delaO design studio
innovation through knowledge
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Gossip of Things

The Gossip of Things

Speculative Project about the Internet of Things. Global conglomerate Grupo Carso, owned by Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim, occupies a very important place in the Mexican economy due to the diversity of commercial, communications, industrial, and consumer services it offers. In fact, Grupo Carso has almost absolute control of some services throughout the country.

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In a near future, Grupo Carso might decide to establish its digital presence by creating or acquiring its own operating system, allowing the conglomerate to become ubiquitous in both the physical and digital realm.

The operating system of Grupo Carso would represent a technological monopoly, resulting in complete compatibility between devices, breaking with some of the current limitations of what we know today as the Internet of Things, and establishing new surveillance paradigms.

What would life be like in a world with an "Augmented Carso”?

It is logical to assume that productivity would be a priority for Augmented Carso; the company would likely use its new online and offline infrastructure to monitor the efficiency of its employees.

In this world, the physical office will track employees’ behavior using accelerometers, face recognition cameras, and other sensors embedded into office accessories. These interconnected objects will not only observe the employee, but will even talk amongst themselves regarding each employee’s performance.

Welcome to the Gossip of Things.

One device might trick a hyper-connected pen by constantly tapping the surface of the desk, leading the pen to assume that the dedicated employee is constantly on the verge of writing down an idea.

Another device might trick the computer mouse into appearing to be constantly scrolling, as if the employee were reading an endless PDF.

The last device might simulate the movement ones’ eyes make when reading something on a screen, thus deceiving the computer system’s facial recognition sensors.

Together, these three artifacts will work to trick the Gossip of Things, offering the overwhelmed employee precious minutes of simply doing nothing.

This project is part of “Office Futures,” a platform for speculating about the future of the workspace through research and critical design.

Creative Direction: José de la O

Product Design: Montserrat Pazos, Sander & José de la O.

Research: Montserrat Pazos & José de la O.

Images and Video: Montserrat Pazos, Sander Verbeek, Natalia del Río & José de la O