I've just returned from Pop!Tech in Maine and it was a wonderful experience. It's very different from other conferences, with the focus not on selling products or technology but on discussing progressive ideas from various fields like Green design, globalization, technology integration, religion, etc. There is a very open community during the event, with tickets limited to 500, talking to other thought leaders, participants and presenters during the 4 days is very easy and encouraged.

Almost every presenter brought a focused and specialized viewpoint to the table. It was enjoyable to see every one of them. Here are some highlights.

Brian Eno (influencial musician/producer, invented modern Ambient genre and produced for Talking Heads and U2): talked about minimalism and art. How the process of interpretation lives within the viewer's brain and that there really isn't much physically needed to trigger ideas and to communicate.

Will Wright (Creator of SimCity, SimLife, The Sims, and the whole catalog of reality simulations): talked about how as game productions have increased that more and more resources have been assigned to content development, and that is where his games are trying to reverse. He is creating games that set up a structure that allow the player to create the content for it. Then he demo'd his newest game called "Spore" where the player can create their own creature and go through the whole evolution process from multiplication to intelligence and then to exploring other planets, all the while other people are doing the same thing, so you end up meeting thousands of different creatures created by other people at various levels of development.

Tom Friedman (3 time Pulitzer Prize winner, NYTimes foreign affairs columnist): Energy is directly linked to the geopolitical situation. We are funding both sides of the War on Terror. Our dependence on foreign oil funds terrorism. China, India, etc are all developing and they want the “American Dream” cars, house, washer, etc. but if they follow our same energy model the world cannot sustain itself. Green industry will be THE industry out of necessity. China will go green because it has to, and that will mean trouble for the US when all the green innovations are coming from China. If you think we are having problems now with all the labor coming out of China, think what will happen when all the innovations are coming out of there too. The richest man in China now is a solar power engineer. For the sake of our culture and the US we need to rebrand Green as progressive, innovative, and aligned with capitalism.

Also in this section of speakers was Lester Brown (MacArthur Fellow, Earth Policy Institute): The new economy is where the new energy sources are. Cars can pretty much run on anything, but there is no awareness at the federal, US, or even global level to track biofuel manufacturing, demand and development. There is no one in charge of this. The key to restructuring the global economy is getting the market to tell the truth. (for instance, the price of oil does not take into consideration the cost of the EFFECTS of using oil; such as pollution, disease, ecological costs, etc.)

Socialism collapsed because it did not tell the economic truth.
Capitalism could collapse because it does not tell the ecological truth.

Kevin Kelly (Founder of Wired magazine): Technological Determinism. All the machines in the world are connected and form one large machine. In essense, we are developing and nurturing a super machine. There are 1 trillion links on the web and there are around 1 trillion links/synapses in the brain. And he goes on to make comparisons to many other parameters that are similar between the web and the brain, but states that our brains aren't doubling in power every 2 years. Does technology have it's own agenda? Kelly makes the case for viewing technology as a seperate entity thriving and developing with it's own agenda.

Richard Dawkins (Oxford University): Faith is the belief in the absense of evidence. Faith is hereditary and a childhood indoctrination.There is no such thing as a Catholic Child, only a child with Catholic Parents. Religion has been uniquely allowed to map children's behavoiur. Science has often been accused of arrogant certainty, but what about Religion and Faith? It's ridiculous to think that Faith has been expected to be treated with respect ("We have to respect their Faith") when we are critical of everything (government, art, etc). We must be critical of Faith. We must believe in the truth and promote people to live in a world of truth not of faith. Faith is a virus.

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Also later in the conference, it was great to see Clifford Ross present the highest resolution camera in the world (100 megapixels) along with his 360 degree video camera.

Also there were some great performances by Jazz Musician Jason Moran, and electronic performance artist Reggie Watts.

At the closing gala on Saturday night I did an installation using the 3D Display Cubes in a similar way as NextFest in New York. 14 Display Cubes were linked together to create a large 3D Display that spelled the words "Pop!Tech" in spinning letters with various other spatial animations. The response was very enthusiastic at seeing the Cubes at work. It's always great to let people see these works in person as it's difficult to get the real sense of space from viewing the pictures on there web or press.