J&R’s Wired NextFest Coverage

After taking a few days off, we went to WIRED magazine’s latest NextFest. This annual technology convention is an attempt at bringing the latest tech out of the labs and in front of the masses. It’s science fiction made fact, as things you’d only expect to see in movies or read about in sci-fi books are right there in front of you, just waiting to be played with. For 3 glorious days, you get to live in the future.

NextFest is WIRED’s attempt to revive the spirit of the World’s Fair. Those great festivals celebrated technology and displayed it to ordinary people, often for the very first time. This year, over 100 exhibits displayed the bleeding edge in technology, covering everything from space exploration to green energy solutions. Every new idea, no matter how crazy, outlandish or impractical, gets a chance to shine.

It’s clear that some of these things were built just for fun, like the E-TAF automatic door. It’s a doorway that changes shape to match the size of whoever’s walking through it. Fun idea, and as a technical accomplishment it’s great, but we don’t see people installing these in their homes anytime soon. One that people might go for is the Nabaztag, a wi-fi robot bunny. (That sentence looks so weird when you’re typing it.) It’s kind of hard to explain what this does, so here’s the link to their site. The kids really seemed to go for that one, along with “Kick Ass Kung-Fu”, a fighting game that turns you into your favorite Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat character. You’ll get to punch and kick your way through a world of tough guys and prove you’re the toughest, and you’ll actually work up a sweat while doing it. It’s fun, and addictive judging by the line of teenage boys waiting to play it. The system costs around $40,000 so don’t expect to see it at your local arcade for a while.

NASA made an impressive showing at NextFest, detailing what think will be the future of space travel. There were a ton of Mars exhibits, the Ares (an airplane designed to be flown on Mars), new spacesuits & spaceship designs, even a full-scale model of the Martian Exploration Rovers that are still sending us pictures. There was even a “Robonaut” designed to work side-by-side with humans on a future space colony. It was pretty wild, but SpaceShipTwo was even wilder. It’s the latest idea from Richard Branson, the same guy who plans on launching Virgin Galactic, a space vacation cruise. The interior of SpaceShipTwo was incredibly stylish and, if it actually gets off the ground, will provide space-cruisers with the luxury you’d need beyond the atmosphere. We’ll find out for sure when they start test flights next year.

Repliee The Japanese exhibitions blew us away with their advanced robotics — though, sadly, none of the women from that weird workout video appeared. The Kokoro Company introduced Repliee (see photo), a robot news personality. It showed more life than some CNN anchors we’ve seen. Tohoku University showed off its famous ballroom-dancing robot. There was even an adorable robot baby seal on display. Apparently, they’re for giving elderly people physical therapy, but we don’t care, we want one. Too bad they cost around $3,500. (That’s still cheaper than the robot news anchor & dance partner — both went for $300,000. You could rent Repliee for a ‘more reasonable’ $800 per day, though.)

At NextFest we saw the future and had a great time doing it. With any luck, when the future arrives it’ll be as fun and interesting as this past weekend.

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