The scenario: A dystopian future where the government bans any sort of augmented reality devices (head mounted, eye mounted and retina mounted) because of privacy concerns that arise with it. Since these devices have become really hard to detect, wearers were using it for nefarious purposes like cheating on tests, creating their own reality that makes them unfit for residing in a society. Intelligence could not be measured by tests anymore as collective intelligence may not always be a good thing in a scenario of performance evaluation. Also, everyone at this point of time, is tired of mounting anything on their head at all. All of this gives rise to Cubots - a tiny cubic self assembling intelligent robots.
Cubots are miniature robots that are touch sensitive and pressure sensitive and can change its own color. They are capable of communicating with other cubots and the system. They are capable of extremely fast self assembly (reference image below) and can emulate structural assemblies to form tangible objects in real time. Material property is loosely simulated by these structures.
May 20, 2030.
Use of Cubots in design industry.
David and Jane are automotive designers based in London. Jim is also a designer and is based in New York. The three of them are working on the latest car design. Jim wants to show the concept he has been working on to the team for the three of them to review it. Jim pulls up his design on his workspace in New York and shares it with his counterparts in London. David and Jane see Jim's concept take shape by self assembling cubots at their end.
The three of them take time reviewing the design. Listening to Jane's feedback on the shoulder line of the car, Jim makes some changes at his end by literally sculpting the shoulder line to make some changes to the form. Those changes are transferred real time to the model with David and Jane. All of them are happy with it and they go ahead with the engineering of the vehicle.
Meanwhile the engineering heads of the two locations, Jason and Michael want to meet to go over the car's internals. They arrange a Cubots meeting where each of them are virtually present at the other's location and they conduct the meeting. Everything goes off well. The car is launched a few months later. It would go on to become their company's most successful model ever.
These cubots may be sold by weight if and when invented. It would address an important issue of tangibility of interaction that is absent from how interaction is shaping up now.