Macworld Show Floor Report 1

We are going to do a couple of show floor reports rather that posting the vast quantity of press releases we are receiving. We are, of course, using the press releases to help guide us around the floor but if one is interested in what a particular company has that's new, mostly upgrades, please visit their web site. Yesterday afternoon we walked the whole floor to get a good idea of what's here. We stopped for any time at only three booths and they are the subjects of the reports below. Today we will go back to a number of additional booths and file reports on them. Unfortunately, we left our digital camera card reader at home. We tried to buy another at the show but none were available yesterday so our photos will be posted later.

Our first impression is that there are fewer exhibitors this year. Certainly there are far fewer large and gaudy booths with continuous lectures. There are still a bunch but much fewer than last year. I am sure this reflects the state of the tech economy as we covered with the previously reported lack of an Adobe booth. Some major companies other than Adobe are missing including XLR8 the maker of G3 and G4 CPU upgrades. Many now have only small booths around the perimeter. One company who newly has a large and imposing booth this year is Sorenson, currently the maker of the best video codec. There seems to be more people as it is hard to get around. But maybe it is just that there are more people walking in random directions rather than uniformly up and down the aisles. This kind of Brownian motion in crowds drives us absolutely crazy.

We came across two products that are new (to us at least) and that we like. We bought one. We would have bought both but one will not be out until early next year. But first the bad news:

Battery Technology Inc. (BTI) will not be making a battery for the PowerBook 2400c after all. We have reported from the previous two Macworld Expos in NYC that BTI was working on one. That is what they told us. In fact, last year a senior company official stated that they had spent so much money on the project that they would certainly finish it. Well, today they told me that it is infeasible and they have stopped work on the battery. He would or could not explain if the infeasibility were financial or technological or both. I have managed to accumulate three batteries in excellent condition but many other 2400c owners are not so fortunate.

And now the good:

Essential Reality will market a brand new input device for computing. Called the p5, it is a glove-like exoskeleton worn on one hand (see photo at right). It can send signals from movements in the normal XYZ planes (left-right, up-down, forward-back), plus roll, pitch and yaw plus finger motions and combinations of finger motions. It connects by USB sends its signal by infrared to a receiver.

The p5 can replace the keyboard, mouse or joystick as an input device but with even greater capability.

We saw it demoed using a 3D game and were impressed with its capability to easily input complex maneuvers. We also saw it in mouse mode where it does all the things a mouse does.

Essential Reality is working with manufacturers to have drivers for Mac OS X and Windows and all the game boxes from PlayStation to xBox.

It is expected to be available early next year for $129. Here is the Essential Reality web site.

Hoodman makes all sorts of sun shades or hoods for almost any product that needs to be shaded while outdoors. Their hoods run the gamut from the tiny to cover the LCD on a digital camera to what caught our eye, a hood for the PowerBook including the new G4. The E-2000 fits all PowerBooks and iBooks with 10" to 15" screens. It utilizes a "pop-up" patented technology. The hood is very light and folds flat for easy portability, then springs into shape when opened and slips over your laptop's screen. Once in place, it not only eliminates glare it also allows privacy while viewing your screen. The E-2000 costs $39.95 and we got one at the show special price of $35 to use on our PowerBook outdoors on the deck. We can even use it on a plane if we ever work on anything super secret.