Nextfest for Idiots:
So I only managed to do one of the activities I had in my sights this weekend and took in Nextfest with my buddy Bradley. 6 huge pavilions were packed rather snuggly into Fort Mason where I usually go to buy used books or the occassional piece of craft. Each exhibit section made a bold pronouncement: The Future of Design, The Future of Transportation, The Future of Health. After an hour of being wowed, Bradley and I came to the same conclusion…
The future is not for people like us.
Oh sure, we gawked at what NASA has in mind for the inexpensive robot explorer and were appropriately reverent at advances being made in heart transplants. But ya know what really got us?
Dodgeball.
On a far wall of the hall, some company had set up a wall which two teams stand on either side of. A projector allows you to see the other team on your side of the wall with a series of digitized glass panels over them. The object is to throw or kick a ball at those glass panels and “break” through to the other side. Whoever shatters more panels wins. It’s dodgeball where the target is pixels instead of flesh and bone.
What a wonderous place the future will be.