1) What is plausible and what is implausible about the future that Jesse Schell describes and, most importantly, make a clear case for why?

I think the future Jesse Schell describes of technology having an increasing and over-reaching presence in people’s lives is very possible and is already occurring to an extent. Each week on Kickstarter there’s a new product made from a previously-analog object that measures, quantifies or tracks some activity and syncs it with as many data-hoarding services as possible. There’s a trend towards this kind of thing, and it reminds me of a project I saw recently where someone made a spoof cemetery headstone that described how many followers, club card points, calories consumed, eBay feedback and miles jogged the deceased had. I think the “lifelogging” described is already becoming a norm and that if it doesn’t reach the point of gaming points it could well turn into a sort of achievement or currency what sort of things you’re logging. At that point I’ll switch to an old Nokia phone. 

2) How do you think current city screens (such as animated billboards) and future ones (as described in Living Skins) will factor into a future where we continue to be constant contributors of data (of both personal and impersonal nature). For example, how might this bring communities closer, educate us, empower us, alienate us, and/ or commodify us or de-commodify us? Provide at least two example of where this is happening already. Use the links to the left.

I find the current use of animated billboards awful, only marginally worse than normal billboards (which are still terrible), with Times Square as the worst example. I think the idea of ‘digitizing’ every building and placing a screen in as many places as possible is a really, really bad idea that’s unfortunately getting attention. The word ‘data’ seems to have become a TED-talk style buzzword and anything that displays or tracks data is praised, where unless it has some actual value that improves people’s lives I don’t think it’s necessarily a good thing. I imagine it will be the same as the Internet for example, and all other technology for that matter, where it can be used to bring people closer or farther apart, educated or mislead us, empower or enslave us, and connect or alienate us. I don’t think the knee-jerk reaction to place a screen and WiFi on everything is the solution. 

3) How might gaming factor into this (or not)?

A good point was made in the presentation was that gaming has crept into most things that people do, and really ties in with social media sharing and life-logging without most people noticing. Whether it be photos pinned, likes, shares, reposts or views using social media and objects/apps that connect to the Internet could subconsciously be a game for most people and I think this would only get worse as such technology becomes more prevalent.