Predicting the future by creating it
Here is life imitating art.
Thanks to Olson Zaltman friend-of-the-family Nancy Cox for calling my attention to a partnership between the dating app Bumble and the Apple TV+ hit show, Ted Lasso. Bumble has begun offering a weekly “Bantr live” experience – Bantr is the fictitious app from the show, within which people can connect via text without seeing each other’s photos.
In the Bumble world, Bantr is more like speed dating. Users text for three minutes and then decide if they want to match; if they do, then they will see each other’s photos and full profiles.
Nancy noted that in her career she has collaborated on some innovation initiatives in which her knowledge of the original 1960s Star Trek came in handy. When you watch it now, that show looks both painfully dated and also remarkably ahead of its time.
Martin Cooper, who created the first cell phone, was inspired by Star Trek’s hand-held communicators, which looked remarkably similar to flip phones.
The Enterprise crew used a universal translator – the rough equivalent of Google Translate – to communicate with alien beings.
Uhura, the communications officer, used an earpiece that was basically a Bluetooth device.
On the darker side, the crew’s phasers were pretty similar to tasers.
Inspiration can come from all kinds of places, real or imagined.