Last weekend, a pile of famous minds and talking heads gathered at the Cooper Union for the “World in 2012” summit hosted by the Economist, and one of the panels, naturally, was all about technology. Here is a 15 minute clip from that discussion, featuring Dennis Crowley of foursquare, Kati London of game-maker Zynga, and Paul Saffo of Discern Analytics, a research company. The gathering was expertly and cheerily moderated by Martin Giles, US technology editor. And it was preceded, fittingly, by a Jason Silva video, “a 110-mile-per hour trip” into the future.The conversation ranged from robotic cars (they’re still coming) to mobile payments (also on their way) to rapidly aging musings about the power of geolocation to the perennial debate over whether we need any of these apps at all. The biggest question, the elephant in the room, was the one that fell with the biggest thud: What will Facebook’s IPO mean? Giles turned to Crowley. “It might mean more to everyone else in this room than it does to us particularly,” said Crowley. “We’re just keeping our heads down. Yeah, it’s really hard to tell. It’s unlike any other company out there.” Giles summed it up: “Mark Zuckerberg will be able to afford a suit!” 2012, we can’t wait for you.
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