Quinn's written a damned good summary of Tim O'Reilly's opening keynote from the Emerging Technology Conference.
having seen a few of tim o'reilly's keynotes i get the feeling that he throws conferences to get thousands of people working on the technologies he really wants. if tim really wanted a jet car, he'd throw a conference, invite some jet car enthusiasts and talk about how great it would be to have a jet car and then sit back and wait for someone to build him a jet car. it's like the peter lynch investing philosophy in reverse: instead of investing in the things you use everyday, get other people to invest in the things you wish you had everyday.