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Electric Cars, Wearable Computing and TV Disruption — 10 Things You Missed During the First Two Days of D11

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Asa Mathat / D: All Things Digital

As always, D11 is proving to be a diverse, star-studded tour through the “all things digital” that give this site its name. It kicked off Tuesday evening with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg’s interview of Apple CEO Tim Cook, and carried right on into Wednesday with onstage appearances from the likes of Mary Meeker, Sheryl Sandberg, Dick Costolo, Aaron Levie, Elon Musk and many more.

We understand that those of you who aren’t with us in Rancho Palos Verdes may have jobs where they expect you to do more than read AllThingsD all day. Please accept, as a public service, this rundown of 10 of the day’s top highlights.

  1. Asked about the potential of wearable computing, Cook said it could be “profound” and “interesting,” but that the form factor of eyewear and smart watches limit their “broad-range appeal.” Young people don’t wear watches, he said, because they already use their phones to check the time (among quite a few other things).
  2. In her second annual Internet trends presentation at D, Mary Meeker from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers said photo uploads in 2013 are poised to be double what they were in 2012. She also predicted that the next cycle of technology will encompass “wearables, drivables, flyables and scanables.”
  3. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg talked about both “Lean In” — noting that employees who call women “bossy” should be asked if they would use the same word to describe a man doing the same things — and Facebook’s mobile plans. She said the company is “unequivocally” stronger post-IPO.
  4. Disney Parks chairman Tom Staggs demoed the MagicBand wristbands that will soon replace paper tickets, and which can also open hotel rooms, pay for food and merchandise and interact with park attractions. Staggs also described how the MagicBand could “unlock more special things” like personalized greetings from Mickey Mouse & Co.
  5. Box CEO Aaron Levie noted that enterprise software is judged by its consumer-friendliness, even though it doesn’t need to be made for consumers.
  6. IAC Chairman Barry Diller said the three companies poised to disrupt TV are Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. “It’s a market that is ripe,” he said.
  7. Disney/ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney said she thinks Aereo is “wrong … illegal … and opportunistic piracy.” Sweeney and ABC Family’s I. Marlene King discussed how shows like “Pretty Little Liars” tap into the power of live TV discussion on social media services like Twitter.
  8. Ben Silbermann said the company he founded, Pinterest, does not currently make money and is still trying to figure out a path to that kind of important goal. He also said the label “mobile companies” will one day seem parochial because consumers will expect everything to be available on all platforms.
  9. Motorola Mobility’s Dennis Woodside announced the Moto X, a smartphone that the company plans to build in the United States. His colleague and former DARPA head Regina Dugan showed off smart body technology like an electronic tattoo and an identity-authenticating swallowable pill
  10. Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk announced — one day early — that the company plans to triple the coverage area of its faster electric car Superchargers by the end of June, and release a car in the $30,000-$35,000 range within “three to four years.”

These 10 blurbs only scratch the surface, though. For more, please check out our full list of stories from D: All Things Digital.

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