Wearable World Congress Expo comes to SF's Palace of Fine Arts

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A hundred years ago, the 1915 World's Fair at the Palace of Fine Arts made San Francisco a hub of innovation. The iconic Palace of Fine Arts is still standing and, once again, new technology is in the spotlight there.

It is one of the most photographed spots in the world. San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts was built for the Pan-Pacific International Expo, when cars and telephones were the things of the future.

"It convened all of technology together 100 years ago and now today, we're doing the same thing at Wearable World Congress," Wearable World CEO Redg Snodgrass said.

It's a different sort of expo for the much different world we live in today.

Between the concrete angels and the old organ console, there are things the people of 1915 would've never dreamed of.

meMini is a camera that works in reverse. It's always recording, so when something great happens, you just push the button to save it.

"You reel the fish in, you get it on the boat, you high-five each other, then you push the button," meMini's Sam Lee said. "It's exactly like a time machine."

Or wear a tiny air quality monitor with a laser that scans for dangerous particles.

"We care about the food we eat, whether it's organic, whether it's GMO. We care about where our water comes from but we also need to start caring about the air," TZOA's Alim Jaffer said.

Though fitness bands are all the rage, one for kids lets them level up in their favorite video games by being more active.

"A kid might usually take the bus to school every day. If he's got a PowaBand, he might decide to walk because he's going to make his Minecraft experience at the end of the day that bit better," a PowaBand spokesperson said.

But for all the cool new stuff, there are still plenty of tributes here to the building's long history, including one honoring the great innovators who've been here that's so secret, we can only show you a few close-ups.

"When we realized who actually came to that World's Fair, it was astounding. Harry Houdini came and performed. Thomas Edison was here, Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone," Palace Games Founder Chris Alden said.

You'll need to know a little about all of them to solve the puzzle and break out of this Houdini-style escape room.

It'll be open to the public, just like the rest of the palace, where Wearable World is now headquartered.

"You can come here five days a week. You can see our startups tinkering and working on their different company's building the next generation of technology," Snodgrass said.,

Technology that just might carry us through the next hundred years.