Everything around you can become a computer Ivan Poupyrev
Computers have become truly incredible.
We are walking around
with supercomputers in our pocket.
How amazing is that?
So it is disappointing
that the way we use computers,
the way we interact with them,
hasn’t really changed
in the last 50 years.
We still use a mouse and keyboards.
We’re clicking on screens and buttons.
Mobile phones are the same.
We’re just using fingers
instead of a mouse.
So is that it?
Is that what the future looks like?
We’re going to be stuck in the screens
with our faces not seeing
the world around us?
That’s not the future I imagine,
or the future I’m attracted to.
What I’ve been always
interested in is things,
physical things we use every day,
like things on this table
that the family doesn’t pay attention to.
Things tell our story.
They tell who we are.
They tell a lot about us.
Let me give you an example.
These are photographs of things
a person touched during 24 hours.
What can you tell about him?
He loves his motorcycle. Right?
The biggest thing in his picture.
What can you tell about this girl?
She spends all her time on the beach.
There’s a surfboard.
She lives by the sea.
What can you tell about this guy?
He’s a chef.
Look at all the ingredients
he touched during the day,
while he was preparing the food,
and the computer
is a tiny part of his life,
this sad thing in the corner.
So if we are using things all the time,
and this is a big part of our lives,
can things become the way for us
to interact with our digital life?
Can the world become your interface?
That was my idea.
I’ve been working for 20 years on it.
My idea is that in order
to interact in digital life,
you don’t need to have
screens and keyboards and mouses.
You can interact with your digital life
just by using the things
you use every day.
And to realize this idea,
I need to solve three big challenges.
Let me tell you about them.
The first one, obviously:
Is it even possible?
How can you take an everyday thing
you use every day
and turn it into a computer interface?
Now I was inspired by the book “Hackers.”
I read it when I was a teenager,
and one of the essential
ideas of this book
is that you can change
the purpose of things
by inventing new technology
and then hacking into things
and changing them.
So I’ve been thinking
what kind of technology I can invent
so that I can hack into things
you use every day
and make them interactive.
So when I was working on this thing,
I invented this sensor
which injects structured
electric fields into objects
and turns them into gesture interfaces.
So this doorknob, unmodified,
can become a gesture sensor.
It can know how you’re touching it.
It can feel how you’re touching it.
It makes a circle, or can I grasp.
And this doorknob isn’t modified.
There’s nothing special about doorknobs.
Anything can become interactive.
What about plants?
So plants are interesting,
because with plants,
they can know where you’re touching.
You can see the line moving
up and down on the image.
And that can turn
into a musical interface.
(Musical tones)
Now, we do have also
practical applications:
a calendar plant for those
who are obsessed about practicality.
(Laughter)
We can give things a personality.
(Low notes changing in pitch)
So in this particular example,
the orchid can communicate to you
through images and sounds.
It doesn’t like to be touched,
so it’s created these electric images
that are hissing at you.
This plant, for example,
is more robust, it’s a snake plant,
and it likes playing with you.
It engages you.
So every thing can be different,
and every thing can represent
what it feels.
So everything can be hacked,
all the things, including your body.
In this example, we hacked your body
so you can measure
how you’re folding your hands
and then using your hand gestures
to control something else,
so if you don’t want to listen
to some music thousands of times,
you simply can cover your ears
to turn it off.
So everything can be hacked,
and research is important,
but the second challenge we have
is how can we go from R and D,
and prototypes, to real products?
How can we make real things
that are also interfaces?
And you may ask yourself,
who would do this?
Silicon Valley?
Is it through Shenzhen?
Now the challenge there
is that the world of things is huge.
Every year, the apparel industry
produces 150 billion garments.
In comparison, the technology industry
only makes 1.4 billion phones.
The world of things is much bigger
than the world of technology.
The technology world cannot change
the world of things.
Instead, we need to create technology
which changes makers of things,
people who make your chairs
and clothes and everything else,
into makers of smart things,
enable them to do that.
So to test this challenge, we came up
with a very simple idea and challenge:
Can a tailor make a wearable?
Now we don’t want to take a tailor
and turn the tailor
into an electrical engineer.
We still want to have some tailors around.
But what we would like to do
is create technology
which looks, feels and behaves
like a raw material used by the tailor
to make their clothes.
For example, a touch panel
made for a tailor would look like this,
made out of textiles, so you can cut it
with scissors and sew it in.
At the same time,
it has to retain the performance.
The way to make this textile touch panel
also requires a very different approach
than for making consumer electronics.
In our case, we have to go
to the mountains of Tokyo
to a small factory which was making
kimono garments for generations.
We worked with my collaborators,
who were not engineers.
