Meeting people

In 1996 Philips published “Vision of the future”, a book with futuristic concepts from their designer lab. The concept that probably intrigued me most was the “Hot badge” . I quote “Increasingly, the pace of life and demands of work mean that there is often little opportunity to make social contact. Hot badges are simple short-range communicators which will facilitate initial contact between people who have similar interests. … transmit information … receive information … interests overlap … badges will signal … easier … break the ice”.
I can see some added value in the Hot badge. Since you can program it, you can tweak its parameters for a specific night out. Your badge then picks cherries, but you still have to do the hard work and eat them..

Well that was back in 1996, now, 12 years later Eugene Ahn takes the concept one step further with the CyranoSuit. The sensor filled CyranoSuit will judge your situation and give you conversation suggestions on a printout. The funny thing is that the device is meant to help you out in what should be a romantic situation. Can you imagine having a conversation and having to wait for a piece of paper from your pocket all the time? I guess you have to be a damn good actor to pull this off.