The future's bright. The future's useless.

After two days of presentations and for the most part being asked "is television dead?", Emma and I decided to leave the 'Buzz Hall' of Cross Media Week's main conference building for the 'Tree House', and a line-up of speakers and presentations very much more alive.

'New Interfaces - How to interact with a connected world' presented the studies and developments of four scientists working in the field of advanced media interfaces.

The most impressive was John Underkoffler, inventor of g-speak gestural interface technology and advisor to Steven Spielberg. G-speak replaces a conventional computer mouse with a glove that allows the user to point, push, pull and grab objects within a 3D graphical user interface.

If John de Mol was right yesterday and "the meaning is in the use," what followed was impressive but mostly meaningless presentations. Dr. Emile Aarts from Philips Research Laboratories premiered LED technology that lit a room according to scenes in a film, placing the viewer in an immersive environment; a collaborative canvas on which two children could virtually paint together and thus, to quote Dr. Aarts, "be kept off the streets, and from smacking one another"; and, the most useless of all, LED fabric apparently best demonstrated by a soft cushion that bore a pink glowing heart.

Though I won't be running out to buy one of those, if Jo Reid from HP Labs gets her way school children will be running from creatures great and small as she subjects them to what she calls, "Virtual Experience Environments" - or what anyone else might call, "placing small children in horrifying situations." The technology allows schools to advance their pupils by allowing them to walk around existing environments, such as playgrounds and parks, and make them virtual by attaching audio and video feeds of scenes from the Discovery Channel: riots in Northern Ireland, hunting in the Savannah, the Second World War.

The future's bright, I thought to myself. It's also a little bit useless.

This is a low

There's an old Indian saying - "do not judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins." That's a lot of moonwalking and, when you're in the Netherlands, an uncomfortable trot in wooden clogs.

Nevertheless, I squeezed into a pair (metaphorically, of course) and trotted to an infamous 'coffee shop' in the Red Light District. (Where else would I suggest when accompanying my boss on a business trip?)

It was horribly garish. And utterly uninspired. A Rastafarian at the counter, toad stools for chairs and Japanese tourists sucking on spliffs, making peace signs for pictures.

The 'buffalo soldier' at the bar turned down the music, the crowd sang loudly and while everyone else got high I thought to myself, this is a low.

The Week that Lies Ahead

On the journey from Shrewsbury to Amsterdam my boss, Emma, asked what I had hoped to see in the week that lay ahead. I thought for a moment and answered, "clogs...drugs...and whores."
"Right," she responded. "I sort of meant at the conference...?"
"Yeah, of course," I said, sheepishly. "Um..."

We're here for Picnic '06, Amsterdam's annual event for people interested and involved in cross media content and technology. It's part of Cross Media Week and, by the looks of its programme (which includes keynote presentations from MTV, Pixar, and craigslist.org) should be fantastic.

In the spirit of 'cross media', 'web 2.0' and other sort of faddish buzzwords, I'll be keeping you updated via my blog and my Flickr, bringing you highlights of the conference and whatever else I might see in the week that lies ahead.

Lip Service

If you know me - even a little bit - you'll know of my extravagant, financially crippling, twice daily trips to Marks & Spencer. It's the reason my fridge is full of fancies, my cupboards stupendously stocked and my bank balance below the black. I take pride in having turned around an ailing company, but yesterday - after yet another social faux pas (and expensive lunch) - had very little to be proud of.

You see, I am so often in M&S that I consider it a sort of home from home. So when I see a familiar face I greet them as host - if a very rude, somewhat offensive host.

I was on my way out of the shop yesterday when I saw one such familiar face - or rather, back of head - perusing the cake section of the food hall. In my home of course, inappropriate jokes are the norm and so I walked up from behind and close to her ear said, "a moment on the lips," at which point she turned around and I realised that she was not Jane Robbins, mother of Bill and Kate Mohin but absolute stranger and, frankly, offended lady.

"Excuse me?" she said.

I had started, I thought. Should I finish? 'A lifetime on the hips' then slap her on the arse and stroll off? I couldn't do that. I couldn't do anything. I just froze. With all the confidence with which I had approached her it didn't even seem that I had mistook her for someone else. It looked like I was some kind of fat police, patrolling the cake section warning people off their desserts. I might as well have said, "you've had enough, fatty. Do you really think you ought to be buying cake?"

I thought all this as I stood there, going red before this not unattractive yet very offended lady. And so, like the policeman of my imagination, sort of smiled and bobbed as I walked away. As I did I saw her put the cake back on the shelf. It was a little thing. But yes, I suppose it did make me feel a little bit proud.

Surely, quote of the day.

"They wanted to set an example out of me... Who knew the black buck? I mean today because of me, people know there's an endangered species of deer called black buck, well it's actually an antelope."

Salman Khan
BBC News