Image Source: The Verge

This reading was interesting, right up to the mention of tiny cameras on a man’s spectacles, then it became amusing. Design fiction ripped straight from 1945 foretold (in a way) the coming of Google Glass! If ever there was an example of design fiction becoming reality, this would be it.

While Google Glass is far more sophisticated than simply taking photographs, the concept of a pair of glasses housing an everyday device is still there, being contemplated 68 years before it came to light. At least, consumer light. As far as I know no mass produced products are available on the market, but I have no doubt they exist within some industry somewhere.

This design fiction I fancy is not as fantastic as other fictions may be (ie. Science Fiction) and by the looks of it the author Vannevar Bush simply takes what existed in his (or her? The most androgynous name I’ve ever seen) time and supposed it’s separate elements were improved within their own function. What I mean by that is, for example, the mention of shutters that, at the time, were very slow. Bush simply suggests that come the future this shutter speed will be much faster (the record, I believe, stands at half a billionth of a second) and it became very true.

In relation to a question posed at this week’s symposium – How far into the future do we want to look when engaging in design fiction – this example shows a very short sighted yet thoroughly logical perspective. It doesn’t assume that in some distant future we’ll have cameras install inside of our own eyeballs or have photographic devices with their own agency, it simply looks at what can be improved from the current point in time; a very linear gradient of improvement can spring from this.