OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF
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www.iseurope.org
TUESDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2018
#1 Projection Technology
Ratti: we need to talk about the future BY IAN McMURRAY “The best way to predict the future is to create it”. Whether it was Abraham Lincoln or Peter Drucker who first said it, it was certainly a key theme for Professor Carlo Ratti at the ISE Opening Address yesterday evening. For Ratti, the IoT – which he sees as the second wave of the internet – can transform our cities no less than it is transforming our homes in the shape of smart homes, or our factories in terms of Industry 4.0. There are, he explained, three key aspects of this transformation: mobility, offices and retail. “The future is not written in stone,” he said. “It’s up to us to make the decisions about how we want to live in the future. We have it in our power to invent the way things will be.” Ratti – an architect, engineer and inventor who directs the Senseable City Lab at MIT – believes that the future is full of possibilities about how we want to work and play – and technology is the enabler of those possibilities. He places special emphasis on the idea of convergence – the convergence
between different technologies, and the convergence between the digital world and the physical world. Those convergences will enable new applications, new opportunities. He and his team spend significant amounts of time modelling those possibilities for how the city of the future might look, and experimenting with them. Open conversation Ratti continued: “What’s most important is not what we’re doing, but that what we’re doing becomes public knowledge. We need to have an open conversation. The results of our work should be out there for people to consider. At the end of the day, decisions about how we will live in the future should not be made by giant corporations or scientists or states – they should be made by the citizens themselves, fully armed with the knowledge of the different possibilities. It’s they who should decide what kind of cities we will live in in the future.” He takes as an example selfdriving vehicle technology. On the one hand, that could mean a substantial reduction in the number of automobiles that our cities need
Prof Carlo Ratti: ‘Decisions about how we will live in the future should not be made by giant corporations or scientists or states’
to support. On the other, it could mean that we abandon mass transit systems in favour of individual transportation. One outcome could be considered positive – the other, less so. We need to know about those possibilities, and make decisions, Ratti believes. Another key theme in his
presentation is that, whatever happens in the future, it will be a reflection of our DNA. “Take something like Facebook,” he said. “Hundreds of years ago, we got together in the village square to exchange news. Then, we sent letters. Then, we phoned. Today, we express that same basic
need to communicate with others via Facebook. But, as we’ve seen recently, we need to be careful that we remain masters of that technology, rather than letting it master us. Technology is seldom without unforeseen consequences. “It is we who need to allow the future,” he concluded.
Samsung shows The Wall and FLiP BY CHRIS FORRESTER
Samsung’s Hyesung Ha hopes 3D will find a “new popularity”
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This year’s ISE represents a major milestone for South Korean electronics giant Samsung. “This year we have more than ever on show for delegates,” said Hyesung Ha, Samsung’s SVP, enterprise business team for its Visual Display Business division. “Visitors will immediately recognise the extra colour volume in all of our exhibits. My advice,
even if delegates only have 15 minutes of time, is to come and see and be amazed, and a warning to look up as well as all around!” Samsung has added additional sizes to its ‘IF’ series of fine pitch LED signage displays, and its Cinema range which was launched with considerable fanfare in Korea last July, will be seen at ISE. “These are in the process of being DCI certified but now with 3D, and I promise you it is impressive. The
brightness is simply spectacular. We certainly hope that 3D will find a new popularity thanks to this technology,” added Ha. She also wants visitors to view The Wall, which impressed visitors to CES in January, thanks to its modular technology. “We are showcasing the Professional version, up to 146in (diagonal) and in UHD. We also bring content management and scaling within continued on page 4
05/02/2018 19:16