NextFest!

This weekend saw the Linguals at Wired's NextFest. This groovy showcase of all things uber-modern was a postcard to the future; what we hope will evolve in the coming years as part of the technology of our everyday lives. The technology spanned the sublime (the uber-cool vein viewer that means you won't have to suffer through needle sticks at the hospital anymore; and a 3-D visual computer/surgery interaction that will allow doctors to see the body better; and Virgin Galactic's Space plane!) to the ridiculous: weird singing and lighted bunnies--Nabaztag-- *read CREEPY* who change color/song along with the stock market report. I'll also give a quick shout-out here to the Videogame Language Trainer that trains future soldiers how to speak Arabic in 100 hours (!). And, my favorite "fun" technology--brain ball, a "game" that worked on alpha-theta brain waves. Whoever was the most relaxed won! NextFest was a serious combination of cool and geek. It showcased some of the most interesting thinking of our time. What was particularly revealing, however, was the generation gap. While I was LOVING NASA's display of all things intergalactic and being genuinely excited by the medical advances that will make our lives a little more comfortable, many of the younger kids who were there were patently unimpressed. It's "not bad," I heard one kid say. I watched another kid text message someone and say "it's not that great." One of the things I think our point and click world and our mobile qwerty expectations have bred is an assumption of technology. We regularly see cool technology on television and in movies; we have come to expect it. However, the gap between the visual presentation of that invented technology and actual technology remains wide. So, while NextFest was showing some of the coolest products to come in the next few months and years, there was a serious disconnect between kids' understanding of how cutting edge this stuff was. And, how long it took to invent and create. That's it for now. More on Robot Row later. Heh heh.