SxSW (Photo : Reuters)
The South by Southwest interactive festival currently being held in Austin, Texas is drawing to an end and so far a lot of interesting ideas and innovations were tackled ranging from the possibility of flying cars, smart devices that can help its users in suppressing the aging process, genetically modified foods, 3D printed limbs, virtual reality headsets as well as gender biases within the tech community.
The following are some of the topics that has garnered the most attention.
Google X head Astro Teller shared about the "moonshot" projects his division are currently into. Teller presented some of the division's projects like unmanned delivery drones. Teller also discussed Project Loon which plans to deliver Internet access in hard to reach areas by constructing balloons that will then offer Wi-Fi connection to the Internet, according to First Post.
The highlight of Teller's presentation was when he admitted about the failure of their most ambitious projects, the Google Glass. Teller shared that the main reason for the cancellation of the Google Glass project was because it has garnered so much publicity that the team devoted into developing it ultimately crumbles under pressure due to the extreme amount of hype devoted by the public to the anticipated device.
The Winklevoss twins, famous for suing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, also presented the possibility of creating a stock market for the digital currency Bitcoin. The twins promoted their new company named Gemini which will handle the bitcoin stock market, however the service is not yet operational. They also added that bitcoin has a big possibility of replacing gold as the world's most stable currency.
GMO Answers presented how genetically modified food could help the world and were even reported to have been giving away free potato chips. The group also presented their latest product, Plenish, which is a high-tech soy bean oil, according to USA Today.
Gender equality was tackled in a talk between Google CEO Eric Schmidt, United States Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith and Aspen Institute CEO Walkter Isaacson. The talk encompasses topics from policies regarding immigration to providing internet access in hard to reach areas.
A presentation by a company named AeroMobil said that flying cars could hit the market by 2017.
The SXSW will end on Mar.22 with a weekend devoted to the music aspect of the festival.
