Could Portable Digital 'Scrolls' Come Back in Fashion?

The Norwegian comedy TV show Øystein shows a monk calling a medieval help desk to show him how to use this new system that has been introduced: the book (or codex). The monk can open the book, but turning pages, following text across pages, and returning to the beginning are all baffling. The new system, he complains, is stopping him get any work done.
Of course, the humour stems from the fact that many of us have had similar experiences with computers and helpdesks. But an interesting point is raised by the show. Do the format advantages of a book over a scroll still matter within the context of digital media when portability, robustness, and comfort—in short travel concerns—take precedence?
While the tablet was used extensively for practicing and note-taking the demand for more portable, lasting content in a convenient format meant that the scroll came into fashion. But as texts grew in size, so too did scrolls grow in unwieldiness. As this Victorian painting from 1867 by Simeon Solomon shows, carrying scrolls could be hard work!

In fact flatbed designs predate scrolls considerably and remained in use long after the wide-spread adoption (the roll-out!) of scrolls. Wax tablets were used well into Roman times as this Pompeii mural from 79 and an illustration from 1305 from the Codex Manesse show. The tablet, much like the modern digital form, was used extensively by very early writers, who used either the finger or a stylus to imprint cuneiform (the word means wedge after the imprint of the stylus), hieroglyphics, pictographs, and letters on the surface of the wax or clay.

What's the point of an e-scroll? As our ancestors knew scrolls are portable and protected without covers, bags, and other accessories. The major issue with the new tablet forms now on the market is portability and damage from everyday use. The sensitive surface of the rolled screen is protected from impact, scratching, or marking. As space is no longer an issue for e-readers that can change the content appearing on the screen the added expense of doubled screens (to make a book form that can protect the display surfaces) and the unlikelihood of screens that could be 'folded' without damaging components means that e-scrolls are a much more likely scenario.

The elephant in the room here is that no electronic display on the market is yet able to bend enough to be rolled into a scroll. But new technology, a .1mm thin flexible AMOLED or Active-matrix organic light-emitting diode, is being developed by ITRI and other companies like Sony and LG are working on similar e-paper designs. Electronista 29 October 2010 It remains to be seen whether we will all be using scrolls in the future... again.

The Mass Roll-Out of Video-Phones is Here

A fifties Popular Science article on current inventions describes the 'New Video Phone' a two-way camera in a specially made telephone booth for both military and social purposes. (1950: 81) Despite the technology's history, widespread video-phone use continues to elude us. A sci-fi staple (Bladerunner, Aliens), video-phones (like jet-packs) are an endearing trope of the future.

But wider adoption of video-phones has been marred by costs. As such the technology has been dwarfed by the continuing widespread use of mobile telephones, with little impact on commuting practices; it's just not face-to-face communication. As a 1973 report to the US National Science Foundation titled 'Telecommunications Research in the United States and Selected Foreign Countries: A Preliminary Survey' made clear: "The Principal impetus for this work seems to be a feeling that substitution of telecommunications for travel can be more readily effected by less expensive audio and visual conferencing arrangements than by person-to-person video-phone". (1973: 27)

Now a new idea that Apple and other mobile companies are championing might see video phones replace audio after all. The idea is video communication via wireless networks and Apple are presenting it through there Face Time software and the latest version of their iPod music player, the iTouch, as well as the iPad 2 and iPhone 4. This means that anyone with a front-and-back camera-enabled device and a wireless network can make video calls: a potentially much larger audience that mainstream iPhone users relying on 3G networks. Competitors are also jumping on board with new portables like the Samsung Galaxy tablet. PC Mag 17 September 2010

The possibility of bypassing telco providers to reduce costs for video is the major innovation here. But more simply, the other innovation is front-facing cameras now standard on most laptops. Video-phones might also discourage mobile phone usage as wireless networks become more widespread. As we all get more used to Skype and Google Chat, as well as unconventional technologies like vid-mail (i.e. Eyejot) where video recordings are sent instead of text, video-phone use might finally become widespread and even substitute for travel. The work contexts are particularly interesting as front-and-back cameras combined with wireless video becomes standard for business and corporate phones. When the costs are borne by organizations then most work users might be expected to use video over audio and perhaps even vid-mail over email?

Banner Blindness

Banner blindness is a condition caused by poorly planned websites displaying an overwhelming amount of content: confusing images, animations, popups, and (especially) banners. In response the user tunes out, often ignoring important content in the process.

Mobility is important in bringing banner blindness to the attention of developers and designers. The fashion for stripped down, minimalist site design is a product of smart-phones with web access requiring low bandwidths and content on the move.

With the increasing popularity and development of Augmented Reality (AR) technologies and practices banner blindness is bound to become a potentially crucial factor in transport demand. Unlike virtual reality, where the user is immersed in an online environment, users of AR actively engage with the real-world. AR is currently restricted to smart-phone apps that layer content over a recorded image of the user surroundings or to in-vehicle technologies that project information on the windscreen. But future technologies are anticipated to be much more engaged, such as AR glasses that completely cover the eyes and display information on the lenses controlled by haptic wrist-bands or remote controls.

