There are robots among us

IF, as sci-fi writers have been warning us for decades, robots are plotting to rise up against humans, this week presents them with a prime opportunity. Androids, bots and cyborgs from all over the world, along with the people who build and love them, are converging on the Los Angeles Convention Center this weekend for Wired magazine's NextFest. Now in its fourth year, but for the first time in L.A., the festival billed as a kind of new world's fair will showcase more than 160 interactive exhibits in thematic pavilions featuring advances in communication, design, entertainment, exploration, health, transportation, security, the environment and robotics.

"I'm a bit of a robot freak," says Wired's editor in chief, Chris Anderson. His favorite this year is from the Chinese company Xi'an Chavren. "The founder created a robot clone of himself. It's got silica gel skin and seems not quite machine, which is unsettling.

"This isn't the Terminator, or Transformers. It's not Hollywood. It's a bit shaky, a bit frail the same way we're frail, which pushes some button in our lizard brains. Even if it's not exactly useful at this point, it's something you've never seen before -- you have to think about how you feel about it."

BoingBoing blogger Xeni Jardin is also big on 'bots, or more specifically, a robot named Keepon. Resembling a bright yellow snowman, Keepon became something of a Web celeb last year thanks to his jaunty dance moves in a music video for the band Spoon. (The band reunited with the robot Monday night to kick off NextFest with a benefit performance for the nonprofit group Creative Commons.) "I am in love with Keepon," Jardin says. "Sometimes the simplest things resonate the most. I like the human expression of technology."

Another NextFest exhibit that explores the man-machine connection is the game BrainBall, a sort of psychic version of Pong, in which players wearing electrode straps around their foreheads attempt to use brain waves to move a ball past the opponents' goal. "It's a biofeedback system that measures brain activity," explains Magnus Jonsson of Sweden's Interactive Institute, which created the game. The brain waves of the player who is most relaxed moves the ball. "Unlike conventional competitions, BrainBall rewards passivity and calmness, rather than activity and adrenaline. I'm usually pretty good at it, but I've been drinking too much coffee this week," Jonsson says.

Adrenaline addicts can get their fix with the KillaCycle, the world's fastest electric motorcycle, or the Astrolab, a solar electric hybrid two-person sports car from forward-thinking French company Venturi. "The Astrolab is a concept vehicle. It's much further than 18 months away from market," Anderson says. "It's a directional arrow showing what cars can be. It's meant to be stimulating and mind-blowing, something that will make kids say, 'Wow, cars are going to be really different when I grow up!' "

Kids are a high priority at this year's event. Today is designated as Education Day, and the festival will open its doors free to nearly 9,000 fourth- to 12th-graders and their teachers, before the public is allowed in Friday. There's an abundance of kid-friendly exhibits to test, such as the DigiWall, an interactive computer game in which players create a digital soundtrack as they scale a beeping, blinking wall. "We emphasize the kid angle because if something is fun for kids, it'll be fun for adults, but the opposite is not true. We want NextFest to be a world's fair meets the circus," Anderson says. "There needs to be always something going on, like the circus' three rings, with a layer of depth that both PhDs and 7-year-olds will be stimulated by. We don't have PhDs staff the booths; we have the inventors, so they can answer any question put to them."

Although many of NextFest's exhibits offer the promise of real-world solutions, such as the small-footprint wind generator Urban Wind Turbine, regenerated body parts and spherical solar cells, there are plenty of creations that you'd sooner expect to see in the back pages of a comic book rather than the pages of Wired. Chief among these would be the Go Fast JetPack, found in the Transportation Pavilion. The jet pack is "such an iconic image of the always-distant future," Anderson says. "I don't think we're suggesting jet packs are the future of transportation, but I hear they've come a long way, and I understand the one we're showing is the best."

Will he be trying it out?

"No, I don't think my wife would let me. I might put one of my kids in it."

September 13th