SAN FRANCISCO--The wild days of Web 2.0 may have thrown their last sheep. Here's how you can tell that things have gotten serious: at O'Reilly Media and Techweb's Web 2.0 Summit this week, people actually showed up for breakfast. That's because they probably weren't out as late. The party scene at tech conferences tends to be a bacchanalia--take South by Southwest Interactive, with enough events to make any little black book burst at the seams, or TechCrunch50 a few months ago, where rumor has it that a high-profile dot-commer got so drunk at an afterparty that conference organizers politely asked him to delete some intoxicated Twitter posts. The buttoned-up Web 2.0 Summit had only one legitimate blowout: the launch party for News Corp.'s MySpace Music. The venue was the city's stately Old Mint, a landmarked Greek Revival building dating back to the 1870s that, true to its name, used to house the manufacturing of money--a harsh irony in these post-boom days. To be sure, the annual Web 2.0 Summit is intended to be a more highbrow affair in comparison to its more sprawling Web 2.0 Expo sibling. Under the glass chandeliers and marble pillars of the downtown Palace Hotel, an ornate vestige of a bygone San Francisco, the attitude was all business. But with the economy in the tank, and dot-com dreams getting shattered by the day with each layoff announcement, it was probably a little bit more businesslike than usual. At a Web 2.0 Summit start-up mock-pitch event called Launchpad, organizer John Battelle says the companies onstage would not be fly-by-night start-ups, but rather emerging companies with solid business models and the potential to have a big social impact. (Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET Networks) With a "Web meets world" theme, the speakers weren't trendy dot-com entrepreneurs, but rather industry leaders like former Vice President Al Gore and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, as well as celebrities such as cyclist Lance Armstrong and The Omnivore's Dilemma author Michael Pollan. For a start-up mock-pitch event called "Launchpad," conference organizer John Battelle reminded the audience that the companies onstage would not be fly-by-night start-ups, but rather emerging companies with solid business models and the potential to have a big social impact. But this sort of discussion can get ahead of itself. A conference about changing the world, though its intentions may be wholly pragmatic, can devolve into starry-eyed futurism when the present needs so much attention. This was something that began to rear its head when venture capital veteran John Doerr called the recession "the greatest economic opportunity of our lifetimes" and when Intel CEO Paul Otellini, despite having just said some somber words about the recession and having urged solidarity as we "get through this thing," paraded out a shiny new "smart camera" prototype that elicited plenty of oohs and ahhs upon demonstrating that it could translate Chinese into English. "I like coming here," Otellini said to the audience. "It's a respite from, sort of, watching the stock market crash every day, and think about what the future is going to hold from us." He's right; talking about the future, and listening to industry luminaries do so, is important. On the other hand, it can happen at the expense of the present. Trendy "health 2.0" companies are exciting, but the more pressing problem in the United States is that millions of Americans can't afford health care coverage, let alone a 23andMe spit test. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom hails Barack Obama's campaign mastery of social media. (Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET Networks) In a panel about how the Web is changing politics, digerati icon Arianna Huffington and San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom hailed Barack Obama's campaign's mastery of social media and acknowledged that the new president-elect needs to keep using these powerful tools when he inherits a national mess in January. They were less descriptive, though, regarding how. Elon Musk, the PayPal co-founder now at the helm of troubled electric-car start-up Tesla Motors, took the stage on Friday afternoon and spoke candidly about his company's issues. After the economic meltdown, Tesla nixed a plan to raise about $100 million because it would've involved "very difficult terms" with investors. (The company raised $40 million instead.) He used a military analogy to describe the carmaker's subsequent layoffs: "(It's the) difference between sort of special forces and regular Army, and if you're going to get through a really tough environment...you need to have a really high level of dedication and talent." But when Battelle, interviewing Musk onstage, asked if the beleaguered Tesla would actually make money, the serial investor replied, "Yeah, yeah, absolutely!" and said he still believes in Tesla's strategy: release a six-figure sports car, the Roadster, first, then eventually move on to more affordable electric vehicles. "It's important to emphasize that the point