Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten

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Originally uploaded by Guido van Nispen.

Last thursday I spend about 30 minutes at the Cross Media week conference but that was long enough for Guido van Nispen to take a photo of me.

Who knows who the other two guys in the photo are?

UPDATE: that was quick. Guido van Nispen (the man with the plan) says these are Gabe and Gabe of Xolo.tv

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It’s six in the morning and I’m awake in my bed. Thats because its six her but according to my body and mind it is actually 12 am. I haven’t slept that late in years. But I don’t mind. Gives me time to think.

What I was thinking about is a quote from Arthur C. Clarke:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

We are visiting the NextFest exhibition tommorow and I know the Möller Skycar will be there on display. I can pretty well see the difference between this advanced technology and magic but I still think it is a sufficiently advanced technology. So I disagree with Arthur C. Clarke.

These days it seems that:

Any sufficiently advanced technology seems incredible at first but inevitable once adopted.

Incredible in this sentence means ‘So implausible as to elicit disbelief’. When I have been confronted with new technology in the past 20 years I never had the problem of not being able to distinguish it from magic. I simply couldn’t believe it would ever become a reality and most people couldn’t.

But then it atually happened and I could buy it and as soon as I had my hands on it I didn’t say ‘Oh, the magic!’ but ‘Well yes, ofcourse!’.

A few examples:

Mobile Phones: when they first arrived people hated them. They said “I’ll never get one of those”, “I don’t need to be and don’t want to be reachable all the time” and if you owned one they said “Are you important or something?”. Now, everybody has one and looking bacck it seems inevitable that it happened.

Blackberry and Google Maps: if you would have told me 15 years ago that one day I would have a little wireless machine with which I could look up any satellite image in the world, I would have thaught that to be unrealistic.. Now I have a Blackberry 8707v with Google Maps installed and I sort of think that that is logical.

Möller Skycar: in 2026 personal aircraft should account for up to half of all vehicles.  That means you and I will be flying arround in computer guided airplanes the size of small automobiles.

Sounds incredible? Then it is probably true…

New York smells different. I have been here 3 times before and I notice it every time. I wonder if I can capture it and take it with me.
New York fragrance?

I watched ‘Mission Impossible 3′ then ‘16 blocks’ and finally ‘Firewall’. MI3 was actually better then I expected. ‘16 Blocks’ was kind of ok and I had such low expectations for ‘Firewall’ that that one much better than I expected too.

Just next to me were a german couple with a screaming kid. But now that I have travelled with a kid myself thr crying and screaming didn’t bother me at all. I just watched the movie or read my book.

We just arrived in Manhattan and checked into the Holiday Inn. I’m in one room with Patrick who just posted a blog with the program of the week. The whol program is here: http://www.whatiseasy.com/?page_id=6
We have to be downstairs in 10 minutes to start drinking heavily. I think…

We are NOW boarding the plane. Next blog in 6 hours or so….

Patrick and I are waiting for our plane to leave at Schiphhol. We bought magazines, had a McDonals meal (Bic Mac for Patrick and Big Tasty for me) and checked the gadgets.

Now we are on a couch near a power outlet with our laptops. And we are connected with a high speed wireless connection… from KPN Hotspots.

When we sold HubHop to KPN Hotspots we all received a subscription for live. But since every account needs an end date I think most of us got 5 year accounts.

Recently they upgraded the service and now suddenly my acccount ends in 2007. Not what we agreed!

But right now I’m enjoying this very speedy and free connecting from KPN. I love it.

Yesterday I visited the Cross Media Week and noticed the logo I designed for HubHop which is still being used by KPN for KPN Hotspots. I always smile when I see it.

I sometimes joke that I must be the most expensive logo designer in the Netherlands. We sold HubHop to KPN and then most of the people who worked for HubHop left, they threw away our technology and developed new stuff and changed the name too. Even most of the original locations/hotspots are gone.

The only thing that is left is the logo I designed. I still have the first draft of the logo. I sketched it on a small piece of paper in my kitchen while cooking something.

Ah yes, those good old days…