Technophiles and technophobes, alarmed parents and avid gamesters, futurists who dream of tomorrow as "liberated" cyborgs, and Luddites alarmed by a generation of cultural illiterates all will gather April 25-27 at the University of California, Davis, to consider "digital divides."

All events at the UC Davis Digital Divides Conference are free and open to the public. The event begins at 2 p.m. in Memorial Union II on the UC Davis campus.

The conference focuses on issues of electronic surveillance and privacy, education, libraries and the university in the digital age, and technical innovation in arts, games and leisure. The way that digital information technologies are changing how people work, play, educate themselves and think, and how they are transforming our major institutions will be examined.

Speakers come from business (Unicode, Newsweek magazine, Pixar Studios, Her Interactive), research institutes and foundations, public institutions and education, and include sociologists, management specialists, cybertheorists, musicians, librarians and artists.

"We are convening to demonstrate cutting edge assets of a brave new tech world and ponder the daunting challenges of remaining human in the digital age," said Jack Hicks, a conference organizer and member of the UC Davis English faculty.

Michael Rogers, CEO of Newsweek.com, will give the keynote address, "Oprah, Bill Gates and the Future of Books," on the book and the future of electronic publishing.

"Later this century," Rogers predicts, "kids will be amazed at how we used to distribute books. Our children won't be amazed because we were primitive -- but because we were so rich. Current-day book publishing is a tremendously wasteful way of moving information around. The Internet and electronic distribution of books can provide salvation for this beleaguered business."

Other speakers include:

• Technohumanist Anne Balsamo from the think tank Xerox PARC, who will talk about gender, technology and how we can design a social future;
• Megan Gaiser, CEO of Her Interactive, who will demonstrate a Nancy Drew electronic game series, the first girls' computer game to become a marketplace hit and a project widely lauded by parent and educational groups;
• Pew Charitable Trust Director Lee Rainie, who will discuss the "The Internet and American Life" study of Internet access by African-Americans and Latinos;
• Randy Nelson, vice president of Pixar Studios, who will give a computer/video presentation of how the Academy Award-winning animation group ("Toy Story 1 and 2," "A Bug's Life" and "Monsters, Inc.") uses the "old-fashioned" arts of drawing, painting, sculpting and storytelling to engage a new generation of post-digital kids;
• UC Davis community development professor Martin Kenney, who will explore how a tide of venture capital created Silicon Valley;
• Martha Winnacker, policy manager for information technology in the University of California Office of the President, who will address critical issues of personal privacy and surveillance on the Web;
• UC Davis music faculty members Pablo Ortiz and Bill Beck, who have organized an evening with five prominent electronic composers and performers.

The conference will also offer roundtable discussions with the presenters in dialog with the audience on issues brought up at the conference as well as about libraries of the 21st century.

Digital Divides is sponsored by the new Pacific Regional Humanities Center; the University of California Pacific Rim Research Project; the UC Humanities Research Center, UC Irvine; the UC Davis Humanities Institute; and the UC Davis Program in Technocultural Studies.

The UC Davis-based Pacific Regional Humanities Center is one of nine national centers established by the National Endowment for the Humanities in late 2001 after two years of vigorous competition. The center will serve as the site for humanities research and programs across California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii and the Pacific territories.

For more details, visit the Digital Divides Web site, or call John Vandenheuvel at the UC Davis Humanities Institute at (530) 752-2295.