Media and Tech’s New Horizon
In the past it used to be so simple. Media was easy to spot. It was the domain of publishers, media companies, and distributors. Movies, TV, Books, News. But today, the definition of media is changing.
And no place was that more clear than at last week's NYC Media Lab Summit.
I was there, part observer part participant, part convener. Lot’s of hats
As the brand new Managing Director of the Media Lab, I explored and gathered a snapshot of where we’re headed. It was in turns both exhilarating and intense. Media’s future is bigger, more impactful, and more complicated than ever before. Remember when the phrase ’software eats the world’ was in vogue? Well, after a day at the NYC Media Lab event in Brooklyn, I'm sure of one thing. In our next chapter — the things I saw will bring together technology, media, and new tactile realities in a way that will make the last ten years look quaint by comparison.
This week, NYC Media Lab convened its 7th Annual Summit at New York City College of Technology (CUNY) and NYU Tandon School of Engineering in Downtown Brooklyn. We had over one thousand people in attendance, with lots of participation and smart engagement. Topics ranged fro spacial computing to synthetic media, virtual and augmented reality to AI, machine learning, blockchain, deep learning and 5G in the fast-moving tech and media space.
The daylong event had three main components, a morning of Main Stage presentations and panels, an afternoon of student demonstrations in a massive expo space, and a series of hands-on workshops that put ideas into practice. The day took place at three locations on Jay Street in Brooklyn at the sprawling MetroTech complex.
A few examples. On stage — a thoughtful panel addressed the future of media — ten years out. Media 2030.
What trends will dominate media and technology by 2030, and how will they impact our lives? Speakers joining this panel included
Yaël Eisenstat, Policy Advisor, Center for Humane Technology, R. Luke DuBois, Co-Director & Associate Professor, NYU Tandon School of Engineering Integrated Digital Media, Desmond Upton Patton, Associate Professor of Social Work and Associate Dean of Curriculum Innovation and Academic Affairs, Columbia University and Justin Hendrix, Executive Director, NYC Media Lab. As surveillance through AI and deepfakes emerges, Eisenstat a former Facebook employee, provided a sharp and troubling look at the challenges media consumers and creators face in the years ahead. Information warfare is a phrase you can expect to hear more about.
The morning included a number of impressive presentations and products. I was struck by a project called Access to Places, using technology to make the NYC subway system navigable by the blind and visually impaired. Access to Places is a project designed to make NYC subway stations accessible to people who are blind by leveraging iOS’s native text-to-speech voiceover technology to offer entry and exit information, service changes, safety updates, train arrival times, and other key details within a mobile application. The informational content is complemented by beacon-triggered notifications to allow travelers to more easily navigate themselves within complicated station layouts. Antonio Guimaraes and his team members Emily Lin, and Rashida Kamal, presented with clarity and passion — and as Guimaraes is visually impaired, the audience clearly understood his understanding of the important need
Once the MainStage presentation concluded, we moved to demos and panels. The demo’s included an extraordinary number of student projects on a wide array of topics. Two that caught my eye were the “Pat Me” Robot by Ran Zhou. Pat Me is an emotional robot designed for the lonely people who need company and comfort. And Floating in the Sky: VR Experience. Floating in the sky is a first-person interactive narrative VR experience, which allows you to escape from a stressful city and fly through a magnificent dreamland, and was produced by students from the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, Integrated Digital Media (IDM).
You can see videos of “Pat Me” and “Floating in the Sky” here
And finally, in the afternoon — there was a workshop presented by Tim Rich, EVP, Director of Data Science at Publicis Groupe.
This workshop explored the possibility of a “code of ethics” for data science professionals. Data is powerful, and could well be dangerous if used without ethics. How can we better prepare data-driven professionals to adapt? How and when can we carve out time for important discussions on ethics, and how can these discussions become implemented. Are there guidelines data scientists should take into account when building models or altering human behavior through optimized consumer flows? This is the kind of conversation that the NYC Media Lab is fostering — important and relevant. It took attendees on a trip into the next decade of immersive media, and asked some provocative questions about how we want our media to respond to community needs in a fast-moving world.
There’s more information about the event at NYCmedialab.org
