Over the last 20 years Bruce Sterling has championed the idea of that we should be moving towards the idea of the computer as a “Furoshiki”, essentially a self-folding cloth computer that you can put in your pocket.
While we’re not there yet, the coming rise of the tablet-PC, seen at both CES, and poised to be the next “big idea” from apple (with some announcement coming soon), it seems to be moving us one-giant-step closer to that vision.
Having already purchased an iPhone last year I’m a little nervous at how locked-down this generation of digital “devices” seems poised to become, sacrificing utility and innovation for corporate control, and wrapping everything in poorly understood ideas of corporate “ownership” of ideas at the expense of individual ownership.
That said, I think that these larger formats are going to do wonders for ubiquitous media and communication. And clearly, after we move our traditional media onto these platforms it will change the way we interact with them.
To get some idea of what that might mean, take a look at this concept video for a digital-device based magazine:
