Speed Racer | courtesy of Warner Brothers
monday, may 5
Offshore Technology Conference
Houston
With prices having pierced the $100-a-barrel mark, there's no avoiding talk of oil these days. The gooey black stuff gets major play this month at a conference devoted to pumping it safely from underwater wells, as 70,000 engineers and industry leaders from more than 110 countries spend four days in Houston discussing the future of energy and innovations in oil production. That same week in Savannah, Georgia, accident prevention and response will be on the agenda at the triennial International Oil Spill Conference. A gathering of Coast Guard, Navy, and energy-industry insiders, the event will also boast some much-needed C-list celebrity sparkle (because who wants to spend all weekend thinking about little oil-covered seabirds?): John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, the stars of the History Channel's Deep Sea Detectives, are scheduled to attend. -- Kate Rockwood
tuesday, may 6
Code
JavaOne Conference
San Francisco
Our PDAs, BlackBerries, and computers have all kinds of cool apps and programs, but it's Java that makes many of them tick. People fluent in this programming language, developed by Sun Microsystems, will swap ideas for four days in sessions ranging from the otherworldly ("Mars Rover Operations Imaging and Mapping with Java Technology") and the fantastic ("A City-Driving Robotic Car Named Tommy Jr.") to the mundane ("The Layperson's Guide to Building a Better User Experience"). Expect plenty of time to be devoted to an unofficial item on the agenda: trash talk about Microsoft 's .NET and Windows Mobile. -- AL
wednesday, may 7
Advertise
The One Show
New York
Remember the days when a 7:10 movie started at 7:10? Now, on top of previews, we're bombarded with ad after ad. There are so many pre-movie commercials, in fact, that the One Show -- the international ad awards given by the nonprofit One Club -- has added a cinematic category this year. According to the Cinema Advertising Council (yes, there is one), movie audiences are attractive to marketers because they tend to be young and affluent -- and can't change the channel. But "as a brand, it's a dangerous place to be," says One Show judge and ad industry veteran Ian Reichenthal. "You're standing between people and the showing of Alien vs. Predator they just paid $10.50 to see." -- EG
wednesday, may 7
Barter
Carbon Expo
Cologne, Germany
Just because you can't see it doesn't mean you can't sell it. In 2007, companies, nonprofits, and countries traded more than 2.7 billion tons of CO2 -- worth $59 billion -- and many of the deals were struck at this powwow. As well as hustling for developing countries' carbon credits, this year's 2,600 attendees, including execs from the likes of BP, Deutsche Bank, and Toyota, are expected to discuss the effects of the Bali climate agreement and new carbon-capture technology. -- Theunis Bates
wednesday, may 7
See Through
Amsterdam Global Conference on Sustainability and Transparency
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
When Paul Pressler took Gap's reins in 2002, the first question his teenage daughter asked was, "Doesn't Gap use sweatshops?" Pressler, who has since left the company, blamed the question (the answer, by the way, was no) on Gap's failure to share information about its production practices more broadly. Fast-forward six years: Gap is one of 78 companies (others include Nokia and Tata Motors) shortlisted for a Global Reporting Initiative Readers' Choice Award -- to be announced at this three-day conference on corporate social responsibility. The meeting and awards are both meant to further the goals of GRI, an organization with an ambitious plan -- to have social-responsibility documentation be as important in business as P&L statements and analyst reports. -- KR
friday, may 9
Watch
Speed Racer
Directed by the Wachowski Bros
The Wachowski brothers are back. Directing and writing together for the first time since the Matrix trilogy, the visionary duo are aiming for the families of Nascar Nation. Speed Racer, based on the 1960s series, has a PG rating and an underdog-against-a-merciless-corporate-machine plot meant to hurl this flick to the top of the box-office charts at Mach 5. (That, incidentally, is the name of the tricked-out roadster in which Speed Racer, played by Emile Hirsch, works his asphalt magic.) The live-action movie, also starring John Goodman and Susan Saran-don, was shot mostly on green screen and finished with the Wachowski gloss of special effects, giving it a visual pop worthy of Speed Racer's 2-D roots. And it has won hosannas for the Wachowskis from Sarandon, who plays Mom Racer. "I love people who are trying something different," she said. "I've been around so long it's hard to find someone who's trying something different." -- AL
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