Very rough notes, concentrating on main ‘gists’ and questions as the proceeedings are online here.
There’s a flickr group pool for photos here (just me at the time of writing…)
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Category: Conferences and events
Tony Stark on Etech
In the final pages of Iron Man #1, the reboot/takeover by Warren Ellis comes a scene between alcoholic billionaire technologist arms-dealer Tony Stark and Maya Hansen (who looks to be a central character in the 6 part series)
They are at a bar in the conference hotel, and Starck is bemoaning the lack of “Genuine outbreaks of the future” that he’s seen there.
They are at a conference called "WestTech", which seems pretty obviously to be O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology conference…
The line up for 2005’s Etech has been posted, and so far it seems like the same people talking about the same pet subjects. Not many ‘genuine outbreaks of the future’ so far.
Now, I know that I maybe jaundiced by the fact that I have been to every Etech so far – that’s 3 years on the trot (no blog-software pun intended, much), so perhaps take this with a pinch of salt.
There are lots of interesting things on the schedule, including what sounds like a great workshop by Tim Igoe and Raffi K, and m’colleague Chris on tangible computing. There are a fair few brits there again, including The Beatles of post-broadcast technology, Coates,Webb, Biddulph and Hammond (I’ll let you decide which is Ringo… but does it make Hill = George Martin?)
It’s just that the topics on offer: y’know – the copyfight, social software, bloody blogs, web services etc. might still be worthy topics for discussion, but I feel like I’ve been around those blocks quite a few times now, and I want some genuine outbreaks of the future.
Erupting technologies, not emerging ones… Surely these topics have crossed the chasm to be at the front-of-mind of the business world, if not the consciousness of what might be called "the mainstream".
I thought with the advent of the Web2.0 that some of the stuff that Etech had covered so well in the past would be retired, moved over for the $2000 suits to chew over – clearing the decks for some really out-there stuff. The current schedule suggests this is not the case.
What would I have there instead? On the hardware side: more mobile! Might be heresy coming from me, but how about someone from Qualcomm? Or even better, Ningbo Bird! Fuel cell technology, flexible displays, printed electronics, multiradio – Flarion, Wimax, Ultrawideband, and their implications for cities, suburbs and rural communities.
More robots, toy manufacturers, Rodney Brooks, Natalie Jeremienko and/or Neil Gershenfeld as keynote… On software and services: more simulcra and simulation… Ben Fry on working with bioinformatics and the genome, get Alan Kay again… or David Gelertner …
What’s going on with agents and distributed computing, autonomic computing – is it on the way after the hype-cycle of the mid 90s? Artficial life and AI – what’s the state of the theoretical art and the practical applications happening right now?
NBIC – the confluence of Neuroscience, Bioengineering, Information Technology and Cognitive Sciences. Bioinformatics, biometrics, and exploring the ethics of engineering in these fields. Get some sociologists in – what are these sciences and the new fields of convergence they bring doing to their domain of study and it’s application to our collective future?
Which leads me to society and technology, the unacknowledged but most interesting part (for me) of etech usually – some contrarians and tech-inspired creatives to prick the conscience: John Thackara and/or Michael Crichton and/or Warren Ellis. Lessig and Shirky, much as I love them, aren’t the only ones who can deliver a tubthumper. Patch-ecologists, biologists, cognitive psychologists! Anyone but the same old silicon valley apologists!
I know there are a fair few months for big hitters and game-changers to find their way into the programme, so perhaps this is unfair – but the theme of the next conference is ‘remix’ and at the moment it seems to be much more of a ‘retread’. Ok, rant over.
If I do go along I guess I’ll be getting pissed in the corner with Tony Stark.
Design Engaged 2004
At Design Engaged in Amsterdam.
Had a very good morning… I’ve still to finish writing my presentation, but here’s a sneak preview of it’s lowbrow take on ubiquitous computing and embodied interaction; with apologies to Frans Hals, Paul Dourish and Richard Marks.
