ETech San Diego Update - Gamers and New Technology

There is NO turning back - we have unleashed the most intergated lifestyle leveraging technology. It is so embedded in our lives that it will be had to tell exaclty what the impact will be on our lives globally.

The organizers of the O'Reilly ETech conference examined this topic at their sixth annual gathering on emerging technology. The confab, which is held for four days in San Diego, drew more than 1,000 technologists, including game designers, hackers and Web executives.

WHO WERE THE SPEAKERS -
Apple designer Ron Brinkmann, Google's map software engineer Barry Brumitt, and Palm founder Jeff Hawkins, who will talk about his newest venture in artificially intelligent computing.

Marc Hedlund, founder and chief product officer at personal finance upstart Wesabe and former founder of Lucas Online. This was the Internet subsidiary of Lucasfilm. He talked about how to develop Web 2.0 applications that protect people's privacy. The take away- Wesabe's goal is to collate and manage people's personal finances in a secure site

Jane McGonigal of Institute for the Future, the lead game designer, talked about how collaborative, reality-based games are integrating with societal issues. This will be an ongoing battle I am sure.

Brinkmann, Apple designer of things like graphics software Shake, talked about how high-end computer graphics are intergating with our daily lives. Well - we all know we already cannot live without the BlackBerry or palm...much less a cell phone.