I can’t tell you how many people came through the water exhibit, concerned about the condition of the world’s water supplies. Good thing GE Water & Process Technologies has ecomagination products to treat those distressed water situations. While this afternoon still brought many gamers to the booth to play our water game, it also brought by a lot of philosophical folks ready to discuss solutions for water scarcity, conservation and reuse. Just as the NextFest gamers learned, we desalinate water so the people in Algiers get water every day instead suffering through frequent water outages. We reclaim municipal wastewater so it can be used for irrigation and industrial use in Kuwait. We find alternative water sources so a refinery could expand in Australia. Everyday, we’re solving the world’s water problems and that makes me and those philosophical folks feel a whole lot better. To find out more on ecomagination visit http://ge.ecomagination.com

Here’s a concept. A shirt that loves you back!!! As you walk into the NEXTFEST exhibit you come across two seemingly ordinary mannequins with matching garbs. But what you’re seeing is the HUGABLE SHIRT from WEARABLE Design. When you wear it, and hug yourself, your partner wearing the shirt will feel the hug. How does it work? shirt has removable sensors and java-enabled cell phones that send a temperature and pressure simulated hug to the sensors in your shirt. The future of relationships start here!

Okay, it’s the end of day 2 and having spent the last nine hours on my feet on the cold, hard concrete, well, you get the idea from my header. Today was mostly spent talking to people on our GE Healthcare demonstrations. Mobs of school kids were here and were equally as jazzed as yesterday. Although I’m fatigued, it’s still great to see the enthusiasm and sparks that occur when the kids “get it.”

I’ve had some time to walk around the floor and check out the technologies. Robots are a big theme here this year and the one that caught my attention was the hyper-realistic Japanese female robot. I was able to observe some of the demonstration, but enough to see how realistic some of her movements and expressions looked. It’s amazing how far they have taken this technology. One can only wonder when the porn industry starts investing some dollars.

On a more personal note, I was able to get an autograph from a real-life astronaut from the last space shuttle mission. Stephanie Wilson is a female, African American, astronaut who wrote a note to my adopted son Jackson, who also happens to be African-American, “Reach for the Stars!” It will be great for me to give that photo to Jackson when he is a bit older to help communicate the idea that he should strive to reach his dreams.

That’s it for me today. Peace.

A day at NextFest makes you think about how far technology has already taken us …and, maybe more importantly, how many exciting possibilities are still waiting to emerge.

From the next generation of space exploration to a shirt that can send a virtual hug to a loved one from your cell phone, there are so many things to see for the first time here that could become part of everyday life before we know it.

It’s great to see the schools in the NYC area taking advantage of this technology showcase event. There have been a lot of kids and teachers in attendance.

I’ve been working at GE’s Cleaner Coal IGCC display. It’s been a riot watching the kids play the video game we created to explain the Cleaner Coal process! (Coming soon to GE Energy’s website…) My favorite was the fifth grader who made up a little song about fighting pollution.

Everyone’s interest in this technology and enthusiasm for a way for power producers can generate cleaner electricity from coal has been impressive, and their questions have been very thoughtful. Still, I was a bit surprised some of the kids were drawing diagrams of the IGCC process instead of watching robots …until one of their teachers explained IGCC may show up as a question on a pop quiz.

After enough time at NEXTFEST to say I’ve gained at lease a cursory understanding of all the exhibits, I’ve come to one conclusion: The world of the future will run on video projectors. Now I’m not one to draw conclusions without collecting data. So, I counted them…as many of them as I could find. There are over 150 exhibits at NEXTFEST and 30 of them use a projector in some way. That’s 20%! If I counted each individual projector that number would be much higher (GE’s Go Big Interactive Video Wall uses four by itself).

My favorite projector-aided exhibit thus far is Sound Flakes an interactive experience that involves water faucets “dripping� colored shapes that can be stirred and lifted from the basin with a ladle. While playing with the flakes was fun, the real exciting part will be engaging my colleagues at edgelab in the quest to figure out how GE can use this art project to make our business stronger.

So is a world full of projectors something to look forward to? Judging by the amount of verbal approval (at NEXTFEST that translates to “oohs�, “aahs�, and “cools�), I’d say so. Well, at least until that $600 bulb burns out.

I never see the famous people. I always hear about later.

First, I missed Sir Richard Branson. But at least I got to see the Virgin Spaceship. Yet, I wasn’t daring enough to call it cute and hug it like some people did.

Then, I saw that David Byrne was here. Seriously? Rock stars?

The heartbreak, the one my parents will never let me live down, is missing Ron Howard. Yep, Ron Howard was here to see the Robots.

Back to the ooohing and Aaaaahing…

Interactive games are the rage at NextFest. One of the more challenging games was BrainBall, which is based on your ability to relax. Players strap on a fabric headband with small metal disk against their forehead and sit in front of a thin plexiglass table with a small round ball in the center. The table resembles a basketball court, but instead of hoops at each end are simple painted round circles. The object of the game is move the ball into the circle near your opponent—-and you move the ball by reducing your brain waves or relaxing.

As a competitive person, I had enormous issues trying to relax my brain waves and was beat each time by my opponent who said he was told her was a pretty laid back person. He and his daughter faced off and the competition was very interesting as the ball barely moved between the two.

Later in the day, some fellow GE employees played the game and the brain movement was at some of its highest levels.

