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October 20, 2006 | Oct Oct. 20
Technological innovation, environmental sustainability, and the challenge of evolving beyond our primitive forms both virtual and physical take center stage at the Pop!Tech conference underway today at the Camden Opera house in Maine.

The conference, which is in its tenth year, challenged technologists and thinkers, including Sci-Fi author Bruce Sterling, columnist Thomas Friedman, and Wirededitor-in-chief Chris Anderson, to focus on "Dangerous Ideas." For Sims creator and game designer Will Wright, that meant creating not just virtual worlds, but entire species in one of the most massive, player-created virtual words ever envisioned.

Wright showed off Spore, a PC game which should be released in 2007.

Creating your own creature is as simple as dragging-and dropping various attributes; Wright did it on stage in less than three minutes. The game lets you create evolve a character from a single-celled organism, through civilization, all the way to exploring space and terra-forming planets.

"Playing the game is the process of building this world.

" Wright says. "I don't want players to be Luke Skywalker, I want them to be George Lucas."

A generative game this complex is always in danger of being more like classwork than a game.

Wright says he is aware of the risk, in part because of experience with past games like SimEarth, which replicated a massive complex ecological system. "It was a wonderful simulation," Wright said, "But, as a game, it kind of sucked."

For Hassan Elahi, an artist and assistant professor at Rutgers University, the dangerous idea is the pervasiveness of security and monitoring technologies.

Rather than resist these trends, Elahi cooperates, and even collaborates with these forces to a remarkable degree. After being erroneously detained at the Detroit Airport for National Security reasons, Elahi turned documenting his location into an art form. He photographs every meal, uploads every receipt to the Web, and has even modified his cell phone so that anyone with a Web connection can determine his exact location on the planet.

You can see for yourself here.

"I hacked my phone to track myself," Elahi said. "I don't have to wear an ankle bracelet, but I do it by choice.

"

Elahi says that by flooding intelligence agencies with information, he hopes to subvert their very structure. "I am perfectly OK opening up by whole life." Elawi says.

"I intended to take this to the point where I have no privacy at all."

This kind of openness has practical considerations as well. As Elahi puts it, "This is also my alibi.

"

Several speakers, including Thomas Friedman and author Lester Brown, spoke about the dangers of global climate change. What about all the carbon dioxide that was expended bringing 500 people to Camden via plane, train and automobile? Some 302.

6 kilograms was produced by this journalist alone! Not to worry. The conference will make itself C02 negative by investing in the Solar Electric Light Fund SELF , which provides clean, CO2 reducing solar technologies to developing nations.

This is what conference speaker and environmental journalist Alex Steffen called "guilt-free affluence." In his presentation, Steffen suggested that being green will soon become a status symbol unto itself. He posits that every person will soon be boasting about their small environmental footprint.

Better still, products themselves should be designed to be disassembled. He used the example of a cell phone that would disassemble itself when put into a 350 degree oven, breaking into easily recyclable components.

According to Steffan, "A bright green and livable future is already here at least in prototype.

"

Pop!Tech runs through Sunday. Video of all the conferences will be streamed live on the conference Web site.

Copyright ? 2006 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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