Returned back from ETech after a gruelling trip - approx 17hrs.
The conference was good as usual, though this year it started to head down the road of a wider more corporate audience. This is inevitable.
It leads to the same old gripes - on one hand the pure technologists complain about the suits, on the other the suits complain that the conference is not upto the standard they expect (power, water, refreshments etc) and complain about the unfinished concepts (playsh etc) - see the bile
Still, despite this there were some excellent speakers (Bruce Sterling etc) and some interesting new products :-
Ning, like libapi but social everything.
AppExchange, like libapi but no js and more metadata control structures.
Nada - just cool, a particular interest of mine with the collision between physical / digital worlds and the future of "spimes"
Playsh - amazingly cool, mutliple virtual experiences in a shared reality
Bonabeau's Hunch Engine - let computers do the work they are good at and people do the work they are good at, for example my grandmother doesn't know how to use photoshop but she does know which picture of her grandchildren she likes - stunning.
Overall a great conference
