This past January, PSFK held a Good Ideas Salon in London bringing together the most forward-thinking tastemakers, innovators, and experts from around the world to discuss key areas steering innovation. There, Richard Banks (Microsoft) spoke about what he refers to as “digital heirlooms” and discussed the histories we are creating about ourselves through digital media and how future generations will interact with the artifacts we leave behind.
Richard considered the current products of our technology, such as the thousands of digital photos taken by people each year, and discussed their endurance over time. While previous generations left tangible objects, our current [...]

This past January, PSFK held a Good Ideas Salon in London bringing together the most forward-thinking tastemakers, innovators, and experts from around the world to discuss key areas steering innovation and opportunity.  In addition the the good ideas presented, we wanted to hear what our audience had to say, so we’re doing a series of posts containing feedback and comments from the event sourced from blogs, magazines, and twitter.  We’ve distilled the commentary, now you tell us which is the best idea…
At the Good Ideas Salon London, Richard Banks (Microsoft) talked about the histories we are creating about ourselves through [...]

In our recent conversation with Richard Banks, he raises some interesting questions surrounding the notions of inheritance and heirlooms – both physical and virtual – as they apply to the digital age. From antiquated technologies – think iPod as the future 8-track – to web pages that live on well after we’re gone, what will later generations think of the artifacts that we’ve left behind? Particularly where visual and written records are concerned, do they lose their literal weight to stand the test of time when they lack a tangible presence and only exist online? These are compelling questions to [...]