Solving tech's happiness equation
Would the world seem better if we focused on being happy rather than perfect, Poppy Jamie asked - and what if technology could help us put our happiness first?
Jamie thought she'd found happiness as a TV presenter, the only career she'd ever wanted. But answering correspondence for her Snapchat show Pillow Talk with Poppy made her aware of the challenges for young people.
"I was receiving thousands of messages from people feeling really stressed," she said. "And I was feeling stressed - we are the most anxious generation ever, according to research by the American Psychological Association."
The 27-year-old's conclusion was simple: we're addicted to social-media likes. "They make you feel good - and if you don't get enough, it makes you feel bad," she argued. "We are in a comparison overload, and comparison is the thief of all joy."
If technology created our problems, can it also solve them? Jamie's Happy Not Perfect app, developed with scientists, life coaches and CBT therapists, aims to do just that. Designed as a game, it encourages users to write down their feelings and watch the game burn them away.
"Happiness is a habit," she concluded.
Sci-fi can inform our tech future
Science fiction has always inspired real-life technology, George Simons told the Saturday morning crowd - so look out for solid holograms and your DNA sequence beamed from your smartphone soon.
Simons, creative manager at motion design specialist Territory Studio, creates future user interfaces (FUIs) for science-fiction and fantasy movies - recent credits include Blade Runner 2049, Prometheus, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Martian. "My favourite FUI is designed in a way we can imagine an alien might understand," he explained. "That's when our imagination isn't restricted by rules or understood by humans."
Martin Cooper, who invented the mobile phone in the 70s, was inspired by Star Trek communicators; in 2017, the Qualcomm XPRIZE announced a $10 million competition to design a medical tricorder as used on the USS Enterprise.
"Creating FUI for aliens allows us to design UI for future tech," Simons said, citing his work on user interfaces for dashboard consoles on electric vehicles and projects with Intel to create big-data interfaces across retail, manufacturing and logistics.
"A lot of new tech is being developed that would make solograms - solid holograms - and hologram umbrellas like those we created for Blade Runner 2049 entirely possible," he told the room.
Robot wars can educate and inspire
In the rush to a future where robots play key roles in every area, we shouldn't neglect entertainment, Reach Robotics founder Silas Adekunle warned. "The most important thing robots can do is to let us have fun," he argued.
Adekunle learned this when he was a robotics undergraduate teaching code at local schools - where he found that adding gaming elements to his classes led to soaring attendances and engagement. "You should show people the experience of driving a car before showing them what's under the hood," he explained.
Adekunle launched Reach Robotics in 2013, working with 3D printing to prototype each idea. "Computer games start with a level-one character that goes through progression," he explained. "When you buy physical toys, you run out of experiences. We've changed that."
His gaming robot, the MekaMon, has three degrees of movement in each leg with infrared and touch sensors to battle other bots. Players can use AR to fight opponents around the world.
Adekunle now makes sure pupils can program MekaMon's sophisticated code. He modelled its movement and behaviour on the natural world - hoping that children will learn the value of preserving nature.
Will we be alone when we colonise the Red Planet?
We have to find out if there's life on Mars before we start contaminating the planet with dirty humans, according to ExoMars Rover delivery manager Abbie Hutty. Her Airbus team is building the first autonomous Mars rover specifically searching for traces of life. "We thought Mars was a barren, sterile planet," she told the conference. "But on every mission we find something to suggest there could be life, past or present."
Clouds of Mars methane - with seasonal summer blooms - could only have come from life or volcanoes, she explained. "Fierce UV radiation from the Sun breaks down methane in 400 to 600 years," she explained. "If there had been a volcano in that period, we would have seen it - so it might be organic processes…"
The rover Hutty's team is building - due to launch in 2020 - has a two-metre-long drill to hunt deeper beneath the planet's surface than before. The challenge is to build a rover that can function in wildly swinging temperatures, from -115°C at night to -5°C during the day. Another challenge includes ensuring no organic matter of any kind travels to Mars on the rover to distort its readings. "Which is why robots will be better at finding life on Mars than humans," Hutty said. "We're just big bags full of microbes."
Philosophy through film-making
The commercialisation of space is here - and it may get us to Mars, Maggie Aderin-Pocock told the room. "Just like mobile phones and computers, space ships will get smaller and faster - and hopefully we'll all get out there," she explained.
The space scientist and TV presenter told how the James Webb Space Telescope will allow us to look through vast dust clouds in our galaxy to discover Earth-sized planets that might hold water.
She's currently involved in a variety of space projects - not bad for a kid who was written off as "stupid" at school. "My dyslexia meant they put me at the back of the class with the safety scissors and the glue," she told the audience.
Fast forward a few years, and she's now hoping to get to the Red Planet herself. "Nasa says the first person to land on Mars is alive today," she said. "I think we'll get there in 20 years. Elon Musk and other commercial companies are the way we'll get there. Dare to dream," she urged.
New talent for the Next Generation
Acoustic R&B band MiC LOWRY and raw performance-poet troupe Spit the Atom delivered electrifying live performances at Next Generation - and explained to the room how technology and social media provided inspiration and helped them reach a wider global audience.
Spit the Atom's Tatenda Naomi Matsvai, Kit Finnie, Gabriel Akamo and Tommy Sissons took to the stage throughout the day with their complex spoken-word performances. The poetry and music collective - formed at the Roundhouse's Words First project - take their name from the fusion taking place in the Large Hadron Collider. Their YouTube performances have gone viral, leading to competitions and tours in the US and beyond.
MiC LOWRY's name is less scientific: it's based on Will Smith's character Mike Lowrey from the 1995 film Bad Boys. The Liverpool five piece - Ben Sharples, Kaine Ofoeme, Akia Jones Delleile Ankrah and Michael Welch - met when they were students at John Lennon's old school. "We're heavily influenced by 90s R&B groups like Boyz II Men, Jodeci and Destiny's Child," singer Ben Sharples told the room.
Uploading acoustic guitar and a cappella vocal-harmony mash-ups of R&B hits on to YouTube built a large global audience - with popular Facebook performances helping them secure a support slot on Justin Bieber's 2016/17 European tour.
Their message? "Talent counts for nothing without a work ethic," said Sharples.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
