Kai Krause has been "invisible" for the past six years. In his return to DEMO he talks about Byteburg - a think tank and incubator he's established in Germany. He recounts the history of his pioneering work in the world of computer graphics and explains some of the lessons learned along the way. Kai has been working in his native Germany (and the rest of Europe) to help create the kind of infrastructure (investment capital, industry conferences, etc.) we take for granted here in the US. "Everything we ever sold was six months too early." he apologized, explaining the compromises he felt he had to make from his vision of what the software should look and work like to what was actually shipped.

I first saw Kai speak years ago and he's lost none of his charm, nor his tendency to wander from topic to topic in a fractal display of storytelling. It was pretty obvious that he was avoiding the issue Chris Shipley was trying to press home - asking him wahat he's been working on most recently. Eventually, after more than little badgering, he finally provided a few hints that he's been working on the question of how we can organize all of the digital media we've been collecting. Given his past efforts, this project, whenever it does see the light of day, should prove to be totally fascinating.