Tomorrow's headlines

Speaking of future news, the Palo Alto-based futures consultancy Institute for the Future has a new project which playfully mounts hypothetical future newspaper headlines in a physical newsstand. Anyone can make a submission at the website The Daily Future, including a headline, subhead, lede, date, and image.

Early results were on display at the Bay Area Maker Faire at the start of May.

Image: Anthony Townsend, aGreatNotion's Flickr photostream

IFTF's Jason Tester, part of the team responsible for The Daily Future, has been among the key innovators in scenario communication strategy working at the intersection of futures and design for some years already (see, for instance, this Business Week article, and this post on "human-future interaction" from the IFTF blog).

Plans are afoot to add further functionality to the Daily Future website, including new headline formats and user voting. Meanwhile, those who can't make it to the Bay Area to see the newspaper box in person might content themselves with a visit instead to the Newspaper Clipping Generator (via Open the Future), which cranks out reasonably authentic-looking, if generic, images of future-news "artifacts" to order -- type in your newspaper title, headline, date, and story.


(Thanks Rosa!)