It was jokingly called the “Millionaires’ Dinner,” but I renamed it the “Billionaires’ Dinner.”

That was due to the frothy fortunes that had been made at the time by the Internet pioneers, from Amazon to AOL to eBay. Get it?!?

Well, despite the economic meltdown, there were still a lot of billionaires in attendance at Brockman’s most recent dinner last Thursday in Long Beach. But he recounted to me that the proceedings were a lot more focused on the serious times we are in, as was the whole digerati-packed conference held last week.

Indeed, Brockman now calls the event the “Edge Dinner,” after his lively Edge Web site, where he presides over a variety of eclectic online debates and discussions (in January, for example, the topic was: “DOES THE EMPIRICAL NATURE OF SCIENCE CONTRADICT THE REVELATORY NATURE OF FAITH?”).

Since I managed to miss the fete entirely (embarrassing confession: I fell dead asleep at 7 p.m. and did not wake until the next morning) and could not chronicle it, Brockman allowed me to post some photos from the event taken by him and by former Microsoft research guru and current intellectual property mogul Nathan Myhrvold.

Here are some, and you can see the rest here (click on the images to make them larger):

Google co-founder Larry Page and Applied Minds’ Danny Hillis

Former AOL kingpin and Revolution Health’s Steve Case and Jean Case, Case Foundation

Twitter CEO Evan Williams and Neoteny’s Joi Ito

Nathan Myhrvold, Google’s Marissa Mayer and Nathan Wolfe of Stanford University

Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos

Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates and DEKA’s Dean Kamen

New Media Nabobs Tim O’Reilly and Arianna Huffington

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

In the less contentious spirit of DEMOfall and TechCrunch50, two demo conferences taking place simultaneously this week, we’re happy to bring you all the demos we had onstage at D6.

Here’s part three of the conference’s most popular demo, by well-known inventor Dean Kamen, who showed off his latest creation, the “Luke Arm” prosthesis.

The state-of-the-art bionic arm looks and feels to its user like his or her native limb.

The video of the demo is in three parts, all of which have been posted today.

In this segment, the DEKA Research founder and Segway creator talks about the FIRST Robotics competition, which Kamen founded to interest young people in science and technology.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

In the less contentious spirit of DEMOfall and TechCrunch50, two demo conferences taking place simultaneously this week, we’re happy to bring you all the demos we had onstage at D6.

Here’s part two of the conference’s most popular demo, with well-known inventor Dean Kamen, who showed off his latest creation, the “Luke Arm” prosthesis.

The state-of-the-art bionic arm looks and feels to its user like his or her native limb.

The video of the demo is in three parts, all of which I will post all today.

In this video, the DEKA Research founder and Segway creator talks more about how the arm’s control was designed and how it was received by a group of injured veterans.

Kamen also talks about the FIRST Robotics competition, which he started to get young people interested in science and technology.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

In the less contentious spirit of DEMOfall and TechCrunch50, two demo conferences taking place simultaneously this week, we’re happy to bring you all the demos we had onstage at D6.

Here’s part one of the conference’s most popular demo, with well-known inventor Dean Kamen (pictured here), who showed off his latest creation, the “Luke Arm” prosthesis.

The state-of-the-art bionic arm looks and feels to its user like his or her native limb.

The video of the demo is in three parts, all of which I will post today.

In this video, the DEKA Research founder and Segway creator talks about how he began the project after a visit to his lab by Defense Department officials, who told him that while battleground deaths were down, severe limb injuries were up.

Within a year, the prosthesis was built. In the video, Kamen shows the arm in use, including a man who is able to feed himself after more than a dozen years of being fed by someone else. Kamen also talks about how the arm can be controlled.

Day One

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Microsoft

You would have loved Windows 1.0. Walt. You would have LOVED it.”

–Ballmer

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Windows 7 Demo

Day Two

Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com

People loved their horses, too. But you don’t keep riding your horse to work just because you love it.”

–Bezos on the difference between physical books and digital ones

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Bobby Kotick, Activision

The social element has really transformed the gaming experience.”

– Kotick on the impact of games like Guitar Hero

Session post |  Video

Guitar Hero IV Demo with Tony Hawk and Paula Abdul

Howard Stringer, Sony

If we were any more successful, we’d be bankrupt.”

–Stringer on the success of Sony’s LCD business

Session post |  Video

Barry Diller, IAC

Hollywood is a community that’s so inbred, it’s a wonder the children have any teeth.”

Session post |  Video

Michael Dell, Dell

I could take him.”

–Dell on his chances of success in a brawl with Apple CEO Steve Jobs

Session post |  Video

Jerry Yang and Sue Decker, Yahoo

I will never be a CEO again.”

