"It was either a masterpiece of timing, or serendipitous coincidence. Either way, 500 of the world's leading developers, hackers and alpha geeks gathered in a Santa Clara hotel for the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference last week. At the same time, Apple launched a new machine, Star Wars: Episode II premiered, the X-Files ended, and Napster shut down and then reopened. It was all just asking for trouble."