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17
The Future, Design,
and Virtual Worlds
The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
—Albert Einstein
17.1 SOME PREDICTIONS FOR THE FUTURE
ANDTHEIRIMPACTON YOUR DESIGN OUTLOOK
In 1996, Bob Cringely wrote: “People care about people. We watch version after version of the same seven
stories on television simply for that reason. More than 80 percent of our brains are devoted to processing
visual information, because that’s how we most directly perceive the world around us. In time, all this will
be mirrored in new computing technologies” [1]. Bob Cringely was right; this progression toward visua ...