About our guests:

Christine Peterson is the President of Foresight Nanotech Institute. She writes, lectures, and briefs the media on coming powerful technologies, especially nanotechnology. She is Founder and Vice President, Public Policy, of Foresight Nanotech Institute, the leading nanotech public interest group. Foresight educates the public, technical community, and policymakers on nanotechnology and its long-term effects. Christine serves on the Advisory Board of the International Council on Nanotechnology, the Editorial Advisory Board of NASA's Nanotech Briefs, and on California's Blue Ribbon Task Force on Nanotechnology.

PJ Manney is a writer and futurist and a leading voice in the H+ movement. She has written extensively on transhumanism and related topics, as well as for television (Xena Warrior Princess and Hercules the Legendary Journeys) , and has a novel under development. PJ is the Chairman of the board of directors of the World Transhumanist Association, she's a senior associate at the Foresight Nanotech Institute, and she is on the scientific advisory board for the Lifeboat Foundation.

The topics:

• Convergence '08 evolved from the Foresight Nanotech Institute's Vision Weekend. Last year they tried a new format - the unconference. It was so successful that six other organizations have joined the event this year to make it "Convergence '08."

• The topics for the conference: nanotech, biotech, cogtech, and infotech. Converence '08 is an acknowledgement that all these technologies are interacting. Phil remarked that its hard to talk about, say, nanotech, without getting into those other topics.

• You can see a preview of the unconference portion of Convergence '08 by visiting the wiki. Each day will open and close with a scheduled speaker. The rest of the program is unconference.

  Paul Saffo will be the keynote speaker.

• PJ mentioned how exciting the unconference format is. It brings the audience into the event in a way that's quite unlike anything she's seen before. Phil's a convert. He was unsure how well it would work last year. Christine thinks the quality of the participants is important to the success of an unconference.

• OKDavidRay contributed a possible unconference topic: "What about a discussion room in which participants stand up to speculate about how/when their own jobs will be made obsolete. It doesn't have to be doom and gloom... more of a "how technology X will affect my own industry."

• Christine mentioned how great of a networking opportunity these conferences are. Ray Kurzweil met Terry Grossman at a Foresight Vision Weekend a few years back. They later wrote the book "Fantastic Voyage - Live Long Enough to Live Forever."

  Others have gotten jobs through these meetings.

• Stephen mentioned that just about every story in the ongoing "Better All the Time" series would serve as a great topic at the unconference. He mentioned a couple of stories from the latest BATT: the fab lab style printing of human organs like the heart; and the versatility of buckypaper.

• They also talked about the Neil Gershenfeld's recent speech at the Singularity Summit on programming matter. The official name for this new science is asynchronous logic automata (ALA). Rafe Furst said "The bottom line was: 20 years to the Star Trek replicator."

• Its hard for science fiction authors to stay ahead of reality. Scientists are now testing smart insulin and are steering bacterial nanobots through the body with MRI.

• Michael Anissimov asked, "Should we beg Larry King for an Interview... or not?"

• If you interested in these topics PJ recommends H+ Magazine.

• Matt Duing suggested that virology would make a good topic for the unconference - both fighting viruses, and using viruses to our ends.

Our front bumper is a sample of Marginal Prophets' "The Difficult Song."

Our exit music this week is from Bells for her. The song is "Oh Dear."

You can subscribe to FastForward Radio for free with any podcast receiver software. Just copy and paste the following URL into your software's subscribe window:

Click here to download iTunes, or here to find other podcast receivers.

We love audience participation. If you'd like to call in to the show, or get in on the FastForward Radio text chat, listen live! FastForward Radio goes live again next Sunday night:

Get all the details at Blog Talk Radio. While there, check out the past shows in the archive.

We want your comments! Please leave your questions, suggestions, corrections, praise, or criticism in the comments section below.