Here are some snapshots I took at Wired Magazine's NextFest this weekend. At left, a young man named Cameron Clapp who became a triple amputee at age 15 in a train accident. He now uses "smart" prosthetic limbs that have to be charged up at night like a cell phone. The computer-aided devices give him greater mobility and independence than conventional prosthetics — he's a champion amputee athlete.
Other memorable moments — Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson asks NASA Space Architect Gary Martin about the search for life "out there;" Martin says, "It would be even more frightening if we never find life out there — it would mean that we are entirely alone, in a very big universe."
Andrew Stanton from Pixar pulled aside the curtain to give us a glimpse into the creative process behind Toy Story and other blockbuster CGI features. Wired entertainment editor Jennifer Hillner hosted exclusive previews of mindblowingly cool footage from the forthcoming Fox/Blue Sky Studios animated feature Robots (due out Spring 2005), and from the CGI/bluescreen project Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (opening this September). Sunday ended in an incredible roundtable discussion with space entrepreneurs including ID/Quake/Doom software wizard John Carmack; Space Adventures CEO Eric Anderson, Xcor CEO Jeff Greason, and Xprize founder Peter Diamandis. News there included never-before-seen footage of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne, and of a new R+D effort from Carmack.
Link to Xeni's gallery of NextFest snapshots.
Update: Looks like John Dvorak had a good time, too: Link to PC Magazine article, and Dvorak's snapshot gallery. Extreme Tech also covered the event; story and two photo galleries are online here.
