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Comdex 2001 Coverage With a Handheld Twist 152

Posted by michael from the no-body-cavity-searches dept.
Phillip M. Torrone writes: "Gosh folks, a thousand words couldn't describe how great Comdex 2001 was this year for me. But, about 300 pictures may help. Your pal pt from flashenabled.com/mobile has it all. Memory stick and SD GPS units, Cameras, Microwaves and Bluetooth; The new Sharp Linux PDA with keyboard; Bluetooth everything, Pocket PCs, Sony robot dogs, Sony Ericsson and Nokia phones, Windows XP, Xbox, Merecedes Benz test drives, Klingons, the Strip, virtual keyboards, DoCoMo, Harry Potter and more. The coverage is almost as good as being there."
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Comdex 2001 Coverage With a Handheld Twist More

Comdex 2001 Coverage With a Handheld Twist

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  • Is this the real coverage of comdex? wheres redhat etc? Anyone know where i can get non handheldified coverage of comdex?

    • Re:Is this.. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      red hat wasn't there at all. the linux booth sections were dead, there was a flyer with the title "what happened to all the linux companies" it blamed the economy and 9-11-01, some was valid, some wasn't.
      • It wasn't just the exposition that was lacking Linux representation - I talked to a guy who bought a FlexPass only to find that almost all of the Linux sessions were cancelled. Boy was he pissed...

  • Almost as good... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 ) on Sunday November 18, 2001 @01:49AM (#2580457) Journal
    "The coverage is almost as good as being there."

    Correction: The coverage is almost as good as being there assuming you have broadband to d/l the 300+ photos.

    Otherwise, the coverage is as good as being there but being forced to move around the convention floor in a powered wheelchain that has a 0.3 m/s speed limit. Sigh. Hopefully they're showing something that can extend wireless broadband reliably to where they'd never set up DSL or fiber. Does anyone with broadband see anything like this?

  • Stinky feet. (Score:3, Offtopic)

    by VA Software ( 533136 ) on Sunday November 18, 2001 @02:00AM (#2580487) Homepage
    Please explain this picture [myowntechie.com]

    Thank you.
  • Man, I was bummed out by comdex this year. Where was the cool Linux business expo that there was last year? Granted, Linux International was there, and I got my picture taken with John Maddog, but I was disapointed.
    • "Man, I was bummed out by comdex this year. Where was the cool Linux business expo that there was last year? Granted, Linux International was there, and I got my picture taken with John Maddog, but I was disapointed." Hint: What happened to all those "Linux Businesses" that "existed" last year?
    • Take it from one who staffed a booth at the Linux Business Expo: it was a complete waste of time.

      COMDEX is all about shiny doo-dads and free keychains. The only reason companies present at COMDEX is so that nobody could say they hadn't been there. LWCE is a better venue even of the shiny-bauble variety for Linux-related companies.

      ALS, of course, is where it's really at.

  • Perhaps the the title of the article referrs to the tight security at the Comdex show, which restricted from bringing bags, or laptops into the trade show. There was a message on the comdex web site that said: "please leave bags, briefcases, backpacks, laptops, etc. at home or in your hotel room". I guess the only gadget you could bring onto the floor would be a handheld.

    Any attendees present? How was the secuirty? Was it lax, or was it long lines and metal-detectors galore?

    • Actually, if you look at the link, almost the only thing there is screenshots of different things running on pocket PC. That might be the "handheld twist"
    • Security: I was sniffed by guard dogs, and had to go through a metal detector. Luckily it didn't take to long though.
    • Well, they made a big show of security - they ran mirrors under the shuttle buses coming in, they had explosive-sniffing dogs at the metal detectors, and did not allow bags inside.

