Fusion-io springs surprise guest at Woz talk

Freaks, geeks, nerds and dorks of all variations may converge upon the Temple nightclub in San Francisco tomorrow evening for an unusual meeting of minds -- Apple co-founder and inventor Steve Wozniak will host a talk at a DEMO conference on technology's past, present and future with special guest Leonard Nimoy, an actor and photographer best known for his role as "Spock" in the Star Trek franchise of TV shows and movies.

Nimoy has addressed the topic of the technological ideas used in Star Trek and how more and more of the concepts are appearing in real-world devices before, and Wozniak is in some way an architect of the mass acceptance of high technology that fuels such innovation. Wozniak is currently serving as Chief Scientist for Fusion-io, a flash-memory technology company and major sponsor of the conference, which is perhaps-ironically entitled DEMO: Enterprise Disruption.

Wozniak has mentioned in previous talks that Star Trek was a favorite TV show of his as a young man. The DEMO conference is a bi-annual event that brings together leading technologists to announce or discuss new projects and developments in electronics and related fields. The conference is not open to the public.

The presentation will be streamed live beginning at 6:30 p.m. Pacific time via venturebeat.com later today. With any luck, the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which prominently featured technology of the day (including a memorable scene with James Doohan as Scotty attempting to talk to a Macintosh Plus), will get a mention.

by MacNN Staff