Dern @ CES 2008 Report #2: Sunday - Storage Visions, Marty Winston's Cherry Picks

Here's the first of my CES 2008 event/day summaries. (Sorry it's taken so long to post it.) After the show, I'll put together summaries by category, and also my "Dern Good Stuff 'Best of CES 2008'" picks.

Storage Visions: Saving Space

The two-day Storage Visions 2008 partner event, Saturday January 5 and Sunday January 6 at the Flamingo hotel, includes products, services and technologies aimed at small, medium and enterprise and also home, mobile and consumers. The room of vendor tables is modest -- maybe two dozen -- but it isn't hard to find interesting stuff there, like

• iFixIT.com -- selling battery replacement kits and other replacements for iPods, e.g. battery kits (battery and tools) for $15 to $40 -- and online guides with step by step instructions.
• Intel, as always, had a bunch of interesting products and concept-demos, ranging from the penny-sized solid-state storage, with a controller on the master one, for populating cell phones and other hand-held devices in 2GB increments up to GB, to Intel's ClassMate PC, a solid-state-disk'd small-size Windows or Linux subnotebook. The screen is small, but at $225-ish, it's an affordable option for students, competing with the One Laptop Per Child's device.
• Tilana adds another business model to online backup -- a one-time charge of $2/GB for your data, and $19.95/month for access to it. Backup is CDP (Continuous Data Protection) of files.
• Mempile is talking about its TeraDisc technology, which will fitup to a terabyte of data onto its CD/DVD-sized disks -- write-once, good for archiving and compliance, e.g. health care, financial services. Prototype hopefully by end of 2008 and commercial products a year later. If the cost is reasonable, they could easily sell lots of these, I'm predicting, especially if they can come up with a jukebox-style library that hold a few hundred disks in a few-U device, like the ones already available for CD/DVD storage.
• Gaviri.com has added to its search-your-device software, also letting you search YouTube, Facebook, MSN, Yahoo, and other data troves.
• Rebit offers "no-click" backup appliances for notebook and desktop users, e.g. they've got USB-powered pocket hard drives, for people who want to do backups but not think about it. Their software automatically does byte-level CDP, including for Outlook files. User read-only access to the Rebit is with Windows Explorer. Easy and automatic!

Marty Winston's Cherry Picks for CES 2008

When it comes to spotting good products and getting the right info on them -- including PR contacts, which a surprising number of vendors are bad at doing -- Marty Winston is one of my favorite resources, and with good reason. Marty not only knows how to do the job of reaching press people right, but he does right. That may be, in part, because he is one; according to Marty, he's taken on the unique role of being a "journalist to journalists." (The other reason being that he knows what journalists are interested in, and need -- which isn't always the same as what vendors want to say.)

Marty's 26-year-old weekly to-journaliists-only free Newstips Bulletin (all email these days) provides informative paragraph-length news coverage ideas and contact info for products of each of his sponsors' companies in particular, plus a lot of reviews and special reports that are strictly Marty's own work.

A few years ago, Marty joined the press event scene, first with his Cherry Picks, and then also with another event. To qualify for Cherry Picks, products must be relatively new (announced within the cut-off), and meet Marty's assessment that they're press-worthy and novel. The press sits; each vendor gets on stage for a minute spiel -- and press gets a clipboard with one-sheeters for each product with vendor and PR contact info, MSRP, and availability data, plus a paragraph or two description, and picture.

Last year, there were enough presenters that Marty had to rigidly enforce the sixty-seconds-and-you're-done time limit. This year, there were somewhat fewer presenters; Marty sensibly took advantage of the extra time to allow a minute or two of Q&A for each presenter, and more presenting time in some cases. This worked to our advantage, in my opinion; we got answers to questions it might not have occured to us to ask.

Additionally, Marty has added a "Green Room" row of tables for after the presentations, where we could go up to vendors to see the products up close, and ask more questions. (And there was lunch.) Last year, press and vendors simply milled around; this gave us more opportunity for one-on-one microchats and see-it's.

This year's Cherry Picks included:

• Vetrix all-electric zero-emissions "maxi-scooter" (motorcycle), for commuting and recreational. At 11 grand, not cheap, but nifty if you can afford it and want it.
• Underwater Digital Device (UDI) -- the world's first underwater text messaging/SOS device, allowing up to 56 divers to be in contact up to 1,000 yards apart. Arm-mounted. Costs over $1,000, but likely to become a popular safety and communications item.
• Tiffen Steadicam Arm and vest kit for Merlin. Think Doc Octopus (one of Spider-Man's arch foes) -- this vest/belt-based arm holds a video camera up to 7.5 camera, allowing event videographers to hold their cameras steady, affordably.
• Gibson Robot Guitar. A Gibson electric guitar that tunes itself within seconds, to any of half a dozen pre-set or custom tunings. The initial run of 4,000 sold out instantly. At $2,500-ish, not for everybody -- but for musicians and enthusiasts, a new must-have.
• Z Boost Personal -- a "personal cell phone booster" that repeats and amplifies a cel phone signal, e.g. so you don't have to lean out a window to get another bar. Consumer priced below $200, for consumers and home-offices who currently can't make calls inside the house.
• Sling Media's SlingProjector -- if you watch video on a computer, e.g. catching up on TV episodes via the web, you want this... it connects your computer to a TV, so you can watch on your big(ger) screen. Around $250. I'd spend my own money for one of these.. and may.
• NABC UltraLight Energy Charger Station -- a battery charger kit that includes 4 AA Hybrio rechargeable cells (which come pre-charged, and hold 85% of their charge for up to a year). The charger also has a USB port; with charged batteries in it, can be used as a mobile power source to recharge cell phones, ipods, etc. Around $30.