      However, a few minutes of observation revealed a lot of holes. Taxis were not subjected to the mirror treatment, and were directed to pull up to the curb right next to the North Hall to disgorge passengers. People could bring vendor bags in from the outside, and bag checks on these were spotty at best, especially at the main entrance. I also watched people in wheelchairs and self-propelled carts being permitted to bypass all of the security at the gates - no bag checks, no wanding, no dog sniffing. And on Monday morning there was a crowd of thousands waiting to go through the metal detectors, presenting as good a target as anything inside the security perimiter.

      Overall, I got the impression that they were much more concerned with presenting the appearance of high security than they were with actually preventing incidents.
  • OMFG. Give me one of these now. Right now.

    Hand it over.

    I'll dump a whole paycheck on one of those.

    • Re:Samsung Virtual Wireless Keyboard (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Brento ( 26177 ) <brentoNO@SPAMbrentozar.com> on Sunday November 18, 2001 @05:40AM (#2580726) Homepage
      It's even cooler than you think. Forget about using it with your desktop: think PDA, cell phone, and laptop.

      For those of you who didn't click on the link, Samsung has a virtual wireless keyboard that just straps rings on your fingers, links the rings back to a control device on your wrist, and then operates over Bluetooth, so you don't actually have a keyboard - let alone wires.

      IMHO, the biggest problem with packaging laptops is the keyboard. Take that away, and suddenly the tablet-style look makes a lot of sense. Give me just a screen, no drives, and this virtual wireless keyboard. I can just see using that in coach class on airplanes, which is just about impossible now with conventional full-size laptops. By the time you fold it open, the guy in front of you has already leaned back, and there's no room for the laptop. With this, I could just put the screen on my lap and type away.

      I'd like to see how they handled the security risks, though. I can just see three guys sitting next to each other with these things, and all of their laptops getting all of their keystrokes correctly, without accepting keystrokes from the other. You'd want the security on both ends: you sure don't want another device intercepting every keystroke (hello, passwords!) and you don't want to accidentally send a bunch of keystrokes to your cell phone or PDA or laptop.

  • The Comdex URL (Score:5, Informative)

    by acrhemeied ( 316269 ) on Sunday November 18, 2001 @03:03AM (#2580589) Journal
    The Comdex page is here [myowntechie.com]. The URL in the article points to a mobile Flash-worshipping site (which does indeed link to the Comdex bit (but is covered in images as well)).

  • MS booth (Score:4, Funny)

    by zephc ( 225327 ) on Sunday November 18, 2001 @03:52AM (#2580634)
    and heres a great pic [myowntechie.com] from the Microsoft area at COMDEX ;-)

  • Wow! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by metlin ( 258108 )
    This is a little offtopic, but then...

    From the site -

    Review: Some of the media gives Microsoft a bad rap, that might be because most of the media is AOL/Time/Warner. I've been pretty lucky to meet lots of folks from Microsoft in the last year and they're a great passionate crew and the result is a profitable company with cool products, so I'm pretty excited about this particular annual meeting to say the least!

    Huh? What the hell? What has this guy been smoking?

    • Re:Wow! (Score:2)

      by ink ( 4325 )
      Review: Some of the media gives Microsoft a bad rap, that might be because most of the media is AOL/Time/Warner. I've been pretty lucky to meet lots of folks from Microsoft in the last year and they're a great passionate crew and the result is a profitable company with cool products, so I'm pretty excited about this particular annual meeting to say the least!

      No wonder he enjoyed Comdex so much. All the geeks left Comdex years ago; now it's just basically a Sharper Image exposition with a massive Microsoft presence. I went a couple years ago when it seemed like Linux was going to make a good showing (got to see de Icaza speak), but even then most of the Linux booths were doing like everyone else: free T-shirts, lame "sales" people pimping their warez and a bunch of lemmings yelling like idiots.

      I saw this story and started wondering what I'd missed (I just live 7 hours away by car), but upon further inspection it seems to have been written by someone who is impressed by all this, so I haven't missed a thing. Developers certainly don't learn anything at the event other than the product schedule (usually hardware) of a certain company, which you can find on the web if you really care anyway. The best thing about Comdex is Las Vegas, and I can go when it isn't so crowded at pretty much any other time I care to.

