Powerplay Contents:

00.02.10 INTRODUCTION: Signs of the time

00.03.32 In Control - “POWER”
We use technology to master our environment but are we determined by technology or is its purpose constructed by society?

00.11.37 Killer applications
The start of Internet and how the world wide web-project enabled the rise of a network society.

00.15.24 Small, smaller, smallest
A historical view from a mechanical calculator to current super computers. How the mouse lead to a workstation, into a mobile phone with sms.

00.21.51 The disappearing computer
We are living in a ubiquitous environment where all networks are converging into one digital space, (over)loaded with content.

00.23.57 Technology can’t be stopped
We have Space age technology but stone age human brain. How to survive the information jungle? Is the world getting stressed out?

00.26.43 LOSING CONTROL - “COMPLEXITY”
Future forecast by kids:
Space travel, Flying cars, Robotics & Virtual reality

00.28.40 Devices and infrastructure
The first cars, production line decreasing prices and new roads to travel

00.31.44 Flying cars
Are we heading for a disaster? When roads become saturated and neither people nor goods can be transported, how will we move? Or will we all live in mega-metropolis? Why not use the free air space above our head?

00.35.34 Robotics
Robotics is today where computing was 20 years ago. Will in 5 years all homes own a robot? Can a robot soccer team become world champion?

00.40.47 Virtual Reality
We used to create fiction to escape reality. In future, will we live in a reality shaped by fiction?

00.46.44 The competition is one click away
Media and advertising are interlinked. New technologies enable new media but have also increased advertising budgets stimulating new channels, magazines etc. Empowered consumers are now skipping adds and their media consumption is fragmenting? Are newer technologies needed to save the media?

00.53.11 Freedom of Choice
The freedom of choice is making a low involvement product like toothpaste become a high involvement product. Consumers need tools and agents to deal with choice and impulses, a kind of Virtual Guardian Angle.

00.55.28 OUT OF CONTROL - ‘URGENCY’
The word on the street is: FEAR., for new technologies enabling governments, as well as individuals ,to be massively destructive.

00.58.32 Analysis paralysis undermining leadership
Technology was and is about increasing productivity. More focus on the human aspect is needed, the application of technology, to deal with the pace of change.

01.04.29 Paradigm shift into the application phase
The price of devices and the usage of infrastructures is dropping. In the new application phase, everything is possible, but what do we need/ want?

01.06.36 Social Change in a globalized environment
The global economy is speeding up, driving an interdependent world, but will this also lead to a more integrated society?

01.11.11 China: Cause and effect
The reformation of China is increasing the demand for raw material. Letting Brazilian chocolate farmers now own a mobile phone and encouraging new transport technologies for passenger and freight.

01.15.04 Rise of consumer class is creating an unsustainable future
Rising consumption will drive energy demands, but the end of the oil supply is nearing. New technologies are needed to solve the problems of t old technologies.

01.17.10 Industrial revolution meets human evolution
Genetic engeneering, plastic surgery and DNA modification are examples of new mastery of our environment. Where do we draw the line or is technology and biology converging?

01.24.13 TAKING RESPONSIBILLITY - “PLAY”
Is it possible to live independently from technology and modern society?
What is the role of religion? Does science prevail ethics? Will cloning and stem cell research lead to an extension of current lifetime expectancy or will it result in the creation of a labor-class or super-race?

01.30.24 Fear fo the new
Technology inherently is neither good nor bad. The impact of new technologies is overestimated on the short term but underestimated on the long term. Fuelled by 24/7 communication and media.

01.35.01 Screenagers are media savvy
A new generation born with computers and screens are not wondering how something works, they just use it in what best suits their social needs. For them technology is as common as the existence of electricity. They spend more time behind a screen than on school or with their parents, they have a ‘real’ virtual identity.

01.39.11 Game on
Kids are little media experts, they use technology socially. The aggressive game Doom 3 is to them what Tom & Jerry kind of violence was to the older generation.

01.44.40 The medium becomes the content
Swarming teenagers make or break music and movies instantly. Sharing that what is ‘hot’ via peer-to-peer networks or bashing that what is not ‘cool’ via SMS, chatboxes and instant messengers.

01.50.52 New mentality of Ipod generation
If it is possible, how come it is not allowed? Cinema movies are being recorded on small video cams and shared the moment they are released, turning conventional value chains upside down. Will all media be Ituned?

01.52.05 Powershift to the consumers
The empowerment of the consumer brings also responsibilities to that same consumer. The negative aspect is that the power is with the collect of consumers but the responsibility is with each single consumer.

01.54.06 Producerism solution for consumerism?
The consumer is becoming also a producer of content, energy but also journalism etc. Who do you trust more, an institute like a publisher or an individual? A big debate about faith in government, corporates, brands and people.

01.59.46 Times of change
Applying more mobile, virtual, personal and efficient technology to improve quality of life. But meanwhile convergence of biology and technology is stimulating the innovation of new raw materials. These simultaneous trends bring us to the brink of structural change.