Demo: Show's picks and pans

Where was the Sprint trench coat guy when we needed him?

Most elaborate visual metaphor: An onstage face-off between two spam-fighting systems, conducted by PC World sibling publication Network World, used actual cans of Spam and cartons of eggs to track the products' efficacy.

The quick and the dead: Demo's ground rules mandate no onstage product demonstration may last more than six minutes, a blessing for attendees with short attention spans. Some pitches were limited to one minute -- a "hot seat" format that some company executives aced, others fumbled, and one used to sing karaoke.

Most honest demo: Several onstage product previews didn't go quite as planned, but only WebEx Communications Inc. representatives cheerfully admitted they were "majorly hosed" when the service's new integration with IP telephones failed to work. (It functioned properly in demonstrations at the company's exhibit hall table.)

Oldtimers game: Executive Producer Chris Shipley deftly moderated a panel in which savvy pioneers including Dan Bricklin (co-inventor of the spreadsheet) and Mitch Kapor (Lotus founder) talked about newfangled trends like open source, wireless networking, blogging, and even bioengineering.

Out on the Edge

For the digital lawn: Digital Sun's S.Sense water-saving wireless sensor system has to be the winner of the oddest product at Demo2003. You just don't see many landscape and agricultural items at a technology event. But S.Sense certainly followed the theme of usefulness: This wireless sensor network detects ground moisture to control how much water is sprayed by automatic sprinklers. A controller and one sensor, which looks like a green spike, cost $150; additional sensors cost $89. They transmit ground conditions up to 200 feet, and work with any automatic sprinkler system.

Postcard from the bleeding edge: One of the few exceptions to the parade of products that are here today or soon to ship was IBM's presentation of a networked language-translation system. In the demo it used a camera-equipped PDA to take a photograph of a sign in German and then beamed the image to a notebook that translated the sign into English. Just how much this relates to any service Big Blue might ever launch is unclear, but it sure is intriguing.

Ubiquitous broadband: The real problem with broadband is that most people can't get it. Navini Networks hopes to change that with wireless access networks built on nodes that users can reach from as far as five miles away. The company claims it has solved line-of-sight signal problems and is currently field-testing the system in Houston and Florida.

Still Learning

It's not Greek to me: Private, one-on-one tutoring can be a real help for some kids, but it's not always easy to come by. Socratic Learning takes the tutor online in Socratic Tutor, which connects a kid with a human tutor using an instant-messaging-type client that works on a PC equipped with any modem, including old 28.8kbps models. The company plans to target kids in poorer schools with older computer equipment. A free 30-day trial is available now; pricing is not announced, but Socratic Learning will sell to both school districts and individuals.

The Web gets educational: ManyOne Networks Inc. is preparing a 3D browser that it plans to bundle with educational content, ISP service, and partnerships with nonprofit organizations to create what its executives call a "PBS for the Internet," making another run at closing the digital divide.