Keynote: Bruce Sterling about a crappy year

Bruce Sterling (quoting as he speaks, video will be online in some days): “I'm a writer and futurist, so basically a motivator responsible for morale. But: it's going to be a crap year. .. Global warming is a multi-hundred year issue. It's not a problem, it's a way of live. .. Prophecy: A phenomenon you'll certainly be confronted with, and defines the very character of our times, more than you ever wanted to see, be prepared. If you anticipate the developments there, you won't understand very much, but be prepared for the impact. For: Carla Bruni.

Carla Bruni has become the First Lady of France because of a tech summit, a tech summit about preparing artists for the digital age, about civilizing the internet, from a French perspective, repressing P2P networks. So Carla should definitely be here. Futurists would refer to her as a Black Swan, an unpredictable, unsenseable major event. She, the Madame du Barry of a French Digital Renaissance. He, having multiplied his options dramatically, with Carla, carismatic and poetic, untroubled by bourgeois morality, capable of anything .. A story that writes itself, the most single interesting story – there's no choice about a black swan.

A futurists scenario: Let's delimit the possibilities. What are the driving forces? Ambition and publicity. They can not make the press go away, but they can feed it. Not turn the faucet off, but turn it up. So there are two axes: mild/bold and loudly/quietly. What will happen?

1 Low ambition, low publicity The forces of convetionality overwhelm her, Sarkozy is too much for any woman to handle, another public divorce is unthinkable, it ends in tears.

2 Low ambition, high publicity She'll take part respectably in G7 and UN events, release a new pop album, she's pretty and talented, all other First Ladys look like potato sacks – she's the first diva of France, but that's it.

3 High ambition, low publicity Carla becomes the power behind the throne, the Bruni family as european industrial aristocrats, she's already 6 times richer than sarkozy. She want's to make industrial policy, and he's just a hyperactive politician – she will rule, that's why she married him.

4 High ambition, high publicity This scenario's the weird one – the most useful scenario, as the future tends to be weird. She'll be the empress of europe. Currently Sarkozy is the king maker for Tony Blair as President of Europe, Sarkozy will follow him, as the the blingbling president. Glamour has its uses, glamour can be a weapon. There'll be world-sweaping Carla Bruni campaigns, she'll be bigger than Bono, bigger than the Rolling Stones. It'll be a hurricane of madness, and they'll be methodically stearing the hurricane. A supermodel and a statesman can never get enough power and publicty. All other political figures will be able to lead a normal live.

Probabilites:

1 40%

2 15%

3 10%

4 35%

Getting back to the internet. The internet was a Black Swan, too, big enough Bruni and Sarkozy go there, met because of it, got married because of it. The internet does not need political favours.

Keynote: Pierre Bellanger, “The social network: future of telecommunications”

Pierre, founder of Skyrock, started as pirate radio station in the 70ies. Want to become the world teenager social network, with a “mobile social messenger” basically. YASN, yet another social network, yawn.

Keynote: Younghee Jung (Nokia)

Working with folks like Jan Chipchase on personal and social aspects of mobile technology, to support design technologies and challenge current thinking. Telling us about their Nokia OpenStudio initiative, a on-site design competition in 3 communities: Mumbai, Rio, Accra. Challenges: weather, floods, sewage / gang crossfire, security / electricty, crowd / .. compelling presentation, here's the winners of the competition:

  • Cloudy-buddy Mobile (Mumbai) – Instant weather forecast, just point it at the sky and it tells you if it's going to rain – which is essential in
  • _Eco-Cell (Rio) – _Measures air pollution / ozone
  • Four-Star (Accra) – 4 SIM Cards, to switch between networks easily to save cost

Other ideas: cellphone with suicide bomber detector, cellphone with a megaphone for political manifestations and so on. Shows many awesome drawings of competition entries, you should watch the video when it's online.

Keynote: Genevieve Bell (Intel)

Technology changes faster than people (culture, societies) do. One thing that does not change is the game of secrets and lies. What roles does lying and deception, proscriptions and prescriptions play in tech? Do the twin idead of secrets and lies offer new ways to think about privacy and security?

All videos of the event (plus interviews and other fine stuff) are coming up at the Nuovo Lift site currently.

I'm pausing my coverage here, switching to laid-back mode for the rest of the day. You'll get all the coolness via LOIP.