- Paperback: 158 pages
- Publisher: MICROSOFT PRESS; 1 edition (14 Oct 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0735658064
- ISBN-13: 978-0735658066
- Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
401,139 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #71 in Books > Science & Nature > Engineering & Technology > Ethics
- See Complete Table of Contents
The Future of Looking Back (Microsoft Research)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
What will we leave behind in this new digital age? As digital technology takes an ever-increasing role in our lives, one question is how we’ll manage our collections after we’re gone. What takes the place of shoeboxes full of pictures and dog-eared record albums? Get an inside look at Microsoft researcher Richard Banks’s thinking about how we might manage the digital artifacts and content we’re creating now—and how we might pass on or inherit these kinds of items in the future.
About the Microsoft Research Series
At Microsoft Research, we’re driven to imagine and to invent. Our desire is to create technology that helps people realize their full potential, and to advance the state of the art in computer science. The Microsoft Research series shares the insights of Microsoft researchers as they explore the new and the transformative.
About the Author
Richard Banks is an interaction designer in the Microsoft Research Socio-Digital Systems group, part of the Computer Mediated Living group in the Microsoft Research Cambridge facility. He works primarily on the design of new user experiences for people’s everyday lives.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
What to Leave Behind
13 Dec 2011
Format:Paperback
This is a thoughtful essay on impermanence and memory. The impermanence of the life experiences we have, both personally and related to us by our families and friends, and the ways in which we remember them, including audio and visual recording, photographs, collected memorabilia, that old baseball glove, the ski parka you had at age 12, the bronzed baby shoe, the list goes on and one. Digital pundits have been talking about these issues ever since we started recording on floppies and hard disks. Many of the early discussions centered around the format of recordings, would we always have AVI or WMV or MP3 formats, would we be able to read them in 50 years, 100 years, or would their technology be obsolete. Along with that would come a discussion of the limited lifespan of digital and optical media, even if we could read the formats of the recordings we'd kept, would the recordings still be there?
The author extends these discussions in several ways, detailing ways we can record our lives online by contributing to social sites such as Facebook (will Facebook even be around in 50 years?), using a GPS based system to keep track of everywhere we go, another app to keep track of the music we listen to, the movies we watch, another one to record the weather we experience every day. We can now do 3D records and recreations of the people we know, the objects we treasure, what will we come up with next?
But for me the most telling vignette is his telling of looking through 200 photos left by his grandfather in an old suitcase. Those photos told a story of his grandfather that he'd never known. And he contrasts the impact of those 200 photos with the ~ 200,000 photos that he expects to leave behind. It seems that the more we leave behind, the less meaning there is per momento. Maybe we should concentrate on a few well chosen momentos, rather than a hopelessly large collage.
The author extends these discussions in several ways, detailing ways we can record our lives online by contributing to social sites such as Facebook (will Facebook even be around in 50 years?), using a GPS based system to keep track of everywhere we go, another app to keep track of the music we listen to, the movies we watch, another one to record the weather we experience every day. We can now do 3D records and recreations of the people we know, the objects we treasure, what will we come up with next?
But for me the most telling vignette is his telling of looking through 200 photos left by his grandfather in an old suitcase. Those photos told a story of his grandfather that he'd never known. And he contrasts the impact of those 200 photos with the ~ 200,000 photos that he expects to leave behind. It seems that the more we leave behind, the less meaning there is per momento. Maybe we should concentrate on a few well chosen momentos, rather than a hopelessly large collage.
Thoughtful look at how digital technology can affect ways people reminisce, preserve memories, and transmit personal legacies
25 Nov 2011
Format:Paperback
The author, associated with Microsoft Research Cambridge (UK), explores the impact that digital technology can have on how people reminisce about their past, preserve their memories, and transmit personal legacies to their families and loved ones. The author discusses how the similarities and differences between physical objects and digital technology can influence and affect the ways: (1) that people reminisce, preserve memories, and transmit personal legacies; and (2) how people receive and preserve the legacies bequeathed to them. The book contains some interesting observations about how the transmitters and receivers of preserved memories and personal legacies can have very different perspectives about the same things, and how those different perspectives can be shaped or influenced by the digital or non-digital means used for recording and storing memories and legacies.
The author's commentary and discussion are based on a mix of personal observations, comments about other people's experiences, references to various digital devices (some implemented and others experimental), and speculation about potential new digital devices. Each chapter ends with a brief "Design challenges" section that poses rhetorical questions to stimulate the reader's thinking about the topics and ideas explored in the chapter. The author does not use footnotes in the text, but provides a References section at the end of the book with citations to references listed for each chapter.
The book is a thoughtful and occasionally evocative exploration of how we reminisce, preserve memories, and transmit and receive personal legacies. It explores serious and deeply personal topics in a manner that is fairly down-to-earth, relatively jargon-free, and readily understandable to readers without any particular level of training or experience with digital technology.
The author's commentary and discussion are based on a mix of personal observations, comments about other people's experiences, references to various digital devices (some implemented and others experimental), and speculation about potential new digital devices. Each chapter ends with a brief "Design challenges" section that poses rhetorical questions to stimulate the reader's thinking about the topics and ideas explored in the chapter. The author does not use footnotes in the text, but provides a References section at the end of the book with citations to references listed for each chapter.
The book is a thoughtful and occasionally evocative exploration of how we reminisce, preserve memories, and transmit and receive personal legacies. It explores serious and deeply personal topics in a manner that is fairly down-to-earth, relatively jargon-free, and readily understandable to readers without any particular level of training or experience with digital technology.
The Future of Looking Back
11 Nov 2011
Format:Paperback
The Future of looking back is book which very clearly and concisely take you journey where you learn effects of technology on common people. The book is well written and easy read. Banks creates a world where he takes you slowly and see how transition is happening from physical to virtual, analog to digital.
In the end of each chapter, design challenges are fantastic and provide a quite peek into Bank's designer brain.
This book is certainly good read.
In the end of each chapter, design challenges are fantastic and provide a quite peek into Bank's designer brain.
This book is certainly good read.
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