Back From The Future

Word of Mouth producer Avishay Artsy reports back on The New Yorker's "Stories from the Near Future" conference held last week in New York City.

The event brought together a number of influential, visionary thinkers from a wide variety of disciplines - scientists and engineers, artists and designers, architects, chefs, politicians, law professors, business leaders... all meeting to discuss the newest research trends and ideas that will shape how we live.

We'll hear from several of the participants, including:

Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, about implementing the nation’s most innovative environmental policies in his city.

David Adjaye, an architect whose work includes London's Idea Stores, the Nobel Peace Center, in Oslo, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, will discuss the newest trends in contemporary architecture.

Jane McGonigal, an alternate-reality game designer and a senior researcher at the Institute for the Future, discusses how game play in virtual worlds can improve problem-solving in the real world.

Yoky Matsuoka, the director of the neurobotics laboratory at the University of Washington, created the first anatomically correct robotic hand.