Spent the last day of SIGGRAPH taking in what we could of the sites we had missed. The atmosphere at the conference centre was pretty low-key as the majority of the attendees (I heard one of the conference staff mentioning that there were 20,0000 attendees this year) were packing up and heading home. Finally got a chance to take in the new tech demos. I remembered this was my favourite part of the SIGGRAPH 2006 conference in Boston and had really been looking forward to taking them in. The display area was a bit smaller, but didn't disappoint. Highlights included a dual projector table top, interactive display screen and stop-motion mechanical sculptures (see pics and video posted on Facebook). We also managed to take in the final screening of the animation festival, which was fantastic, and the SIGGRAPH studio. Most of the demonstrations were shutting down, but we got to get a close up look at the work created by some of the artists and developers whose presentations we had taken in earlier on in the week and Cara got to check out some new pens and tablets that were being demo-ed.
It was a little sad to say good-bye to SIGGRAPH 2008. Though it seemed to be a bit smaller (or maybe it was just that the conference centre was bigger?) than the Boston conference, there seemed to be a wider variety of presentations offered. Some themes I noticed being repeatedly mentioned included open source, mapping interfaces, the impact of mobile devices and the melding of technology with more 'human' processes.
We left the conference centre in the early afternoon and took the metro to Hollywood and Highland, which was saturated in hectic and disorienting tourist madness. Cara and I dutifully walked the Walk of Fame, snapped shots of footprints and impersonators outside Graumann's Chinese Theatre and hiked down to Sunset Boulevard for a quick peek before hightailing it back to the hotel.
Today (Saturday) was a much better site-seeing experience. Melissa and Andre took us down to Venice Beach where Cara and Andre surfed. We walked the boardwalk for a couple of hours which was every bit the circus sideshow we expected (wonderful). Then we went to the Pacific Pier at Santa Monica Beach and checked out Jeff Ho's surf shop. Afterwards we went back to Venice Beach for dinner at a Cuban restaurant. All in all, a terrific time.
Pics posted on Facebook:
SIGGRAPH album
Venice Beach
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