Hey folks, sorry for not writing up Saturday’s/Sunday’s goings-on on the fly, but I had a terrible day Saturday, didn’t get into any of the screenings I wanted into, and so coming home dejected and tired was not going to be conducive to writing. And I just came home Sunday night, also not getting in to the screenings I wanted to see, but happy and completely wasted. I fell asleep with my laptop open trying to write this.

Let me again highlight the most positive thing I’ve seen here: SXSW had a panel organized on the flyall about how to help Japan. I knew we were discussing it in different places, but in less than 48 hours from tragedy striking, there were some of the best minds in tech and thought leaders from various industries working together to make disaster relief a priority.   sxsw4japan.org: How You Can Impact Earthquake Relief Absolutely amazing to me the good will and nature of people willing to come together to help complete strangers halfway across the globe. We are blessed to live in such a time.

I’ve spent a lot of the past couple of days in the Screenburn Interactive Arcade, mostly an area for developers to show off their new stuff, but also site of some pretty crazy shenanigans. First up, I got to play on 3Ds. Pretty fun. The 3D works– mostly. Didn’t get a chance to see what Ocarina of Time looks like, but the gameplay was fun. As I said in my Day 1 review, I’m not sold on 3D. But this was fun. Also set up were banks to play Marvel vs Capcom 3, Mortal Kombat, and Lord of the Rings: War in the North. Looked fun, but i wasn’t about to get pwned in public by a bunch of people who I’m sure are better than I am at video games. Then I went to go look at what I thought was a preview of the Thor game on the Wii- it was, in fact, completely playable, and I sat there talking to some of the developers for about 20 minutes while kicking some ass with Mjolnir. The developers showing off the game, Red Fly Studio, are Austin natives and were also responsible for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II on Wii, which I had a blast with. The Thor game was a lot like Force Unleashed2 in that the gameplay was extremely fluid and graceful, and you got the sense of epic battle and super-powered moves while at the same time being challenged by hordes of bad guys.  While I was further wandering around the Screenburn area, suddenly people started milling by the back doors and in lines and I asked “What’s going on?”  “Oh, Mike Tyson’s going to be here.”  So, yeah, he showed up– but I took off to make a panel called Why My Phone Should Turn Off the Stove.

This is a real pet issue of mine, since I’m fascinated by home automation but also the fact that most appliances now are incredibly “Smart” in terms of both their energy usage and ability to network together. If we’re going to solve problems like climate change, or even just help people spend less on their electric bills, having things automated through a smart electrical meter, a smart grid, and to your computer or smartphone is a great idea. The most expensive (and polluting, by the way) power your utility has to buy/produce is during peak times when demand is high. If you got a push notification from your electric company saying that they can save you $5 (or maybe $25) over the next 2-3 hours if you let them cycle your refrigerator and freezer or to change your thermostat by 1 or 2 degrees, I think people would like that. If you forget to turn the dishwasher on in the morning, or want to set up a load of laundry but don’t want to turn it on until off-peak consumption hours, all of these things are possible. Also possible is using other models that are already working– social networks, rewards for setting and keeping certain goals, and in the case of like a Groupon model, maybe even something tangible: save 75 kWh of electricity, get a free coffee from Starbucks? Anyway, a fascinating discussion.

The next panel, Make Citizens Social: Digital Participation in Public Services , was equally amazing, and it was more of a discusion, led by two guys from Denamrk about how they had been able to open up a lot of government functions to people via the internet so Danes were more active in government. Included in our group discussion were a member of the German Parliament, a former Mayor of Palo Alto, a lobbyist for Iran-Afghanistan Veterans of America, and several student from the LBJ School of Public Polict at UTexas at Austin (and me, and open government advocate for a government watchdog group), but the single best comment I heard all session was from a guy who had been at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Committee– a HUGE event in Washington DC every year for right-wingers) and had been talking with some young 20/30-something populist-conservatives who said, “Washington is so screwed up- we need everyone to go back and run for office if we ever want our issues (transparency and open government). Run for City Council, run for County Council, run for State Legislature- and make those issues ours.” Specifically, they want to end juicy state contracts with technology and software providers when they can be replaced by open-source and open architecture solutions, saving taxpayers money.

They’re right- and I’m sorry to editorialize too much about specific semi-rectangular-shaped states who hosted the Olympics in 2002, but your government made up of old white men FAILED you in gutting your open meetings and open records laws. Most governments and institutions are heading this way anyway– less transparency, less citizen involvement. If there is to be any hope, technology is going to play a role, social networking is going to play a role, and open-source software is going to play a role. And WE’RE going to have to be that change.

Sorry, I really took a birdwalk away from talking about Thor and the 3DS, huh.  My day-job is clouding my judgment.  Speaking of, day job is going to get in the way of me attending SXSW Day 4, but I’m going to try to take in as much as possible over the next couple days and provide a wrap-up.

And hopefully get in to see Attack the Block and Super.  And Foo Fighters. And Hobo With a Shotgun.

Peace