of Tesla, the reason I funded it and put so much time into it, is to get to mass-market electric cars," Musk said. "To get there, you need to start with something." The digital futurism didn't make its way to MySpace's party on Thursday night, with performances by Lionel Richie and paparazzi staple DJ AM. It was a big success: the Old Mint was packed to its gilded walls with Valley notables from VC legend Ron Conway to actor-turned-entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher. But the atmosphere was tinged with an acknowledgment that the Web 2.0 Summit and the MySpace afterparty, dual doses of Old San Francisco and dot-com glory, could be the last such revelry for quite some time. Layoffs were just the tip of the iceberg. In the tech industry's meet-and-greet culture, the conference and event circuit is the next to get hit hard by the economic slowdown, partygoers predicted. O'Reilly's own Web 2.0 Expo in Tokyo had already been canceled earlier this fall, with an employee citing lack of sponsor interest. John Battelle announced to the audience that next year's Web 2.0 Summit would be held not at the Palace but at a less glitzy Westin hotel down the street. Some small conferences, particularly those held outside the United States that rely on Valley types to jet across an ocean or two for attendance, were also gossiped about as big question marks. Individuals were remarkably candid about their companies' own chances: "I give myself four, six months," one entrepreneur told me. Maybe, once the constant talk of saving the world had subsided, the Internet's thinkers were finally willing to focus on what's happening now. Or maybe they're just more honest after a few drinks. Headphones used with MP3 digital music players like the iPod may interfere with heart pacemakers and implantable defibrillators, U.S. researchers said Sunday. The MP3 players themselves posed no threat to pacemakers and defibrillators, used to normalize heart rhythm. But strong little magnets inside the headphones can foul up the devices if placed within 1.2 inches of them, the researchers told an American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans. Dr. William Maisel of the Medical Device Safety Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston led a team that tested eight models of MP3 player headphones, including clip-on and earbud types, in 60 defibrillator and pacemaker patients. They placed the headphones on the patients' chests, directly over the devices. The headphones interfered with the heart devices in about a quarter of the patients--14 of the 60--and interference was twice as likely in those with a defibrillator than with a pacemaker. Another study presented at the meeting showed that cellular phones equipped with wireless technology known as Bluetooth are unlikely to interfere with pacemakers. A pacemaker sends electrical impulses to the heart to speed up or slow cardiac rhythm. The magnet, however, could make it deliver a signal no matter what the heart rate is, possibly leading to palpitations or arrhythmia, the researchers said. An implantable cardioverter defibrillator signals the heart to normalize its rhythm if it gets too fast or slow. A magnet could de-activate it, making it ignore an abnormal heart rhythm instead of delivering an electrical shock to normalize it. The devices usually go back to working the right way after the headphones are removed, the researchers said. "The main message here is: it's fine for patients to use their headphones normally, meaning they can listen to music and keep the headphones in their ears. But what they should not do is put the headphones near their device," Maisel said in a telephone interview. So that means people with pacemakers or defibrillators should not place the headphones in a shirt pocket or coat pocket near the chest when they are not being used, drape them over their chest or have others who are wearing headphones rest their head on the patient's chest, Maisel said. Most of the headphones had magnetic field strengths more than 20 times higher than the threshold for interfering with pacemakers or defibrillators, he said. They were made by Sony, Philips Electronics, and others. MP3 players like Apple's iPod are popular consumer electronic devices. In January, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration researcher said the iPod is unlikely to interfere with pacemakers because it does not produce enough of an electromagnetic field to interfere with the devices. Brian Markwalter of the Consumer Electronics Association industry group urged consumers to inform themselves about proper use of products with magnets, and encouraged people with pacemakers to understand how headphones can be used safely. The Web 2.0 Summit wrapped up Friday with conversations about the Internet, politics, renewable energy, and space. Below are videos of on-stage talks, courtesy of TechWeb. In a panel discussion in which The Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington is joined by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Democratic campaign organizer Joe Trippi, Huffington