NeoPaleoFuturism : take 2 (or 3)

A nice list of digital ink devices (that never were) from Dvice… which is one of my favourite sites for… well, products that never were (or will be). Speculative design and all that. Pushing the envelope all the time.

A symptom of the approaching sci-fi singularity, that the predicted future can become quaint and old-fashioned in such a short period of time… almost zero in fact – in fact there’s a whole genre of design devoted to making things that look like failed sci-fi predictions – Sci-fi movies based on steam-punk Victoriana, are outstripping by far “proper” predictive ones. When was the last one? Minority Report? I can think of at least 5 steampunk sci-fi movies that have been made in the same period.

This is happening partly because steam-punk Victoriana is an incredibly rich seam visually… but mainly because the future has become impossible to predict without being rendered embarrassing within a very short period of time.

Things have become incredibly volatile.