Google I/O San Francisco Part 1

Stephen, Kevin and I finally arrived at the Moscone West in San Francisco for the 2-day Google I/O conference. Look at the long lines! All of the geeks (including us) gathered outside as 'door-busters' slightly before 8am on 5/28/2008 Wednesday.

According to the keynote speaker, they did not stop the on-site registration. The effect? The whole place was packed! Some people needed to sit on the floor.

A recap of the trip on-route from San Diego last night:

It was a wonderful journey. Virgin America is simply excellent. The plane was clean and the seats were great looking. Their top-notched touch screen multi-media system (named "RED") provided *live* TV (such as CNN), movies, radios, and if you're really that hungry, you could order your meal and swipe your credit card. (The non-alcholic drinks were free.) This system reminded the touch-screen system project that we (now defunct MassHysteria/EchoLink) did as a sub-contractor for Intel Corp in Madison Square Garden, New York. It was a very challenging project. Good times? Perhaps. Because I got to see a lot of "free" New York Knicks (NBA) and NHL games. (Ok, there were WNBA games as well, but who cares?)

The multi-media system in the Virgin America flight had a few good surprises. There were taped TV programs from Hong Kong (TVB) which occupied Kevin's and my time. I saw 2 Cantonese game shows. One of which was similar to the "Iron Chef" but featuring female artists instead of real chefs. It was fun to watch. (Yes, I can easily be entertained!) But at one point I wasn't sure if I should change my channel when the "chefs" were chopping up fish heads. I knew the gals sitting next to me had funny looks on them.

The map system was actually Google Maps. They tuned it so that you couldn't zoom in at the street level.

After deplaning I realized that we were at the SFO International terminal. Huge 747s were "parking" next to us. We walked to the BART station which wasn't too far away. The trip to downtown San Francisco took us half an hour and $5.35 each. We got off the train at Powell station and the Marriott was only a few downtown blocks away. The lobby layout of this hotel, again, reminded my countless number of nights I spent at the Marriott in New York when I was on the Madison Square Garden project. I believe both hotels were built on the same blueprint.

Soon after I got into my room, I realized that the Internet connection was NOT free! It's $12.95 a day - from noon to noon. What a rip-off. Boo! Fortunately I have my AT&T Tilt which acted as the 3G modem for my laptop - and I was still able to make phone calls. NEAT! Kevin wasn't that lucky because he needed Wi-Fi. Thanks to Kevin, he went back to Walgreens and picked up a huge bottle water for me! He said he picked up sanitary items but I am still not sure what.

I didn't go to bed until slightly after 1am because there was a huge LCD HDTV in my room. I was able to catch the late-night news in Cantonese (KTSF 26). Cool!