Wired NextFest Chicago Preview

Start­ing with Friday’s pre­sen­ta­tion by Chris Ander­son, I will be cov­er­ing the Wired NextFest 2008 here in Chicago. The week­end event will high­light new tech­nolo­gies and inno­va­tions from around the world focus­ing on the areas of sus­tain­abil­ity, health­care, design, robot­ics, games and more. If you’re in the Chicago area and can make it out to Mil­len­nium Park this week­end, here are few things to make sure you check out:

• Alinea Restau­rant
  For­mer Sous Chef at the acclaimed French Laun­dry in Napa Val­ley, Grant Achatz opened Alinea in 2005 to wide-​​spread crit­i­cal acclaim. His mod­ern restau­rant fea­tures up to a 27-​​course tast­ing menu with pre­sen­ta­tion and design input from Mar­tin Kast­ner and Cru­cial Detail (many of the dishes are served on Martin’s pieces). In 2006 Alinea was named Best Restau­rant in Amer­ica by Gourmet Mag­a­zine.
• Every­Block
  Search news and events based on your street or neigh­bor­hood. Every­Block also gives you access to crime reports, build­ing per­mits and restau­rant inspec­tions and a hand­ful of other pub­licly avail­able records for your area.
• Flower
  An upcom­ing Playsta­tion Net­work release by thatgame­com­pany in which a player guides a pedal through brightly-​​colored land­scapes to reach a flower. The game is con­trolled by the Six­axis fea­ture of the Playsta­tion 3 con­troller and offers stun­ning visu­als and sound wrapped in a unique user expe­ri­ence.
• PEIR
  This col­lab­o­ra­tive project between UCLA and Nokia Research Cen­ter is an online ser­vice that inter­acts with your cell-​​phone and tracks your day-​​to-​​day envi­ron­men­tal impact. PIER col­lects data on car­bon emis­sions, impact on sen­si­tive sites, fast-​​food expo­sure and par­tic­u­late expo­sure as you go about your day.

For a list of all the sched­uled exhibits, check out the NextFest Exhibit page.

tagged: chicago, nextfest, wired