The Demo Fall 09 show in San Diego showcased more than 60 companies offering pitches of new companies and products aimed to make your life better, whether as an individual user or at your company. Here are a few of my favorites:
Emo Labs certainly captured most of the buzz at the show; the company showcased technology that could add better speaker systems to flat-panel TVs and desktop computer monitors. As TVs and monitors have gotten flatter, speaker systems have often had to shrink to comply with the TV's thinness, creating a smaller sound. Owners who wanted big sound from their new flat-panel TV have needed to attach larger speakers to the TV with wires and so on.
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Slideshow: 13 hot products from DEMO '09
Emo Labs developed its Edge Motion technology, in which tiny motors apply force along the sides of a flat, lightweight, and transparent membrane. The motion generates sound waves that then radiate perpendicularly from the surface, giving users the sound directly from the screen instead of from a tiny speaker. The technology can be applied to TVs, desktop monitors, and all-in-one PC systems. The company is aiming to move into notebook monitors and even smaller devices like smartphones.
I didn't think a comparison shopping site was needed these days, but Cazoodle helped convince me otherwise. The site utilizes large-scale data integration technology to scan thousands of Web sources to create a deeper list of options for shoppers, quite often providing better prices.
For example, on a digital camera search, Cazoodle returned 610 offers compared with 33 offers at a leading shopping site. Cazoodle also launched an apartment-hunting site and a Firefox plug-in called Shopping Caddy that watches what you're browsing and can find offers from other vendors, as well as alert you when the product drops to a specified price. Beyond that, the technology seems ripe for other search-based queries, including job listings, university searches, and even news aggregation. The company seems ready to build its own sites or partner up with other companies already doing search or looking for in-depth search analysis.
TravelTrac launched a Web site that allows travelers to share "adventures" with friends, family, or the public at large. The site lets you upload photos, videos, journal entries, and even geo-locations to the site, letting people know about some of the different things you've experienced along the way (like when you find that really cool Stuckey's). The cool part is a free iPhone app that lets you snap photos, add a location (via the iPhone's GPS), add journal entries, or even upload videos (if you have an iPhone 3G S). The "adventure sharing" feature is fun, and adding locations along the way can let family members know where you are on your journey. E-mail alerts can be sent to friends/family during the trip, giving peace of mind during a road trip, for example. Beyond the vacation aspects of the site, I can see the technology being used in business scenarios, allowing traveling employees to easily geo-tag their locations and provide text updates and photos during their workday.
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