tommy
http://www.themeiphone.com

on #9: I don’t know if simple = dumb, and I don’t think that going backwards is the answer either. Very often (especially in software) a simple, clean design can have the exact same functionality as a complex, grown, convoluted design, but with far less errors and flaws.

What I do think should be done is to finally start using advanced programming languages and other tools which can avoid over 90% of all bugs and vulnerabilities by design (e.g. languages where buffer overruns basically can’t occur, which already eliminates a large number of attacks). (Of course some of these languages have been around for 20-30 years, and have been constantly revised – I would not say this is "going backwards", but rather that it is backwards not to use these tools).
E.g. the language Ada is designed for high reliability systems – the structure and syntax of the language already avoids a lot of problems by being readable, orthogonal and strongly typed, and the compiler will catch a large number of stupid errors. If that is not enough there are add-ons like SPARK which enable automated formal verification of critical code. At the moment this is mostly used for aviation, traffic control, banking and space applications where errors can kill hundreds of people or create billion dollar losses – but I think it is about time to use a similar level of care for server software and other systems that are exposed to external attacks.

on #2:
"Some of our political leaders say that we have "the best medical care system in the world". Think what it must be like in the rest of the world! "
- really? I guess some politicians say a lot of things… I am not that familiar with the US medical system, but from reading the news I didn’t have the impression it is the best in the world… ?

on #3:
I agree that rapid manufacturing will not displace regular manufacturing (and definitely not in 3 years), but I think there will be larger and larger niches where personalised products will appear. I don’t think this will be in the electronics market though, as this cannot compete with regular manufacturing – but I do think that there will be more and more physical/mechanical objects and gadgets that will be 3D printed with personalised features. However (and maybe your point), this is driven by software again – mass personalisation needs user-friendly software interfaces to let customers express what they want – CAD is still tricky stuff for few people.
So I think in the short to medium term, there will be a number of product designers that offer personalisation features in their products, and the customer will use those to get the product they want. Probably, even if we had perfect modelling systems and virtual clay, most people would not really know what the product they want should look like – good design requires a lot of knowledge and creativity.

For trends 1-10, the panel votes were: (N=Red/No, Y=Green/Yes, M=Mixed Red/Green)

Saffo: N, M, N, M, Y, Y, Y, Y, Y, Y
Ajay : N, N, Y, M, Y, Y, N, N, N, N
Steve: Y, N, N, Y, N, Y, N, M, N, Y (summary from notes above [ ])
Aneesh: Y for everything (politically constrained perhaps) except trend 9 where he gave an M

then we discuss a bit.

Then the audience votes; this is the left half of the room holding up colored flags:

Portion of audience agreement with trends 1-10, by electronic polling:
44%, 40%, 46%, 69%, 60%, 80%, 58%, 51%, 29%, 71%

So the audience agreed the most with trend 6 (social privacy) and the disagreed the most with trend 9 (simple code).

and we have a few laughs as well