Core77

Here, creativity is exemplified by new, more efficient, compelling, and joy-giving ways to re-think what already exists. Caleb Chung, who brought us the infamous, market-blasting, loved and hated (but you know you really love it) Furby, unraveled the wonderful Furby story, and best of all, told the story of how Pleo came about as a dream to recreate life using technology. Chung stressed our need to feel empathy and how Pleo embodies form, adaptability, lifelike sensory action and reaction, and evolution (and motors and software) to nurture that necessity. With an open source operating system and development kits, Pleo truly aims to exist for the people. And yes, it should be on shelves for the holidays for an intro price of around $349.

John Shearer of of Powercast has one simple goal to make wireless a truth within itself. While we currently use a plethora of "wireless" objects that often require wires in one way or another, there is a lot of room for optimization. Shearer explains the simple process of wireless energy transmission : "sending electricity through the air from one point to another," and that the next step is to harvest what's already out there. Shearer and Powercast have embarked on what he claims to soon be a reality--a truly wireless world where one wireless object will feed another, and vice versa, to and from unexpected sources, and most importantly, without wires.

Sheila Kennedy also stressed the importance of wireless transmission, but only as one of many requirements within the realm of Portable Light, an eye-opening global initiative to develop a completely self-sustained light engine that is wireless, self-contained, and uses renewable power. Portable Light reconsiders the scale of power. Small amounts go a long way; a principle well allegorized by fireflies whose minuteness can and should be seen as an asset rather than a liability. Resourcing components from already existing products, like LEDs used in crosswalk signals, flexible waterproof membrane switches found in dishwashers, and the rechargeable LI batteries found in cellphones and many other gadgets, then paired with it's digital brain (a chip), the device was realized quickly with no need to develop new parts or technologies. The flexible solar energy-harvesting base material is flexible, durable, adaptable, wireless, and portable. The simple application of digital intelligence allows gathered units to work together and power up at an accelerated rate and also borrow and share energy to level out as a group during use. Portable Light is a simple, accessible, and need-focused system that aims to bring to a vast majority of the world's population something we in the upper crust often too easily take for granted.

Jessica Hagy stated that she isn't particularly "saving the world," however she's got a funny bone overgrowth, and conveniently, laughter is certainly a vital element in well-being...and there's no better way to end the day than with a yuk and a snort. Her already prolific and fast-growing collection of math/life-inspired diagrams and charts in the form of a blog called Indexed attracts a plethora of nerd-wit fans daily. She treated us with a new, multi-multi-part diagram that associated the most popular college majors to each other, inducing many a head-nod and laugh-out-loud. No description would do it justice so go see for your own bad self.

On that note, so far we'll say that so far, Pop!Tech > awesome.

More tomorrow!