DEMO2007 Presentations, Part One

Every year, a boatload of tech hopefuls gather for a throwdown marathon of product demos at DEMO. This year’s DEMO points the way towards emerging technologies that are on the edge, on the brink and maybe just bubbling and ready to go mainstream. All of the video presentations are available for streaming. I’ve been working through them since I think this is a great way to get a ‘crib notes’ of what the marketplace and entrepreneurs are thinking about. Here are the notes from the first set of presentations in the archives:
Here’s the master list of presentations.
Zink
promising image and document printing without ink, toner, ribbons or cartridges resulting in a much smaller piece of hardware (pocket-size printers). The paper has the look and feel of photo paper but there are millions of flavor – I mean dye – crystals that are then melted and rendered them in the paper. Water resistant. Durable paper. 100+ patents. Zink-related projects launch later this year including mobile printers, 7 megapixel camera with built-in printer.
What I want to see: the same thing with black and white for offices and business.
Trend: Personal digital imaging and portable printing
Watch presentation.
iBridgeSM Network promises to make it easier to for-profit corporations to leverage university-based research and developments for new products and services. The innovations are all organized by category and tag. There is no other aggregation of these technologies and developments available to businesses. Includes subscriptions, alerts, instant downloads and track trends.
Fantastic idea with an underserved audience and an obvious idea plus systems and platforms already developed (site, dbase, html, metadata).
Trend: Connecting ivory towers with big business.
Watch their presentation.
Shipwire promises to bring warehousing and distribution of products in the US-market for small to medium-sized businesses. They can handle imports, exports, multiple warehouses, packaging, shopping cart integration, PayPal payment, alerts and fulfillment.
Efulfillment is always a challenge and services have come and gone. In a post-tangible economy, someone somewhere has to keep all their stuff in their warehouse.
Trend: Outsourcing storage and customer service.
Watch their presentation.
ReQall lets you record notes and reminders to yourself through your phone or computer. Recordings can be searched by keyword and text transcripts can be sent to you. Interface is spoken so you can say ‘Add a task for tomorrow’ or ‘Recall my tasks for tomorrow’. Retrieval through phone (either through call or with phone widget) and computer (system tray that works both online and offline).
Trend: Personal digital recording, GTD/organization, VoiceXML.
Watch their presentation.
6th Sense Analytics focuses on application development for distributed workgroups. Going beyond timesheets and project plans, the system integrates with leading software development tools (Visual Studio, Vi, EMACS) and monitors usage of these tools. These ‘sensors’ send that information back to a central server and can generate a diary or systems and artifacts of what you’ve done. Measures ‘active time.’ Can aggregate by team and workgroup. Measures ‘flow-time’ when people are active for a 20 minute segment. I think employees are going to hate this, HR/IT managers will love it.
Trend: Micromanagement, distributed workgroups, micromeasuring/granularity.
Watch their presentation.
EyeJot allows instant video messaging, supports iTunes (+ sync to iPod), mobile decies, social networks. Includes address book and group management. Client-less, browser based recording. Teenagers, grandmothers, new parents and porn stars will love this.
Suggestion: Create a Thunderbird or Firefox plugin to get some cool/cred/cachet.
Trend: Video messaging, consumer generated media, vblogging, iPod/portable media player.
Watch their presentation.
Honeypitch slims down the proposal process for businesses where multiple parties have to move quickly to get a proposal to a client. Presentations can then be sent to clients to login and view via a browser including video, presentation, etc.
Trend: Knowledge management. CRM. Distributed workgroups. Collaborative documentation.
Watch presentation.
Wyse N10 is a ‘thin computer architecture’ enabling computer networks to permeate all products and services. An advanced multi-core processor, multi-media, networked computer on a single chip that connects to a server.
Trend: Ubiquitous computing, distributed computing, virtual computing. The idea that your desktop and computer run virtually and you can connect to them from anytime/anywhere. You don’t have a ‘computer’ in the old sense of a hard drive at home or one you carry around – it is all accessed through a ‘thin client’.
Watch their presentation.
Adobe demoed Apollo which promises to deliver rich internet applications to the desktop, regardless of OS. Includes API for synchronizing data while client is offline. Competitors? Microsoft. This reminds me of trends of people seeing Flash as a cross-hardware OS or Firefox and browser-based tech as the same thing. OS won’t matter. Hardware won’t matter. Connectivity won’t matter.
Trends: Cross-platform, AJAX/Flash, virtual runtime environment.
Watch their presentation.
SalesWorks from Mission Research promises a contact management and sales software for ‘everybody else.’ The ‘hybrid web’ uses the power of desktop applications married with the storage and service of a web-based application. Mail merge that you will love.
Trends: CRM, software as service, web-based application, ‘hybrid.’
Watch their presentation.
Scram embeds messages inside images that can be sent through instant messaging or email or forum. ‘Enabling consumers to interact with brands.’ Weren’t the terrorists supposedly doing this? This does require a lot of explanation and if brands/companies want to use it then you have to get the consumers to download it first. Maybe they’ll make a Flash-based version of it?
Trends: Encryption, cool-hunting online, steganography.
Watch their presentation.
WorkLight promises to blend CRM, inventory/orders, invoicing and other enterprise services into one secured, scalable, integrated system. “Consumerize the corporate software experience.” Create multiple views of disaparate apps into one view – like a customized homepage.
Trends: CRM, productivity, shared systems, feed aggregation.
Watch their presentation.
Symantec showed off their Identity Initiative which promises to aggregate online identity and authentication into one big system. Reminds me of Passport and OpenID. Looks at 1) identity and 2) reputation hoping to cure phishing and other exposures for consumers online. I wonder if it talks to the CIA or NSA.
Trends: security, decentralized authentication, single-signon, identity protocols and credentialing.
Watch their presentation.
Jaman promises to help spread world cinema worldwide with a digital delivery platform and social network. 1) cross-platform high-def player. 2) Growing collection of media. 3) User communities of fans. But can you burn it to a DVD to watch on your high-def TV? You can also see artist comments and community comments. Huge opportunity to independent filmmakers and videographers. Reminds of me of Valve’s STEAM system for distributing game software. Ah, since they aren’t selling these licenses as DVDs the movies can be priced much cheaper.
Trends: comment tracks/secondary meta-media, multicultural entertainment, social networking.
Watch their presentation.
Total Immersion promises D’fusion will integrate live video with 3-d objects = augmented reality. Presenter’s accent distracts from presentation. But OH THIS IS SLICK. Lucasfilm is going to be all over this. Disney too.
Trends: virtual reality, real-time video effects.
Watch their presentation.
I’m hoping to work through the rest of the presentations throughout the week since this first set has renewed my thinking about emerging trends and blending ideas and technologies.


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One response to “DEMO2007 Presentations, Part One”

  1. mark lipsky Avatar

    Hey Andy –
    eyejot is very cool. if you want to see another, very powerful and extremely simple to use videomail service that includes a collaborative/viral component that will blow you away, try our GabMail/GabJam service: http://www.freegabmail.com. In fact, we’re so excited by the possibilities for GabJam that we’ll be launching a dedicated social networking site at the end of the month here: http://www.gabjam.com.
    Love to know what you think.
    Mark.

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