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Wired SuckFest
We went to Wired NextFest in Millenium Park in Chicago a couple of weekends ago. It was a great reminder of the value of freeing oneself from expectation.
Some allowance should be made, I suppose, for the fact that it was the last day of the event. Still, the majority of the exhibits were of the no-touch, no-interaction variety. What's the point of exhibiting a maglev chair if you don't let people sit in it? Or a panoramic camera that you don't let people try out? Too many of the exhibits were sealed off behind corporate flyers and plexiglass.
Almost all of the exhibits that were supposed to be actual demonstrations were largely unmanned. So the much-touted robots and animatronics were still and lifeless, much like the event itself.
Overall, NextFest came across as a corporate version of a high school science fair: the displays were either intriguing ideas that didn't seem to work, or poor ideas that worked well but were pointless.
Case in point: the Toyota i-REAL, a "personal mobility" vehicle that looks like a cross between a wheelchair and a Segway. The promotional video talked about how a commuter in Chicago could climb in from his driveway, sit down and wheel himself from the suburbs to his work downtown, even going so far as taking the thing into a building, up the elevator, and to his desk. A wave of giggles and jibes drifted across the crowd:
"Yeah, for the three months that it's actually warm here."
"That thing on the street with Chicago drivers? Ha!"
"Um, What about when it rains?"
The video goes on to show the guy riding his i-REAL to meet his date at an outdoor cafe. After dinner and drinks, they ride off hand-in-hand along the waterfront.
I was reminded of the humans on board the Axiom in Wall-E. Generations of never rising from their BnL HoverChairs left them with a serious obesity problem and practically vestigial legs.
Is this the future that Toyota wants for us?
Some of the other concept Toyota vehicles looked vaguely interesting, but again, you couldn't even touch them, let alone sit in them.
The only bright spot was Mind Ball, a game in which two players strap on headbands that read their brain waves. A computer uses the readings to control a ball's movement across the game table. The object is to relax your mind so that the ball moves toward your opponent; when the ball crosses the line near your opponent, you win.
Just before sitting down at the table, I took a few deep breaths and put myself into the same state of mind that I do while meditating. Sure enough, I was able to keep my thoughts calm during the match and handily won.
The Mind Ball attendant looked at me with respect and said, "Man, you're like some kind of Zen warrior or something." That felt good.
While Mind Ball is interesting in its application of biofeedback, it's more interesting as a game concept: the stronger you concentrate on competing, the worse off you are. So relaxing and freeing yourself from expectation is the key to the game.
And for NextFest itself.
Comments
Bruce McIntire
10/24/2008
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