That was mega-inspiring and super fun to see an author I enjoy give so entertaining a talk.

Gillian Crampton Smith's talk was very interesting as well, particularly for fans of Arduino, Wiring, and Processing.

I saw Bruce give precursor of this talk at Art Center in Pasadena. It's remarkable to see how much further it's come along.

Rock on, Bruce.

And I dig that crazy shirt.

What? I live in this Potsdam town and only read about this event here, now that it's too late?
I really should pay more attention to what's going on around my town.

From someone who doesn't have a full forty minutes (today) to watch this, what is the time-stamp for "the litany of devices that the mobile phone has replaced"?

@AGENT_86: It starts on the mark of minute 13.

thank you Javier, that is the kind of valuable courtesy I appreciate

Wow Bruce Sterling sounds like Jello Biafra. I mean really, eerily similar.

Every time I watch/hear Bruce talk, I get two opposite reactions, he is describing a world that every conspiracy theorist has told me to be intimately scared of at a fundamental level, and yet he makes me want it. Want it at such a level that I wonder why it isn't here already.

thx for the Jello Biafra ref; that inspired about an hour of watching cool JB clips on youtube.

Another supercool moment from the conference footage: During Bill Moggridge's talk on (history/origins of) interaction design, he shows a video clip of Bill Verplank explaining interaction design while sketching out his explanation - brilliant - at about 23:40

Well, I know where the next 2-3 hours are going. It had somehow never occurred to me that I might be able to watch Jello Biafra on youtube.

'Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign' We must stop this relentless war against the spacecharacter, the Dutch and Germans will soon encirclethe earth with their insidiousplan unless westopthem ohononononono

Wow; am I the only one who couldn't make it past his delivery style? It's like hearing a semiotics professor talk about digital media using a made-up vocabulary while doing a Harry Caray impression. Somebody should totally invent a sketch comedy character based on him. It'd be like the futurist media guru version of Pootie Tang.

@UltraBob +1

@SuperElectric: all those that have mentioned Jello Biafra here know exactly what you are talking about. It's can be unnerving and a real struggle. BUT, wow, is it worth it. Same goes with Jello.

His weird speech may be the reason Sterling became a writer in the first place. You know, bullies making fun of him in school, not getting any dates, etc. If he could speak like Jame Earl Jones, he probably wouldn't have become the quintessential ubernerd.

I just want to say, for the record:

Bruce Sterling is a brilliant visionary, and I agree with almost everything he says here.

But he is totally wrong about augmented reality. Why the fuck do I want to pull out my cell phone and point it at my toothbrush while pushing the "tell me more" button, then read the information on that crappy, tiny screen?

I want to just point at the toothbrush with the "tell me more" gesture, and see the "more" on a (nearly) full vision display apparently floating in the air, possibly with a cursor overlaid for my hand so I can scroll around & click stuff.

Also, more importantly, when someone walking towards me is a known mugger, or the guy in the car in front of me is a known drunk driver, I want to just see the warning. I *do not* want to hear an alarm on my cell phone, pull it out, & wave it around looking for the thing that triggered the alert.

If pulling out a cell phone and fiddling with the buttons & displays is so keen, why is everyone buying bluetooth earpieces?

Finally, @13 Beaneater +1