So if you see this game elsewhere, give it shot—-but remember—-don’t think about this as a competition. Instead, focus on relaxing and you’ll be able to beat the pants off your opponent.

Brainball measures how relaxed you are. Think of it as air hockey for your brain. The strip across that guy’s head measures your relaxation—and then pushes the ball towards your opponent. The goal is to push into your opponents goal on the end of the table. I was excellent at it yesterday—-which means that I’m either very relaxed or my opponent was not.

Well … if you’re a fan of really big rooms with lots and lots of wires, this place is for you. I just finished doing Tai Chi with Robo-Einstein and boy, are my arms tired!

There were some cuddly-looking cat-type things that moved and purred when you held them (my cat could use some consulting from these guys!) and virtual drinks that leave you thirsty after each cup.

But, the diversity of technologies and overall “cool factor� at this conference is amazing – if you stand still and open your ears, you can hear scores of “ah’s� and “wow’s� and kids from 1 to 92 are mesmerized by the atmosphere.

Today (Friday), I spent some of the day manning GE’s Healthcare Pavilion, where we were demonstrating technologies like LightSpace’s DepthCube and Mitsubishi’s DiamondSpin, both of which can be used to manipulate and display medical images. On the other side of the floor is a vein finder, which may just be your best friend next time you visit your doctor.

If you like Tai Chi, Einstein, or even robotic ballroom dancers, this is the place for you!

This isn’t a GE product - but it’s fascinating. Anyone who’s ever gotten an IV knows how unpleasant the process can be. The Veinviewer is fast (no waiting for a scan) and uses simple near-infrared light, a digital video camera, and a digital video projector (using DLP technology from Texas Instruments) to project onto your skin an image of the vein structure below. It’s tough to overstate how simple and easy this is.

One of the best things about NextFest is that sometimes you see things and say, “I just don’t understand.” But that’s just it - NextFest is a place where you don’t have to fully grok the technology to appreciate it. And in that tradition, I present Conspiratio - a “novel VR system that allows users to virtually experience the sensations of drinking.”

In short, the straw creates pressure changes inside the mouth that resemble the feeling you get when take a drink. Additionally, when the speaker creates sounds - the vibrations are also transmitted to the lips.

Conspiratio - we don’t really get it, but we’re glad there’s people thinking about things we don’t understand.

What do a robotic dancing Asian woman, Albert Einstein in a space suit, an automated bartender that made the worst drink I have ever tasted, and me have in common? We are all at NextFest!

I feel like I am a kid in a candy store, except for that fact that thousands of other school children are here who to my dismay are a little more eager than I to push their way to the front of the line try out some new technology.

I am not that old at all really. I was in Middle School when I logged on to the internet, but wow, these kids are in elementary school and are playing with technology that can put them inside of video games. In ten years when they are my age will they be teleporting people here?

I got my picture taken by a 3-D camera and a heat sensing camera and found out that nose is larger than I thought and colder than the rest of my body…compelling I know!

Okay, will be back for more after I play with more gadgets!

We have had so many visitors stop by today to ask about how GE Water & Process Technologies helps the environment. We have awesome solutions to tell them about! For example one guy came by and wanted to know all about what we do for the dirty water industry makes. GE can take a wastewater stream and separate out the contaminants so that only pure water is discharged to the environment. That’s ecomagination in action. Another lady was excited that GE is working on technologies improve our world’s water. Afterall we have the same amount of water that we had billions of years ago…it’s just dirtier from use. There are still a lot of school groups (and the adult big kids too) that are coming by to play the Water game. You’ll be happy to know that these educational water games are going to be online after Wired NextFest. To find out more about our solutions for water visit our website (www.gewater.com.).

“Television viewership is up from last year.” Jeff Zucker said to a semi-packed audience listening to the on going debate of whether Web Video is the demise or savior of traditional TV.

The panelist, most of which were from major network or cable TV, except one who was from Google Video seem to think it will usually only aide television.

I was sitting in my chair thinking, “Oh my God, who would have ever thought that the viewer would ever be the biggest competition to TV.” No one said that on the panel, but major networks are no longer the sole provider of content and that is what is so exciting about being in the TV industry today.

The president of Pepsi does not have to worry that a guy in Texas will present a better tasting cola, but that same guy could get bored one day pull out his video cell phone make an obnoxious 2 minute video upload it to YouTube or Google Video and it become an instant hit across the nation! However, Larry Kramer of CBS made a good point that success for the internet can mean much lower viewers than network TV, but for how much longer?

I think the dialogue was amazing. The panelist you can tell really have a grip on what is happening and are also hanging on for dear life to stay afloat in the ever changing world of TV.

I know there are challenges to come, but that is what I love about TV…the never ending stress of making things entertaining. Not perfect, because if you look at YouTube, perfect things aren’t popular.

I look forward to a day that after work I come home sit on the couch check my email, watch some crazy viral video, and then watch The Office all from my TV and that will happen soon, atleast I hope!

Lots of good stuff on the agenda. Found out about an electronic pet that responds to human movement and reacts accordingly. There is a great music exhibit taking place this evening as well.

Great hit for WIRED and GE on Rocketboom, a popular video log. The crew from the show came by NEXTFEST yesterday and spent a lot of time at “Edison’s Desk” with GE’s researchers.