We also had the chance to meet representatives from the US Army, on hand at NextFEST to demonstrate the new soldier-protection and communication technology coming online in 2010. As part of the Future Force intiative, they showcased new armor - lighter and stronger. They demonstrated new communications gear, including bone-conduction microphones in helmets. Even a heads-up display. The video runs just over 2 minutes.

This is just too good to pass up. This robot with an Einstein-ian resemblance was located in Robot Row at NEXTFEST.

I wrote about the intelligent prosthetics on Saturday. It was the one of the first exhibits we swung by this weekend and were so compelled by it we went back today.

We got this video with some of the speakers this morning. Thanks to Sara for filming.

Due to popular demand, NEXTFEST is going one extra hour today until 4pm ET.

PONG is back. Atari released their version of William Higinbotham’s “Tennis for Two� in 1972. In 2006, Atari has brought PONG back…only this time the game is projected on a wall and players use their hands to move the virtual paddles along the game board. The hand movement is picked up by cameras stationed next to the projector.

There are actually three ways to play PONG (or derivations of it) at NEXTFEST. Atari has their set up, another group has an air hockey game projected on a table, and an artist has a 3-dimensional representation where players move their LCD screens (and bodies) to rebound the ball to their opponent.

A good number of the attendees to NEXTFEST, including myself, were not around to play PONG in the arcades when it debuted. The amount of excitement over the newest iteration is proof that good game play stands the test of time.

On the last day of NextFest I can sum up my experiences as terrific and my body as tired. It has been quite a thrill to educated the future scientists on water problems and some of the solutions. Hopefully the Next water solution will come from one of these future scientists when they create something that doesn’t exist today to treat the water. Until then, GE will continue to work with the GE Global Research Centers to invent future technologies today.

NextFest has been educational, fun and inspiring. Make sure to visit http://www.ge.com and http://www.gewater.com to play the Water World Tour Challenge one more time or learn more about the technologies used to treat water today.

It’s been fun New York!

We’re getting more sophisticated all the time on this blog. Here’s a quick video the of the VeinViewer exhibit. This technology lets physicians get a clear look at the veins in your arm for inserting an IV or drawing blood. This would have been helpful for me a few months back when I was giving blood at work.

The nurse could not find a strong vein and it took her four shots to strike gold and get the blood flowing. Boy I could have used this. Better luck next time. Check out the video!

Doors opened at nine and there were already pockets of people streaming into the Convention hall. They knew their timing was running out on an extraordinary event. This is my first Nextfest but the buzz around our team is that its been the best one yet. There’s an added energy to this year’s event. That’s what holding this in New York does.

Spent some time at “Virgin Galactic� yesterday and I was simply in awe. The interior looks almost like a New York dance club. Everything was white and the seats for the passengers were curved; almost looking like they would mold to the passengers body.

A real time simulation of the whole shuttle experience ran on a nearby plasma screen. The whole experience for the passengers would run only about 5 minutes in space. But wow what a five minutes that would be.

We’re going to be uploading some great video this morning on the blog…more to come.

Adam Rasheed

It’s been all too common these days to open the paper and read about education and the lack there of for today’s students. They’re cutting music programming, kids are performing average or below average in science and math and we’re (the U.S.) not doing anything to encourage our youth past turning on the most recent reality TV shows or playing their PS2 (that’s PlayStation 2 – if there isn’t something new by now). But let me tell you … my faith has been restored at NextFest!

As I’ve worked the Energy booths and observed patrons over the past three days it’s been so refreshing to see the interest in science and technology. Sure, it’s cool to look at a flying car or a robot that is, quite frankly, all too human, but it really went beyond that with the children. Throughout the education day I watched students from fourth graders to sophomores in high school ask thought-provoking and insightful questions about renewable energy. The detail of their questions and the knowledge they brought to the exhibits was impressive – they were truly educated consumers in training. They knew what a megawatt was – something that I would have to admit I don’t think I knew until physics class in junior year of high school – they were able to guess within 20 feet the height of a wind turbine and they knew how solar panels worked and why wind turbines couldn’t be residential.

One student informed me, “The wind turbines can’t be residential because it’s too much money to connect them to the electric wires, but my Dad says there’s a Wal-Mart that has wind turbines powering it and that’s cool. I bet you I could figure out a way to make some wind turbines for my house.� And, he’s actually fairly accurate. There is difficulty and expense around residential wind (something GE doesn’t dabble in to my knowledge) with grid connectivity and power distribution and there is an Environmental Wal-Mart Supercenter in McKinney, Texas, that has a 50 kW wind turbine powering it on site.

The teachers deserve credit too, as many of them would explain each exhibit and even told their students there would be a quiz the next day on what they had learned (we found this out by watching a studious young boy scribble notes feverishly on his NextFest program) as he really “wanted the ‘A’.� Some of the teachers that came through discussed with me that they went on the NextFest website in advance and learned about the exhibits and taught their students about specific ones so they could get them excited and them have them see the real thing the following week.

Overall, this technology exhibition is an impressive forum for innovation – tomorrow’s ideas and today’s technology. It’s a great venue for educating and inspiring young and mature minds. So far, it’s certainly been an encouraging weekend. I look forward to seeing what develops from the scientists in training I’ve met. Hopefully they’ll keep their innovative and educated spirit.

I had to moment to chat with Sara Backlund, Studio Director for the Interactive Institute in Sweden. We spoke about her group’s work with technologies that help people visualize how much energy they are consuming. The Interactive Institute is a think tank that tackles many issues – their unique approach begins with an idea, followed by several weeks of surveys and interviews of “regular people�. They use that survey data to guide the research of the Institute and its students.

Among the technologies on display at NEXTFEST was a lamp that opens or closes (think flower petals) based on your home’s energy consumption. Using too much power? You’ll have to cut back before you can light up your living room.

Sara also illustrated the wasted energy in a light bulb. “Only 5% of the energy is used for light…the other 95% is given off as heat,� she explained. To demonstrate the energy “loss� as well as provide a functional appliance, the Institute developed a matrix of light bulbs that act as a light as well as a heater. In the somewhat chilly convention air, several people stopped to warm their hands as if the “Element� was a campfire of sorts.

My chat with Interactive Institute has got me thinking about how design and ecomagination can go together. Certainly, the aesthetics of a GEnx aircraft engine are far less important than safety and efficiency. However, can a wind turbine be both a power generation engine as well as a beautiful part of the landscape? Can it remind us to conserve what power we do have? And will it be NEXT?