Surely the biggest tech news since my last post is the new Apple Watch, finally announced September 9 after months of anticipation. I can’t add much to the volumes that have been written, except perhaps to issue my standard gentle reminder on behalf of our industry anytime a tech device makes a splash. Surely the new watch, and for that matter the two new iPhones that were part of the announcement, simply wouldn’t have been possible to design and test without EDA tools and expertise. The world may look at the watch and make declarations like this from Scott Stein and David Carnoy at CNET: “For fitness-lovers who want a smart connected workout device that plays music, the Apple Watch could be a slam dunk.” Or this from Farhad Manjoo at The New York Times: “The biggest news was about the old Apple: It’s back, and it’s more capable than ever.” Or even make parody videos that get the predictable millions of YouTube views (see below). Meanwhile I can’t help but think of all the hardware/software verification that Apple had to do before Tim Cook could take the stage.

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In the strange way that time passes, particularly in the world of tech, the 2014 Design Automation Conference is already feeling like ancient history. Was it really just last month that the Moscone Center exhibit hall was crammed with essentially all of major players in EDA? Whether or not you were there, you’re forgiven if you haven’t thought about DAC in the weeks since. In the last few weeks, the tech beat has continued to serve up big stories, including Amazon’s phone and Google’s Android everywhere announcements. It’s also the season of summer vacations. Oh yeah, and there was the small matter of a soccer tournament in Brazil.

In the years before I joined the DAC executive committee I often stopped thinking about DAC soon after leaving for the airport to head home to Portland. Not that it hasn’t always been a great show. It’s just that as is true for most attendees, the demands of my various day jobs always started to loom after several days away. This year and next, forgetting DAC is not an option for me because I’m the incoming general chair of next year’s conference. That is, in a very real way, DAC 52 is my job (or at least my second job), for the next 11 months.

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