An unintended consequence of this revolution in AR is the potential for banner blindness to impact upon travel safety, efficiency, and infrastructure. A spate of recent pedestrian accidents highlights this growing issue. In Australia, where urban centres are often divided by intensive traffic, 'iPod Zombies' - pedestrians that are oblivious to their surroundings due to music players and loud or in-ear noise-cancelling headphones - are a growing issue. Gulf News 9 September 2010 In New South Wales a 25 per cent increase in the pedestrian death toll has been attributed to music players. Herald Sun 6 September 2010

'Podestrians' are at much greater risk than pedestrians due to sustained sensory deprivation in unsafe urban environments. Access Legal 23 August 2010 As information demands grow a range of technologies including games consoles, mobiles, and entertainment devices is changing the behavioural fabric of public space. Guardian 25 August 2010

Thus transport planners face a future world of information-rich but sensory-deprived individuals at risk from the increasingly hectic and unsafe urban environment. No wonder the new British government is seeking councils to remove bollards, advertising and other forms of 'street clutter'. Public Finance 27 August 2010 In a data-rich but under-regulated Big Society AR is sure to be a source of many unintended consequences that impact upon how people travel.

Cool Biz and Business Casual

While perhaps surprising to some proponents of formality at work, business fashion has changed over time quite remarkably. For example, in this Dutch painting from 1663 Governors Of The Wine Merchants Guild by Ferdinand Bol, important businessmen can be seen at work sporting long hair, beards, and more dramatically shorts and tights!

Nowadays shorts at work is considered a "career killer" even, confusingly, on casual Fridays according to Dana Casperson's Power Etiquette: What You Don't Know Can Kill Your Career 1999: 32. The distinction has led to a new oxymoron, 'Business Casual', being advocated by companies such as Deloitte. Yet, what is the cost of formality in terms of energy efficiency and travel work practices?

There are two major unintended consequences to business attire in the workplace. First, is the need for air-conditioning to support formal dress habits. Secondly, the emphasis on presentation and generally uncomfortable clothing - ties, high heels, and suits - leads to a preference for driving to work over cycling, walking, or even public transport.

Oddly it seems that climate has little to do with business attire. A recent poll Reuters 4 August 2010 has shown that chillier parts of Europe tend to dress less formally than India, Saudi Arabia, and Australia where full ties and suits for men are common even in temperatures over 30 degrees! It also seems that the more neo-liberal the country, the more inappropriate (or appropriate) the work attire: America and Great Britain both also see higher rates of formal dress.

To address these illogical practices Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi launched Cool Biz in 2005: a dressing down at work to match the climate rather than notions of cosmopolitanism. He took the extreme measure of setting government office air conditioners at 28C, thereby forcing changes in dress. Many companies in the private sector have refused to comply, despite the policy impacting on energy companies' profits by 175 million. Bloomburg 16 October 2005

Some workers have responded to the policy by stripping down to their underwear to cool down: research by Shinichi Tanabe, a professor of Architecture and Environmental Engineering at Tokyo’s Waseda University, claims that each degree the temperature is raised above 25 degrees cuts worker productivity by 1.9 percent. Bloomburg 23 July 2009 Perhaps businesses could do more than supply air conditioning to make their workers comfortable: recently, the Japanese Labour Standards Office confirmed that a young Chinese office worker, Jiang Xiao Dong at Fuji Electric Industries, was yet another victim of "karoshi" or death from overwork! New Zealand Herald August 14, 2010

As companies are increasingly forced to cost their carbon emissions the simple fix championed by Koizumi might have an incredible impact on how people not only dress for business but also how they commute.

Will Jelly! Kill the Office Party?

Once upon a time, or so the story goes, everyone worked in offices from 9-5. If you stayed in the same organization long enough; were punctual, well-dressed, and polite; and you worked hard, you would eventually get promoted to the top tier of management.

Then things became a lot more fluid. Suddenly, people were moving jobs - a lot. Workers were rewarded not for loyalty, but for experience. Suddenly work could be outsourced, or better cheaper talent could be parachuted in. It suddenly became much harder and more competitive to rise to the top and, as a response, organizations formalized the processes of promotion and the management of work performance in the form of human resources. In order to do this a whole range of tiers were introduced and many more middle and sub management positions. While this meant that workers could be easily rewarded by being promoted quicker, it also led to vastly increased scrutiny and much less trust on the coal-face.

Thus, alongside this managerization of the workforce came a widespread trend for workers to leave their jobs, but retain their contacts and clients. Enabled by new technologies and greater connectivity contracting became a viable and respectable alternative to the rat-race. By starting their own businesses and becoming their own bosses, workers could remove accountability, scrutiny, and particularly managers from the equation. Instead contractors dealt with clients. If something goes wrong, the contractor simply finishes the contract and moves on. Job done. Sometimes workers can even be rehired on a contract by the companies they previously worked for!

Contractors are often managed by trust and thus stand at arm's length to organizational processes and governance. They also manage their own resources and usually office times and spaces. Flexibility in the form of contracting and even sub-contracting is now the norm in many organizations. As Janine Wedel describes in her book Shadow Elite (2009) "Flexians" pervade the private and public sectors. Oddly, this has achieved something, rather covertly, that many commentators have repeatedly asserted was a myth: a trend towards the remote, flexible, virtual workplace.

In the ICT sector, where this phenomenon has boomed, casual coworking, or Jelly!, has arisen to provide the large number of contracting self-employed a place to work. Jelly! was founded by Amit Gupta and Luke Crawford in New York in February 2006. Urban Omnibus 3 June 2009 These stripped-down casual coworking groups bear more resemblance to conferences or internet cafes than offices and offer collaboration, resources, colleagues, and coffee, but crucially no managers and no attachments.

Is Jelly! the future of the office? Will this new form of office-culture, pushed by practices as well as new technologies, impact upon the holy grail of transport planning - the commute? Is Jelly! the painless office party?