It was an artisan who knows
how to make things
and an artist who knows
how to make things beautiful.
Working with them, we created
one of the best yarns in the world,
which consists of thin metallic alloys
wrapped around with polyester fibers
and cotton fibers.
These yarns were made in the same machines
which were making yarns
for kimonos for generations.
We then took these yarns
and gave them to the factory,
which is making textiles,
and we wove our smart textile
using regular machines
in a variety of colors and materials,
and we gave those textiles to a tailor
in Savile Row in London.
So tailors are traditionalists,
particularly in Savile Row.
They don’t use computers.
They don’t use machines.
They use hands and they cut.
They fit their products on the human body,
not on 3-D avatars.
Technology is not
a part of their vocabulary,
but they are modern people.
They know how to use technology.
So if technology can be formed and shaped
like a button, like a textile,
like something they can use,
they absolutely can make a wearable,
a garment which can place a phone call.
(Phone rings)
So now we’ve proven
that you can actually make a wearable,
not by an electronic company,
but by a tailor.
We worked and collaborated with Levi’s,
our partners and our neighbors,
to make a real product,
and this product is this jacket
I’m wearing right now.
You can buy it. It’s on sale.
It was made in the same factories
which make all their products,
and you have noticed
I’ve been controlling my presentation
from the sleeve of the jacket.
I go like this, it goes forward.
Like this, it goes backward.
And of course, I can do more things.
It’s not just to control a presentation.
I can now control my navigation,
control my music,
but most importantly,
it stays a jacket, it stays a thing,
which makes me look great.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
And that’s the most important thing.
(Laughter)
So OK, we proved we can turn
things into interfaces.
We proved that these things
can be made by makers of things
and not by technology companies.
I look awesome. Are we done?
(Laughter)
Not yet.
The third challenge:
How can we scale?
How can we go from one product
to many products?
And that’s what
we’re working on right now.
Let me tell you
how we’re going to do this.
First of all, I want
to make myself clear –
I am not talking about
the Internet of Things.
I’m not talking about
creating another gadget
you get bored with and throw
in the back of your drawer
and forget about.
I am talking about the foundational,
important principle which guides my work:
“Technology has to make
existing things better.”
It makes them better
by connecting them to your digital life
and adds new usefulness
and new functionality
while remaining the same original purpose,
not changing it.
This jacket I am wearing can control
my mobile phone and presentation,
but it still remains a jacket.
That means that once we start making
all things interactive and connected,
every thing would have its own set
of actuators, displays and sensors
specific for those things.
A pair of running shoes
does not need to have a touch sensor.
Why would it have one?
If you have a sensor,
it should measure your running performance
or knee impact,
while remaining a great pair of shoes.
Makers of things
will have to start thinking
what kind of digital functionality
they have to offer to their consumers.
They will have to become
service providers,
or they may become irrelevant.
We will have to provide and create
a service ecosystem
just like we’ve done for mobile phones,
where you have apps and services
and everything else,
and sometimes,
you’re still making a phone call.
Now to make this ecosystem possible,
we have to avoid fragmentation.
We have to avoid different interfaces
for different people for different things.
We have to create uniform user experience
and, for that reason, we have to create
a single computing platform
which powers all those things.
What is the platform going to be?
And I think the answer is obvious:
it’s a cloud, cloud computing.
Now you cannot connect things
directly to the cloud, obviously.
So you have to develop a small device
which can be plugged into all the things
and make them connected to the cloud
to unlock their potential
and add new functionality.
So let me show, for the first time,
the real device which we’ve built.
We are showing this for the first time.
That’s what it looks like,
and it’s a small device
which will be connected
to things we want to make smart
and connected and interactive.
How is it going to work?
So on the back, you have a few electrodes.
So when you plug them
into different things,
like here,
the device will recognize
where you’re plugging them
and then reconfigure itself
to enable specific functionality
for this particular thing.
We would like to give this device
to makers of things,
the people who make
your clothing and furniture,
so they can use it just like they use
a button or a zipper.
And what they’re going
to make with them is up to them.
We don’t want to dictate the use cases.
We would like to let
people who make those things –
artists and designers,
brands and craftsmen –
to imagine and create this new world
where things are connected
and have all this new,
exciting digital functionality.
We don’t need keyboards and screens
and mouses to interact with your computer.
So I’ve been working
on this idea for 20 years,
and now it’s taking shape,
and as it’s taking shape,
what we are realizing
is that I always thought
I was working on computer interfaces,
I always thought of myself
as an interaction designer,
but I’m realizing
that I’m not building interfaces.
What I realized is that me and my team,
we’re building a new kind of computer,
an ambient computer.
Thank you.
(Applause)