When you wander the aisles of the electronics department, ogling the gadgets and gizmos that promise to make life easier, or at least more entertaining, consider this: You haven't seen anything yet.
If there's a lesson to be learned at a trade show like Comdex, held in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago, it is this: For everything that's out there waiting to delight or confound, there's something else getting ready to emerge, butterfly-like, from the cocoon of the research and development department.
Some of the items are probably at least a year from being ready to market. Others will begin to hit the store shelves in the next few months.
And there's a little of everything, from the fascinating to the far-fetched. What's really interesting is how many companies come up with similar ideas at the same time — like the flood of electronic, interactive dog toys on the market this holiday season.
Companies usually have a number of items in the testing stage.
It's all about predicting what people will want and then developing it. But there are definite trends. Everything's going wireless. So-called "tablet" PCs are everywhere. One of the coolest is Aqcess Technologies' Qbe Vivo, with a fast Pentium III processor, up to 320 megabytes of memory, a huge hard drive, fast CD-ROM, camera, touchscreen, modem and more. It will hit U.S. shelves in March.
And MP3 players are getting smaller, lighter and funkier. In fact, those three words could be used to describe most of the emerging designs. If it's coming out of the future, it might as well have a space-age design, right?
Lots of the companies are branching off in several directions, as one can see from a perusal of Toshiba's "future" display. But don't expect to see photographs of the items that are evolving in R&D. It's a competitive world and some of the companies guard them as closely as crown jewels. They talk about them in vague terms, carefully omitting any hint of the science behind the devices.
Still, under glass domes Toshiba displays a head-mounted camera and headset with a wrist monitor (including a tilt-up display and storage slot). Next to it is a pen-based browser pad with a slide-out keyboard that runs on lithium batteries, complete with a 2 gigabyte hard drive and a PC card. The company's mobile audio wireless headphones are so tiny you'd likely spend the rest of your life trying to figure out where you put them. And the little MP3 player of the future would balance quite nicely on your fingertips.
Tokyo Mark's got a mouse with a retractable tail that's going to wow people who get tangled in their cords. Others tout wireless mouse designs. Meanwhile, PC3C's come up with "ergonomic" designs that look like something from "2025." Frankly, they resemble space-age helmets and modules. And they boast a "unique, patent-pending encoder mechanism that increases the punctuality of the cursor movement over different operating surfaces."
Express has a CD player that can play MP3 or CD music files and has 650 megabyte capacity, which is pretty capacious. It's built-in rechargeable, has anti-shock features and can put up to 120 songs on a single CD.
Canon has a pretty little picture-frame that's actually a very nice computer monitor. And some of the new printers (If they told you about them now, they'd have to kill you, they joked during a sneak peek at Comdex) combine incredible quality with extreme portability.
Philips' new line of already-on-the-market projectors have gotten downright portable without losing any of their illuminating power. But there are said to be models, smaller still, in the wings.
Ken Ender, a vice president at Mercedes Benz, speaks in assured tones of a future that would have seemed preposterous a decade ago: Instead of just gas stations, he talks of "smart stations" that provide information, tailored for the driver, as the car goes past. Forget just getting gasoline; you'd be able to get information on where that item you've been contemplating is available. It would "beam" you the weather and road conditions. It would give you the news you want to hear.
Your car would be extremely intelligent, too, telling you when it's close to running out of fuel — and likely pointing out the nearest place to get gas. Who knows? Someday the car may just take itself in for a fill-up.
Talk about refrigerators that keep track of the items inside and let you know when you're running out of milk and eggs seemed like a very science-fiction concept not long ago. It will, undoubtedly, be reality within the decade.
Cambridge University researchers now believe they've unlocked the way to provide cheap microchips that use plastic instead of silicon. They plan to demonstrate prototype products next summer. If it pans out, some industry watchers predict a complete revolution in processors — and prices. Products being bandied about include flat panel displays, smart appliances and other high-tech items that are fairly expensive right now.
With some items, the future is just a heartbeat away. This spring, Rayming Corp. will introduce its "auto hang-up device," which the company boasts will "eliminate the danger and inconvenience of having your telephone line disabled when your phone is not properly hung-up or has been knocked off-hook accidentally." It will plug into the included AC adapter and rest between the wall jack and the phone, providing both audible and visible notice when the line connection is re-established. And the rest button will connect incoming calls to the phone even if it's off the hook or will hang up the phone to get the call.
How about a phone that does conference calls for under $150? Rayming's duplex technology means the two speakers can talk at the same time. And it has a port that allows use of a microphone so others in the room can participate, too. A calling card dialer by the company is supposed to work with any prepaid calling card, storing PIN code and phone numbers in a password protected database. According to Rayming's Alex Kotoff, you can "dial on the fly" by entering the phone number on the keypad, then letting the $19.95 device merge with the preprogrammed dial-up number and PIN.
In April, Cybertree will introduce its own PDA, which has a Palm-compatible operating system, 32 MB of memory and a Bluetooth interface. It promises a software MP3 player, one- or two-way paging, GPS and games. But the real selling point is expected to be the fact that there will be no monthly charges. Because Bluetooth is all about short-range radio links between mobile PCs, mobile phones and other devices, the company believes it will be very practical to promise free service in exchange for purchasing the device. They've introduced the same no-fee promise with their Citygear personal communication system, which is available already in a few trial markets. And they are in the final stages of prototyping their new Web pad design.
You can file this one under peculiar, but fun: BestSoft of Korea recently demonstrated its "Virtual Ring," a "virtual reality 3D game machine. The player stands in a "game station" that eliminates the need for attaching equipment like special goggles or belts. Instead, flailing arms and legs and other body motion are recognized and translated into action in the game. During the demo, a player "boxed" with a bear, which was a figure visible only on the screen attached to the ring. And it was actually both aerobic and entertaining. It will sell, by the way, for about $200. And take up slightly more space than your treadmill.
E-mail: lois@desnews.com