Day One at D5

Today was the first day of the D5 Conference for attendees. Industry luminaries such as Steve Ballmer, Arianna Huffington, Martha Stewart, Jeff Hawkins, George Lucas, and many more were seen strolling around the Four Seasons Aviara today.

The conference was kicked off by U.S. Senator, John McCain, who engaged in a spirited discussion with Walt and Kara. Everyone got a kick out of McCain’s joke that he’ll be appointing Ballmer and Chambers to his cabinet if elected. Things turned serious when Walt asked about the War in Iraq and McCain’s stance on the United States continued role in the area. I’ve gone back and forth as to what we need to do. I can understand both viewpoints: the desire to stay and secure the area and the need to get out immediately.

Tomorrow’s going to be real busy as we dived into the meat of the conference. Ballmer, Jobs, Gates and Jobs together, and more. The team at AllThingsD accomplished quite a bit today, including launching a new section to the site, d5.allthingsd.com, which has continuing coverage of D5. John Paczkowski of Digital Daily will be live-blogging during each session. We’ve also created a special low-bandwidth page for those people who like to reload every minute.

Photos are being hosted by the fantastic team at smugmug, with D5 videos being hosted by Brightcove. We’ve posted a 5-minute clip from the McCain session. Check it out and more over the next few days!

Here are some photos taken throughout the day. The official photographer for D5 is once again the excellent Asa Mathat. I first met Asa at a Palm conference over 7 years ago! Everything is coming full circle!