Hello San Diego Futurists!

As you guys aren't having a San Diego meeting this month, we'd like
to invite any and all to come hang out with us this Friday at our
Santa Monica Salon.

Bring sleeping bags if you'd like to camp out on the floor of a
Fellow Futurist on Friday night, and perhaps explore L.A. on
Saturday before you head back to sunny S.D.

Come let us know what great new things are going on in your life,
and bring articles to share.

We had an amazing conference last month at Stanford. 300+ really
interesting attendees, and a lot of great press coverage. Visit
http://accelerating.org/ac2004 if you'd like to see PowerPoint
slides of our distinguished speakers. Audio of their talks will be
available for free download later this month at ITConversations.com,
and DVDs will be available for sale in January.

Lots of fantastic innovation going on globally these days, in China,
India, and even the good old U.S.A. Have you heard of Nuclear Piezo
Microbatteries? They look poised to come into use in a wide range of
miniaturized sensor and effector systems. We may even see them in
high-end laptops and cellphones later this decade. This is one of
the few technologies in portable power that can create *thousands*
of times greater energy density than existing chemical battery
sources. You can find fabulous writeup on these at:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/sep04/0904nuc.html
Thanks to IBMer and AC2004 Speaker Jim Spohrer for the reference.

LA Futurists December Salon:

Dec 10th, 2nd Floor: Events Room, 7:00-9:30pm
Barnes and Noble, Santa Monica Promenade (3rd and Wilshire).
Parking available at 4th and Wilshire (Structure 1), $3 after 6pm.

New member intros, catchup, and article sharing about our
accelerating world.(7:00pm)

Theme: Virtual Worlds and Video Games
Our Featured Book:
What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, James
Paul Gee, 2004
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?
isbn=1403965382
James Paul Gee begins his new book with "I want to talk about video
games--yes, even violent video games--and say some positive things
about them." One of America's most well-respected professors of
education looks seriously at the good that can come from playing
video games, our most popular new form of electronic education.

Speaker 1: Jerry Paffendorf, Director, ISAC. (7:30-8:30pm)
Rise of the Virtual-to-Real Labor Force: 5 Free Ideas—from Underwear
to Architecture
The trading of virtual goods and services inside of massively multi-
player online environments is a rapidly growing, $8 million dollar
annual industry. In some of these "persistent worlds," like Second
Life (http://secondlife.com/), inhabitants own copyright on their
user-created content. In many cases, the virtual goods and services
traded are only useful within the context of the virtual world they
come from. But something of much wider significance is also
beginning to happen: items first prototyped in virtual worlds are
being manufactured in the real world, and items manufactured in the
real world are being reconstructed in and sold through the virtual
world. This presentation will quickly introduce pros and cons of
prototyping in massively multi-user versus stand-alone software
environments, give examples of virtual world prototyping thus far,
examine some emerging technologies that will facilitate this virtual-
to-real exchange, and suggest several business ideas dying to be
worked on today.

Jerry Paffendorf is the Conference Director at the Institute for the
Study of Accelerating Change (http://accelerating.org). He has an
undergraduate degree in Fine Arts (video and mixed-media
installation) from Montclair State University in New Jersey, and an
M.S. degree in Studies of the Future from the University of Houston-
Clear Lake. His recent concentration has been in the study of
collaborative virtual environments and massively multi-player online
games that interact with the real world–a subject he's presented on
at four major conferences since April.

Speaker 2: Nolan Bushnell, Founder and CEO of Atari, Chuck E.
Cheese's Pizza Time Theater, and uWink Entertainment Systems. (8:30-
9:30pm)
From Video Games to Family Fun Spaces... and Back Again
Come listen to digital entertainment industry veteran Nolan Bushnell
discuss his experiences with Atari Inc. during the genesis of the
video game industry, his project creating a national networks of
child's fun havens, Chuck E. Cheese's, and his newest challenge,
uWink Entertainment Systems, a global network of touch screen video
game terminals, entertainment vending machines, and lottery and
gaming kiosks. A unique opportunity to learn practical tips from a
very experienced and courageous business innovator!

Mr. Bushnell founded and was CEO of Atari Corporation, a
manufacturer of video games, from 1971 to 1978. He founded and
served as CEO of Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater, a restaurant
chain featuring electronic entertainment, from 1977 to 1983. From
1983 to 1986, Mr. Bushnell served as the sole proprietor of Catalyst
Technologies, a source of technical advice and venture capital for
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, where he erved as Chairman for several
Catalyst companies, such as ETAK, Androbot, ByVideo, Magnum
Microwave, Axlon and Octus. He has been CEO of uWink Entertainment
Systems since 2000.

We will go to dinner afterward at a local restaurant for those
socially and culinarily inclined. Come join us for a fun and
enlightening evening!

Warmly,


John Smart
Moderator, L.A. Futurists


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