–Yang

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Jeff Bewkes, AOL

AOL is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Web. We don’t get no respect.”

Session post |  Video

Nathan Myhrvold, Intellectual Ventures

We invest in the creation of ideas… It’s like Baby Mama, with me as the mama.”

Session post |  Video

Demo: G.ho.st Web Operating System

Lets users access their desktop from any computer with an Internet connection.

Session post |  Video

Tom Glocer, Thomson Reuters

We have one great advantage over bloggers: we write once, and sell many times to many different media outlets.”

Session post |  Video

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook

I won’t ever stop until you’re either the biggest thing around, or you’re dead.”

–Kara Swisher on her relentless coverage of Facebook

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation

I want to meet Obama. I want to know if he’s going to walk the walk.”

Session post |  Full Session Videos: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six

Day Three

Demo: evri

An application that graphs the Web via grammatical information.

Session post |  Video

Demo: 23andMe

Web-based, direct-to-consumer genome services.

Session post |  Video

Melinda Gates, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

All lives are equal.”

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Demo: TransMedia’s Glide

A mobile-operating system that cuts across all operating systems.

Session post |  Video

Tom Rogers, TiVo

The TV set and its primary position in the home isn’t going anywhere in the future.”

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Demo: Deka

The “Luke Arm” prosthesis, a state-of-the-art bionic arm.

Session post |  Video

Kevin Martin, FCC and Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless

You’re the chairman of the FCC. How did you allow this to happen?”

–Walt Mossberg grills Martin on the lousy broadband situation in the States

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

DEKA Research founder and Segway creator Dean Kamen comes to D6 to demonstrate his “Luke Arm” prosthesis. Named after the artificial limb worn by Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars,” the state-of-the-art bionic arm looks and feels to its user like his or her native arm.

• Walt and Kara welcome Kamen to the stage.
• So what’ve you been working on? Kamen recalls a visit with some very high-level people from DARPA years ago. The good news, they told him: Battle fatalities have greatly declined. The bad news: Many soldiers that survive battle have lost their arms. And the prosthetics we currently have don’t offer bilateral movement or fine motor control. Kamen says they charged him with developing a new prosthetic that could offer those things. “I looked at them,” says Kamen, “and I said you’re nuts.” We don’t have the technology yet. How do we interface with the human body? “You think you have trouble with the Vista interface,” quips Kamen.
• Kamen pulled together a bunch of creative folks, did a bit of research and decided to try to build the arm. DARPA asked him to build it in two years. Kamen said he’d build it in one.

• And almost a year later he had.
• Video of a man with two functioning arms demonstrating an exoskeleton version of the arm. He scratches his nose, picks up a pad of paper ….
• Kamen queues up another video that features an amputee who’s lost both his arms, using the Luke Arm after less than two hours of training. After passing a small ball to a colleague, the man pours a drink and then feeds himself for the first time in 13 years.
• Queuing up another video in which a man who has had the arm connected directly to his nerve endings controls the arm simply by thinking. Kamen says it took just a day for the user to learn how to use the arm to do basic things like picking up a glass.
• Kamen talks about the difficulty of this process–with so many possible degrees of freedom, how does someone wearing one of these arms learn to operate, say, a backhoe?
• Kamen says DEKA solved this problem by creating macros that could be programmed into the arm to shorten this process. Video demonstration of the “ball holding” and “power-drill operating” macros, among others.
• We took these things down to a Veterans Administration building to test them out. He found that the arm was difficult to attach because of varying degrees of amputation. Also found that many amputees don’t wear their current prosthetics, because they’re too heavy or uncomfortable or difficult to wear. Kamen worried that the Luke Arm would meet with a similar reception unless he solved these problems.
• DEKA went back into the lab and added a set of air bladders to the arm harness, along with a pneumatic pump that makes the arm not just more comfortable, but easier to use. Also quite powerful. Can lift weights as large as 40 pounds.
• Moving on to another video that shows an amputee using the arm to pick up grapes one by one and eat them.
• Kamen hopes someday to connect these prosthetics directly to the brain–non-invasively.
• On to the next Kamen passion: education. He thanks Melinda Gates for setting up the crowd, then makes his pitch: We’re the only country where minority kids and women get the message that they aren’t suitable for science or math careers. So let’s turn science, engineering, etc., into a fun sport. In short, he says, we got 23 companies to develop sports-like teams and an annual competition through FIRST (for inspiration and recognition of science and technology). The organization has grown: 13,911 schools from 38 countries. He asks the audience to help.