Danny Hillis talks about Applied Minds, his lab for making experimental stuff. There are about 40 different projects going on at any time, with a focus on hardware but including sw. He shows photos of the workshops and movies of little walking devices that get oohs and ahhs. [Humans are such softies.]

He shows a techno-pimped out car with every possible gadget in it. Lots of blinking lights and screens.

And to make sure we don’t think it’s all toys and gadgets, the talks about a cancer research project that puts a drop of blood through a mass spectrometer that gives a signature for every protein. “If you could find the chemical signature of what made a chemical treatment worked…”

He shows video of a mapping table that lets you use hand gestures to move around the world, zoom in, swipe in new images/data by time. The next table he shows raises mountains in 3D…physical 3D, not blue-and-red goggles 3D simulation. Oohs and applause. [Technorati tags: oreilly etech]

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