Dan Hill is about to speak about “self-centred design”
Update: My presentation, about embodied interaction, touch-technology, RFID, NFC and semiotics: “Being in the world: the long-now of RFID” is here
They Misrule
Halloween samba band in a highschool
Originally uploaded by blackbeltjones.
Just got back to Finland from a really fantastic few days in Vancouver, where we co-hosted with LudiCorp a small little gathering to examine ‘play’ and all it’s many facets.
Lots of diverse views and lots to digest, but for now I’ll point you to Greg Costikyan’s excellent essay “Games: The Cultural Elaboration of Play” (permalink not working, sorry), which he expounded upon at the event.
This of course coincided with Halloween, and so my favourite type of play, i.e. misrule!
We saw an event run by a Vancouver organisation “Public Dreams” called The Parade of Lost Souls which was a fantastic experience of Sutton-Smith‘s “Play as communal identity” as well as a giant riot of fireworks and fun, followed by an excellent samba / big-band in the local high-school gym, where I’ll hand the reporting over to Justin.
Backroom boffins vs Apple aesthetes
On the same night! From Louise Ferguson’s events page:
OCTOBER 2004
Thursday 28 October: iMacs and iPods
Speaker: Jonathan Ive (Apple)
Time: 7.15 pm
Venue: Design Museum, Shad Thames, London SE1 (near Tower Bridge)
Charge: £10
Further information: http://www.designmuseum.orgThursday 28 October: Royal Institution – In search of boffins
Speaker: Francis Spufford (author of Backroom Boys)
Time: 7 pm – 8.30 pm
Venue: Royal Institution, 21 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4BS
Charge: £8 for non-members, £5 concessions
…[Francis Spufford] will consider the technologists whose work kept Concorde flying, created the computer game, conquered the mobile phone business, saved the human genome for the human race and sent Beagle 2 to burrow in the cinnamon sands of Mars.
Further information: http://www.rigb.org/rimain/calendar/detail.jsp?&id=94
Thank goodness Louise has scraped the information from the otherwise inpenetrable Design Museum website…
Design Engaged 2004 attendee list posted
EIGF: Day two: Peripherals: “reaching out”
Really enjoyed the panel on peripherals, and tangible/embodied interaction unsuprisingly perhaps. It also gets bonus points for showing lovely pictures of peripherals past, like the colecovision steering wheel, the microswitch and metal ‘slik-stick’; and even more impressively namechecking McLuhan and paraphrasing Russ Meyer / Silverfish at the end.
Rough notes below:
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EIGF: Day two: “The Hollywood Model”
First panel, lead by the bloody-mary mixing Seamus Blackley, made some interesting points about process and organisation in creative industries. Rough notes below, but I’ll just pick out an interchange between Blackley and Neil Young of EA/Maxis:
“NY: EA: interdiscplinary ‘pods’ of 5-25 moving towards ‘cells’ of 7 “magical number” organising like a social network.
SB: the structure you’re describing is Hollywood, except no one company owns all the talent.
Hollywood is a social network. the ‘meet and greet’ you introduce two creative people simply to see if they will get along. a very serious meeting.
If there is a spark then the infrastructure is built very quickly around that to turn it into a creative team. if there is a shared understanding of a common process across an industry, then the need for one company to own all the talent disappates, this allows flexibility and creativity.”
Foo-camp for designers
Andrew Otwell has announced a ‘homebrew’ style event, much in (un)structure like Dave Winer’s bloggercons, with “activities” like the O’Reilly FOOcamps.
Called Design Engaged, it’s happening in November 2004, in Amsterdam. I’m going to try my hardest to get there – should be excellent.
EIGF: Virtual cash – new world order
Rough notes from panel produced by Aleks K from The Guardian Gamesblog, and chaired by Ren Reynolds of Terranova fame.
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Petafloptimism 