The thing about an event that bills itself as a look into the future is that people come prepared to be wowed.

So, when Murray - my eight year old - and I trucked to the Javits Center at 8:30 on a Sunday Morning, we had pretty high expectations. The Wired Magazine Nextfest didn't disappoint.

In fact - there were some things that were absolutely amazing.

I'm not sure why - but we were drawn magnetically to Robot's Row, and there we saw a number of robots that seems almost ready for prime-time. There was the Honda Robot with the strangly attached Einstein's head. There was the ReActor (a female humanoid who promised to answer the phone and be a receptionist), and there were a number of single purpose robots (the Bartender Robot was my favorite). And then a number of less human looking, but very impressive industrial robots that were spinning records, building things, and even a 'robot shoot-out' with a stadium and teams of high school robot makers. But the thing that blew me away was the articulated hands that were being demo'd off in the corner. One was connected to a glove, and as the demonstrator wiggled his fingers, the digits on the hand moved in perfect synchronization. The other - using the same hand - was connected to a camera. As i put my hand in front of the camera, the camera fed the image to a computer that observed my hand and fingers, and i was able to control the hand simply by moving my hand in the air. It was very precise, and very impressive.

We skipped the automotive and health care paviliions, since the auto stuff seemed more like a car show than a tech show. And our next stop was the future of entertainment. There were tons of exhibits here, and lots having to do with people interactive with large scale video environments. Murray totallly loved this - and had a ton of fun playing soccer, air hockey, and a bunch of other very physical virtual games. The most interesting was a actual rock wall - with handgrips that lit up. Murray had to scramble up the wall (as the light was often near the top of the wall, hit the lit up hand grip, and then go searching for the next lit object. You could tell that the wall had some logic about how and were it put the next challenge, and Murray was more than happy to battle the wall and win points. Very cool.

Last but not least were a whole series of less practical but more theoretical visions. Pieces of art that changed with their environment, a 3d 'host' that welcomed you (but complained if you tried to comb her hair). Very Japanse - not sure why i would have tried to comb her hair except that the sign told me to. Finally - the Nasa exhibit, that was full of space suits and - surprise - a User-Generated Video Contest.

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/NASA_greatest_fan/index_noaccess.html