Are we running out of ideas?

I went to NextFest in Los Angeles yesterday and was bored.

This was a collection of the "next" ideas coming down the path and a majority of what was on display consisted of re-purposed existing ideas.

• Miniature versions of bigger things;
• Smoother running versions of existing machines;
• Quieter, louder, brighter, softer;

But very little I would consider new and quite a bit of what I'd consider pointless.

There was a cool bio-engineering display about growing human body parts in labs, and a nifty machine that "prints" 3D objects on a small enough machine that in-home use could be imagined. But even these are not new ideas.

So, are we running out of ideas?

I don't want to think so, but if not, where are the really new things?

Perhaps NextFest should have been called the Almost Ready for Prime Time Fest and I should have been looking for the You Are Not Even Gonna Believe This Fest.