argues that "were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president," in part because the blogosphere has "an obsessive-compulsive disorder." Trippi agrees that "the (Internet) medium demands authenticity." In response to Huffington's remark that "politicians definitely need to adjust how they behave," never assuming that they are having a private conversation with anyone in public, New York magazine's John Heilemann says to Newsom, "So Gavin, there's no off-the-record ever again now." Newsom, who says he is "obsessed with Facebook," agrees: Politicians need to "get over it," he says. "You're on the record. If you get into public life, you should expect nothing short of it." Continuing their discussion, the quartet focus on how the political spectrum is changing, largely because of the vast exposure to information that the Internet affords. But not everyone can afford to access the Internet regularly, Newsom says. "We have a huge digital-divide problem," argues the San Francisco mayor, who has been working hard to bring his city municipal wireless broadband. "We are slipping; we are not making any real advancements." Hundreds of thousands of people still rely on network television to gather their political insights, he says. Meanwhile, Huffington says citizen journalism on the Internet is playing a major role in transforming the lingo and polarization of American politics. "We are so completely used to talking about right versus left," she says. "It's a lazy way to talk...If you really want to transform politics, you have to transcend these divisions and really define the new center, and I can't really think of anything more important." For The Huffington Post, at least, "right" and "left" are now "the forbidden words." Newsom, a Democrat, chimes in: "If you don't want to be part of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, you better be part of the get-it-done party, and the peril of all of this is that you've got to deliver." Next up: Web 2.0 Summit moderator John Battelle, head of Federated Media Publishing and longtime journalist, invites serial entrepreneur Elon Musk up to the stage to talk about the three areas Musk identified in college in which he wanted to get involved: the Internet, renewable energy, and space exploration. Musk acknowledges somewhat smugly that he wasn't confident during college that he'd be able to innovate in the latter two areas; the Web provided the easiest (read: least expensive) endeavor. "I'm more of an engineer than anything else, I guess." But once the PayPal co-founder could afford to buy himself anything he wants, he says, he started investing in cutting-edge technologies such as solar energy (SolarCity), electric vehicles (Tesla Motors), and space travel (SpaceX). "The point of Tesla is to get to mass-market electric cars, but to get there, you need to start with something. And if you look at any technology developments, in almost any sphere, you start with something which is expensive," Musk says, referring to the Roadster's current $109,000 price tag. "The first thing is about making the technology work, and then you go from there to optimizing the technology." Musk points out that, like cell phones and laptops, in their early days, "internal combustion engine cars were considered toys for rich people, because everyone then was riding a horse." In discussing recent Tesla news regarding fund-raising and layoffs, Musk compares running a successful start-up to running a highly trained military unit. He says taking a "special-forces approach" is necessary to becoming large and successful. "The minimum passing grade is excellent," he says. It's "the difference between special forces and Army." Closing the summit is former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who famously went from losing the 2000 presidential election to winning an Academy Award for the global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth and a Nobel Peace Prize. He came to the Web 2.0 Summit to talk, at least in part, about Current Media, a Web video company he co-founded that partnered up with Web darlings Digg and Twitter to cover the election last week. "The Internet democratizes information," Gore says, arguing that Sen. Barack Obama's win had much to do with how his campaign made use of the Web. Gore also focuses on the motivations behind Web innovation, and he uses a lesson he'd learned from a dog trainer to illustrate his point. "A puppy has to have a purpose," he says. Likewise, "Web 2.0 has to have a purpose. We have to have a purpose." As the conversation turns to the collective human purpose of cutting down on pollution and its devastating effects, Gore notes that people generally need a sense of urgency to act. "The urgency center of the brain is geared to snakes and spiders and fire," Gore says, explaining that people generally require a bit more processing and analyzing, as well as conscious decision making, to react to many other potential dangers. "It needs to be stored in the cloud. It's the aggregate bandwidth that counts...so that we can respond to it collectively."