  • biggest waist of a week i have ever done.
  • smau [glug.org] smau [www.smau.it]!
  • Hello, has anyone of you seen the virtual keyboard? Have you tried it? How does it work? How much will it cost and when it will it be available? Some URLs?
  • My first real break into the dot com wave was because of comdex.

    There was a small taiwanese motherboard wholesaler, this was when P133's were like 600 bucks. Just a small 2 man outfit of two guys that hardly spoke a word of english. Their investors had gotten them a spot at comdex and they needed a token white boy to be their headman at the show.

    I think I was only about 21 then and had never worked an office job. The thought of a company paying for me to fly to Las Vegas and put me up in a hotel was exciting to me.

    16 hours without break later...

    These guys would not let me take a break, a lunch, nothing. They worked me like a slave from day start to days end for 16 hours a day, 3 days in a row. My ankles were so swollen even though there was tons of people ahead of me on the plane, one show of those abnormally swollen ankles to the stewardess not only got me on first, but I got to sit in a section with a seat facing me so I could put my feet up. I could not walk for a day afterwards.

    When I think of comdex, I think of painful, swollen ankles and sore feet.
  • I went to the site, but it just seems to be Pocket PC adverts, most of them seem to be screen themes rather than anything useful.

    Where's all the interesting stuff?

  • A few cool things at Comdex (Score:3, Interesting)

    by infiniti99 ( 219973 ) <justin@affinix.com> on Sunday November 18, 2001 @12:27PM (#2581283) Homepage
    Nokia's 9290 [nokia.com] phone/PDA thing is soooo cool. I got to look at it at E3 earlier this year, but only at Comdex did I see it doing some actual operation. They had one playing a realvideo stream, and some others running games. This one lady had a digicam watch and she took a picture of me, then pointed the watch at the 9290 and beamed my image across. Then she displayed it on the screen and proceeded to say how she could now email it off if she wanted. Freaky!

    The next cool device was the new Sharp SL-5000D [trolltech.com] PDA, running Qt/Palmtop. I saw it at Trolltech's booth. It has this fold-out keyboard thing, which is surprisingly usable. If it has a built in GSM modem, it would be a serious contender to the Nokia 9290. For me, the only reason I would choose the Sharp would be ease of programming. Instead of having to learn EPOC programming (for the Nokia) I could just use Qt.

    Speaking of "just use Qt", Trolltech even had an iBook at the booth running Qt/Mac on it. Call me crazy, but I began to hack on the laptop right there for about 20 or 30 minutes. I was able to create a couple useless testing programs. Worked as advertised! Even the pulsating default buttons. This was only the second time I've laid hands on a machine running MacOS X, and I was already able to program applications for it. Hmm, maybe it will be a tough call between the Nokia and Sharp.

    A few other minor things caught my eye, but these were the big ones. Overall, it wasn't as interesting as this year's E3 (which wasn't very interesting either actually). Funny thing: ATI was showing off GameCubes (I guess they make the video chipset?), and Microsoft and Sony had XBox and PS2 there as well. Perhaps they wanted it to be E3 :)
  • From the 2 booths at the "Linux Hatchery" (take a left at the shiatzu chairs and continue to the end of nowhere) to the lack of big names (IBM, Oracle, Sun, Sharp) to the ham-handed "security" policies (they kept kicking people out of the Hilton area and making them stand outside for 30 minutes to hear keynotes) to the lack of attendees (just walk right onto a shuttle bus at 4:15pm on opening day), this Comdex sucked. When the biggest "new thing" was the Handspring Treo and the number of companies offering massage chairs and pain therapy outnumber Linux/Unix booths 10 to 1, it's time to give up on Comdex. Apparently all the *nix people already did.
  • I checked all the photos... not a single booth babe. Not even one! Only boring gadgets.

    Phil, let me put it bluntly: You suck.

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