For its Magic Kingdom style parks, Disney’s Imagineers have faced a continual problem – what to do with Tomorrowland. Any vision of tomorrow quickly risks becoming a glimpse at yesterday and eventually the land requires an expensive update to stay relevant. Disney’s newest park, Shanghai… Read More »Imagineers and designers discuss creating Tomorrowland at Shanghai Disneyland
I’ve been a proponent of Google’s self-driving cars since I first heard about them 5 years ago. Like the folks at Google, I see a much safer and environmentally friendly future where cars are just a service you subscribe to and use on-demand. Google has… Read More »Bring to Walt Disney World: Google Cars
The other day as I strolled around EPCOT, I wondered why is ‘Future World’ stuck in the past. Of all the attractions only Mission: Space could be said to be forward looking. Spaceship Earth tacks a little choose your own adventure video on the end with a look forward, but the bulk of the ride is about the past. The rest of the ‘future attractions’ are really now ‘present day’ attractions. Why hasn’t Disney kept up with some of the latest technologies of the future?
Where are the ec0-friendly buildings, how about podcars (or other rapid transit innovations (Google Self Driving car anyone?)), and a view of what work will be like in the future. Recreate a portion of Masdar City, the first city designed to be energy neutral. Inspire guests with a vision of the future where technology is there to enable us to achieve even more as a planet.
Anyway, enough of that rant. There is change at the center, and I took a few pictures on my stroll. Here are some of the new things I saw in the park:
The cast member greeting position for the Seas with Finding Nemo pavilion has a new shade structure. It looks nice, but unfortunately they didn’t see fit to install a solar power fan for the cast member stationed there.
A close look at the floor reveals this is a future site of Fastpass Plus.
I’ve been a long admirer of the futuristic design and concept art from Syd Mead. Here are a couple costume pieces he designed for the original TRON: Both are from this gallery of Tron concept art. (H/T SuperPunch) Previously: Tron Legacy Animated Series coming to… Read More »TRON costume concept art by Syd Mead
Unfortunately, this is not a schematic of anything coming to WDW The original idea Walt Disney had for his Florida project was to create a whole new type of city. A place that would be on the cutting edge for environmentally friendly technology, mass transit,… Read More »Dream of EPCOT Becoming Reality
When I’m not being a Disney geek, I play at being an actual geek, so when I see something from Walt Disney Imagineering’s Research and Development team I get really excited as it combines those two passions. Here’s a video of Bran Ferren, former president… Read More »Lessons from Former WDI R&D Chief Bran Ferren
When EPCOT Center opened in 1982 there was a much more obvious focus on futurism than we have today. Of the four biggest attractions that were added to FutureWorld lately only one can be said to have a true vision of the future – Mission… Read More »Five EPCOT Futurist Attractions are graded for their vision
So what does the typical Microsoft super-user think of The Innoventions Dream Home in Tomorrowland at Disneyland. Brandon, who blogs at The Windows Experience, was invited to tour the Innovention Dream Home and files this report: When I arrived to the Innoventions Dream Home, I… Read More »A Microsoftians view of the Innoventions Dream Home