Appropriate technology ...

I often listen to the excellent BBC Radio 4 programme “The Digital Human”.

They recently celebrated their 100th episode by looking at analogue technology, how creatives think and work differently in analogue compared to using digital methods of production, and how the end result can often be superior.

Visit the BBC Radio 4 page

This prompted me to think of wider issues of appropriateness in terms of the media we create and consume.

I’ve recently been getting more interested in AR and VR technologies, and it’s quite evident that a lot of the time, apart from entertainment, it’s a solution trying to find a problem. Less expensive forms of media could be used with lower production times and a wider pool of expertise. For example, does an AR street overlay really add value when we’ve been able to find our way around streets with paper maps for years. GPS maps on a phone work fine too, do we really need that extra AR/VR layer?

In commissioning media, marketing material, website builds and the such, I think we really need to focus on the message we’re trying to convey. It’s very easy to be led down a path of bells and whistles that we don’t need, and lose sight of the problem we’re trying to solve.

That said, I’m no luddite...

I think this example of the use of technology is appropriate and moving. I especially love that digital technology is being used to read an analogue book.

Visit the YouTube clip

(Article Author) Mark Shipsides is a copywriter and multimedia producer with vast experience in the multimedia industry, having worked in the both the academic and business worlds. His project experience goes from developing Museum Kiosks for Liverpool FC, interactive video art installations for the Millennium Dome through to producing training material in the aerospace industry for multinationals such as Airbus. His ongoing multimedia interests involve interactive and immersive fiction and the use of AR and VR for therapeutic purposes.