I think one of the defining characteristics for humans has always been the desire to dream up technology that can help make life easier. We would not be here if our ancestors had not stuck their heads out of the cave and started to explore what they could manufacture from nature’s offerings.

If you look at this from a very wide perspective, all the analog objects that we have can be considered to be life enhancement technologies. Clothing is “skin enhancement technology”. A bed is “rest enhancement technology”. A book is “learning enhancement technology”. Most everything we have has been invented to make life easier and better in some way.

What does all this have to do with digital technologies then?

The digital world is still very young so mostly it has been restricted to its own domain. The digital world has been considered to be virtual and people have been even experimenting with stand-alone virtual worlds (Second Life etc.).  Slowly but surely the digital world is crossing the border and creeping in to the analog one.

Currently the biggest obstacle is connectivity. Most of us have to possibility to be connected at home or in the office, but staying connected while on the move is still quite a hassle. It is only a matter of time when that problem will be solved and connectivity will be ubiquitous.

The constant connectivity will bring with it a new kind of reality. It will be a reality where analog and digital life enhancement technologies merge and bring us new enhancements. GPS-navigation technology is a good example of merging the analog and digital. There is no longer a need for a scaled down presentation of reality (a map), when in essence technology makes the map life-size.

Slowly but surely the analog life enhancement technologies that only have virtual value (the value is not in the physical properties of the object, but in what we can accomplish with it) will begin to slide in to the digital world. Staying on the subject, take for example street signs and maps. There is no value in the signs or maps themselves. The value comes from people easily finding where they are going. In an analog world you have to manually combine two enhancement technologies, the signs and the map, to find the shortest route to your destination.

Today, we think of the virtual and real world as two separate domains. The analog world is slowly being augmented with digital technologies. I am betting that sometime in the near future we will come back full circle and consider analog and digital to just be different aspects of the same real world.

I was at a meeting the other day having a discussion about the media habits of teenagers. One of the participants said that he really does not understand why someone would pay real money for virtual furniture, a la Habbo Hotel. I tried to explain that teenagers do not think of online and offline as separate entities. For them, it is just another way to interact with friends. For them virtual is as real as anything else, hence they have no problems with buying a virtual chair.

The odd thing about this is that we currently use quite a few things that only have virtual value to us. No one is buying a book for the paper and ink used to make it. The value of a book is in the information, ideas and emotions that we get from reading the book. The value of a calendar is not in the materials it is made of. It is valuable because it helps you keep appointments and organize your schedule. What about art? Music? And still it seems very hard for some people to get over the fact that something that is “virtual” could be worth paying for.

One could argue that all objects have both a physical and a virtual value. Like the clothes you are wearing. The physical value of them is that they protect you from the elements. The virtual value of clothing is in how they make you and others feel. Comfortable? Underdressed or overdressed? Cute? Professional?

Walls have a physical and a virtual value. They keep the warmth inside and hold the roof up. The virtual value is in how they affect the decor of a room.

The virtual property of the physical objects around us will be the first one move into the digital realm. Photographs and music are good examples of things that have none or very little physical value so they are already mostly digital.

Next in the digital domain will be the functional properties. We already have smart glass which changes from opaque to transparent when an electrical current is applied. So it is just a matter of time when the first walls with digital wallpaper will appear. How about clothing that adjusts itself depending on the temperature? Oh, we sort of have that too…

I’m sure there are many things that will happen as a result of all this but here are three questions that come to mind:

1. What will be the new ways to interact with content when every surface can be a display?
2. Will this finally bring us to a situation where the objects themselves are the interface, thus making technology effectively disappear?
3. Will the possibility to digitally manipulate what an object looks like and what it does have a positive effect on our impact on the environment?