the concept stage, I like that someone got me to reconsider something as basic as how we wash clothes. There are plenty of products/solutions that could use another trip through the wringer.

Interesting piece over on the MIT Technology Review site called “Social Networking 3.0“. Especially interesting because I see the same kinds of issues with Second Life that’s discussed in the article. From the piece:

“A year ago a lot of our users were pretty unclear about what they could do,” says Konstantin Guericke, co-founder and vice president of marketing at LinkedIn, a social network focusing on business connections. “They knew they were getting invitations to join the network, and they knew how to accept invitations, and sometimes they sent their own invitations — but they weren’t sure what else to do with that.”

Funny. That’s what so many new users say about Second Life. And if, as I’ve been told, Linden Lab is just as unsure what to do with their project as some of those companies were, perhaps they should be reading that article for ideas so they can mature and move SL beyond its current seemingly embryonic stage. I can think of a number of associated, revenue-generating services I’d tack onto SL… and they’re not much different than what sites like Friendster and iMeem are doing. I even suggested something like Friendster’s new p2p “Grouper” tool to Map-Center’s site owner several years ago as a way of encouraging donations and distributing content without chewing through bandwidth (he blew me off). Anyway, I expect we’ll see these ideas integrated into virtual worlds at some point. If not Second Life or There, then some other player in the market. Only a matter of time.

I’ve been wanting to look into this blog entry over on Future Feeder and this evening finally found some time. Their post includes this link to the PSP/RCA project website, and it’s got some great process shots: from concept sketches to the completed metal constructions. I especially like the seated version as it has a quality that reminds me of Rodin’s Balzac (pic). Very cool.