Three Great Technology Conferences in 2012
Technology is becoming more and more important in our daily lives. There are breakthroughs and advances in hundreds of different fields every day, and it can be difficult to keep track of them all. Fortunately, many of the biggest new ideas in technology are discussed in well-publicized conferences. This year, there are three key conferences that anyone interested in the latest tech should mark on their calendar.
The first upcoming event is the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference. This year’s TED conference will be held from February 27 to March 2, 2012 in Long Beach, California. TED is not limited to any one subject, but encompasses new ideas from a wide spectrum of subjects ranging from the environment to social issues, groundbreaking new technologies and the latest smartphone apps. This year’s TED conference will be broken into twelve sessions over the course of four days.
On the first day, Dr. Peter Diamandis’ presentation should be of interest to technology buffs. Dr. Diamandis is chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, an educational non-profit organization dedicated to bringing radical breakthroughs in industries like education, energy, life sciences and the exploration of our oceans and deep space. On day two, technologist Dr. Jack Choi will be doing a presentation. Dr. Choi is CEO of Anatomage, a company specializing in anatomy imaging software. Anatomage develops technology for 3D imaging in a variety of medical fields including radiology, orthodontics (dentistry) and other surgical uses.
Day three of TED will feature a presentation by David Kelley, founder of the design company IDEO. IDEO has been a revolutionary leader in the digital age, spearheading innovative design concepts for well-known technology groups like Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung and the U.S. Department of Energy. The fourth day will feature presentations from a variety of scientific speakers including self-described science evangelist Ainissa Ramirez, popular “science guy” Bill Nye, and science writer John Bohannon.
Another important upcoming technology event is the GPU Technology Conference (GTC). Hosted by NVIDIA, this conference will be held May 14 through May 17, 2012 in San Jose, California. While GTC has historically focused solely on graphics and other visual technologies, the expectations of graphics processing units (GPUs) have increased significantly over the last decade. No longer just display renderers, today’s GPUs process a plethora of tasks including artificial intelligence and physics calculations for several applications including information technology, medicine, communication and gaming.
GTC is an important conference for those interested in the future of graphics processor development and future capabilities on devices ranging from powerhouse PCs to smartphones and everything in between. This year’s GTC will look at the future in many fields including cloud computing, artificial intelligence, computational physics, computer graphics, medical imaging, stereoscopic 3D, raytracing and dozens more. GTC is an important conference to follow for anyone who wants a roadmap of the next year of computer hardware development.
Perhaps the biggest technology conference of all is the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3). E3 is hosted by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and will be held from June 5 to June 7th, 2012. E3 focuses on the next generation of development in entertainment software and video games. Traditionally E3 has focused on home video game consoles and their product lineups, but E3′s importance has grown significantly over the last five years in response to the burgeoning smartphone and social networking markets.
2012′s E3 will include two-hour presentations from the “big three” video game console manufacturers (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) in addition to several smaller presentations from third party entertainment software developers. This year, Sony will focus on their upcoming PlayStation Vita device which is expected to bridge the gap between smartphones and handheld video games. Also of note is Nintendo’s upcoming Wii U console, which may blur the line between tablet computers and video games consoles. No stranger to rumors, E3 is often the stage for the unveiling of brand-new hardware. This year, the rumor mills are on fire about the next-generation console hardware efforts of Microsoft and Sony.
No matter which conferences you are able to attend or watch online, it’s becoming clear that technology has a bigger impact on our daily lives than ever before. Computers, tablets, smartphones, game consoles and more are converging and increasingly working together and overlapping in functionality. 2012 is looking to be an exciting year for technology enthusiasts everywhere.