I dropped by Wired Magazine’s NextFest over the weekend in LA. Last year’s in NYC was good, so I was looking forward to this one. Like last year, there were interesting technologies and I enjoyed talking with the people behind them. However, I was disappointed by the number of repeats from last year and I missed the main stage presentations like the new vacationauts. In Wired magazine speak, I’d say that 70% of this year’s NextFest was tired and 30% was wired.?

What was wired…

Jeff Hahn and his multi-touch collaboration wall. WOW! I couldn’t wait to meet Jeff and have a go at the multi-touch display. The hi-res images and the intuitive touch display draw you in. You can stretch and shrink images, slide them to another person to manipulate. With one touch you could call up a map and zero in on your destination of choice. I wondered what was behind the screen making it run so I asked Jeffand was surprised to learn that each screen uses one Dell computer to make it sing. For now, Perceptive Pixel’s multi-touch screen is being used by the military, but in the not too distant future Jeff said it will be in schools, universities, workplaces etc.

Zou Ren Ti’s robotic twin Robotic Zou looked real at a distance and up close. People in the crowd tried to interact with him as if he was human. They’d wave their hands in front of his face to see if he would blink and sometimes he did, startling everyone who noticed. His movements weren’t smooth and when he spoke it reminded me of watching Charlie Mc Carthy, Edgar Bergen’s ventriloquist doll, but on whole he was as close to looking human as I’ve seen in a robot. One major caveat, touching his skin caused a great deal of cognitive dissonance. It looked like human skin, but it felt nothing like human skin. It was cold and rubbery.?

Consider this my CliffsNotes version… more tomorrow

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