Wow! Today was pretty cool … and I am pretty exhausted. It started off with an interview of the stars of the upcoming Jobs movie – Ashton Kutcher and Josh Gad. They did a great job of addressing the recent controversy based on Woz’s comments. The next section was a quick review of Mountain Lion tips from one of the writers at MacWorld. While I learned a few new tricks, to be honest it seemed a bit disjointed, and like an un-prepared presentation. It wasn’t bad, but it shouldn’t have been on the main stage.
Next we were treated to Future Hunting with Brian -the futurist at Intel, and will.i.am. I really enjoyed this session. Will.i.am was very entertaining, and it reminded me of the discussions I have with my friends around how to change the world using cool upcoming technology.
They are both supports and creators of the Transform conference. The great thing about this conference is they try to help change the world using new and future technology. The first one was designed to the transform a specific gehetto neighborhood that will.i.am grew up in. The new one, next week, is about transforming America. Lofty goals from a pop star.
Speaking of pop stars, I spent the afternoon learning about cool software to change drum loops, but the real existing part was going to the indie innovation finals. This was the finals of a year long battle of about 400 indie bands, and we got to hear the final two. The judges were in the room and had to judge them based on the use of apple products in their music. To me this was a bit unfair. Both bands were good, but Mister Loveless were real rockers, with a love of punk (a love of mine) and a pure rock and roll sound. They used a MacBook Pro to play an audio file of a BART train. The band Exists Elsewhere were a well polished band from LA. They had the look and sound of a well produced band. They used iPads for their amps and mixers, but in my opinion there music wasn’t as good. Don’t get me wrong, I love sythnesiser music, etc. but a good rock and roll band is much more fun live. The band Exists Elsewhere won the competition and got to open up for Little Feat tonight, however, the band Mister Loveless got to do a full set of music at MacWorld right after the compeition. I recorded it on my iPhone and picked up their CD and a few Ep’s on iTunes. Go check them out: