I journeyed to TECHXNY (formerly PCExpo) a couple of weeks ago with my handy Street Tech BS Detector set on high (or was it stun?). There were no great surprising at the event, but definitely some tech worth reporting on. Unfortunately, technical difficulties prevented me from filing this report as soon as I [And your Street Tech handlers. -Ed.] would have liked. My "legacy-free" computer's incompatibility with my serial-only camera stranded my pics of the event inside the camera. The shots were finally rescued thanks to the purchase of Flash Path SmartMedia floppy adapter, which I'll review later. Now back to the expo...

TECHXNY was preceded by a fancy little press reception called Digital Focus, where companies could show off their products in a more controlled, congenial atmosphere. After loading up on sushi and whisky sours, I made the rounds.

The best product there was definitely the new Sony Clie line. The US$400 Clie PEG-n700c is a color unit very similar to the n710c. The new model runs Palm OS 4.0, has a great 65,000 color TFT screen that is much brighter than the latest Palm m505. The reduced price is the result of cutting out the MP3 playback ability found in the n710c, but the units are otherwise identical. The other available model has a monochrome screen, which also runs OS 4.0, and is priced at $200. Very stylish and a little smaller than the other Clies, it is a strong competitor to the now out-of-fashion iMac-colored Handspring Visors.

Iomega, famous for their Zip drives, was displaying their new external storage device called "Peerless." Connecting through USB or FireWire ports, it's basically a 20GB hard drive with a docking cradle, so it can be easily transported and swapped between computers. It's completely encased and reinforced for maximum shock resistance. It's a little pricey (about $500 for the drive plus two cradles) but it alleviates the problem of having to decide which work to take home or on the road with you -- just work directly off it at the office, grab it on the way out the door, and drop it in the cradle when you get home. All your files are there. You can even run programs directly from it, making it particularly useful for those who have expensive or specialized software at work that they need to take on the road.

Although this NEC ultra-light Versa TXi laptop has been out for a few months, this was the first time I'd seen it in person. It's a very thin and lightweight machine (1" at about 4 lbs.) and has an internal DVD drive, which is remarkable since it's about the same size as other ultralights with external drives. The screen is only 12.1", though. The feature that everyone at the NEC table wanted to show off was the light on the back of the lid that changes colors - it can be set to glow red, indicating email notification, or blue to show that a particular application is running. As the light changed, I thought it looked downright groovy, but that could've been the whisky sours talkin'.

I woke up a little late the next day [Gee, I wonder why? -Ed.] and made my way down to the main event. The first cool device I ran into was a new PDA from Handspring. Although I wasn't able to talk to their rep, I think I overheard that this device runs 256 parallel 33MHz dragonball processors, is capable of 4.1 teraflops, can beat Kasparov at chess in under 3 minutes, has 64,000 megs of memory (plus the standard 2 megs of ROM) and a 120,000 x 120,000 pixel display. According to Handspring "Corporations are legal entities, just like people. And big corporations need big PDAs." [Ah, Nate, you might want to think about getting your hearing checked. -Ed.]

The next set of devices I saw was a pair of tablet PCs from ViewSonic. These units, one running Windows ME (ViewPad 1000), the other running Windows CE (ViewPad 100), had touch screens. The full Windows version has a 10.4" screen, weighs about 3.5 lbs, sports WAN and LAN, and can be expanded via a PC Card slot to handle wireless Internet through cellular modem or Ricochet. It retails for about $1800. The CE version weighs about 2.5 lbs. and has a wireless base station that can be wired directly to your broadband connection, allowing high-speed Internet access anywhere in the house. I admit that when I saw them, I finally understood the appeal of these tablets -- a simple docking interface that supports mouse and keyboard would make it very easy to work at a desk, then cart off your docs to read on the couch or surf the Net from your bedroom. At the office, you could work at your desk and then carry your work to a meeting or a lunchtime presentation at the corner Starbucks. At this price, they should be a runaway hit.

Motorola had a new Accompli, a color version of the recently released V series. This is a combination 2-way pager, cell phone (headset only) and organizer. The screen was a little on the dim side, but otherwise, this is a killer device. It combines all the advantages of the Mot 2-way pagers (which offer full email support), with the ability to make voice calls and manage other information on a small but functional color screen. Release date is soon, but price is unknown. Probably $500-$600.

Dataplay had a large presence at the expo. You may remember them from a couple years ago -- they make discs about the size of a half-dollar that hold 500 megs of data. Well, it looks like they've forged some partnerships with companies to distribute music on these discs, and they have an MP3 player and a camera in the works. A USB reader for your PC is already available. The pictured camera is only a mock-up, but the MP3 player is being prototyped and should be released sometime in October, priced at $199-$299 (BS Detector reading: Don't expect it before X-Mas, and don't expect it for less than $300). They're sticking with their WORM strategy though and are building in copy-protection, so it won't be a great way to download and store MP3 collection.

Cameras were a big deal at the fair and there were lots of different models being hawked. Almost every company had a 4x megapixel camera to show and the images they were displaying were absolutely fantastic. Most are still very expensive, from $800 to $1200. Olympus had quite a few new models that are in stores now and their 4x megapixel c4040 will be available next month for $1099. They also had a range of lower-end cameras, including a line with rechargeable batteries and a docking cradle for downloading pics, which is handy. Those models can also handle short video clips, though the quality is poor. Expansion is CompactFlash, which means larger capacity at a lower price.

Olympus also made a big showing of their Eyetrek line of head-mounted displays. These range in price from $400 to $800, with different resolutions and screen dimensions. At the show, they promoted their new Eyetrek for the PlayStation 2, which is $400, and has a XXX x XXX resolution in standard 4:3 format. I tried it and it made me a little dizzy, but it could have had something to do with my hang-over.

Thumb-sized solid-state USB expansion returned his year, with products up to 1GB from companies like ThumbDrive and USB Drive. The model shown here is the 512MB version from USBDrive, which retails for $799. A 16 meg version costs $59. Very handy (if a little pricey) for transporting large files from home to office or temporary workspace. I'm working on getting a Street Tech review unit, so I'll let you know how they actually work when I do.

This nifty little Net appliance, called the iCom from Interactive Imaging, runs Windows CE. What you see is the whole computer. About the size of a deck of cards, it has 32 megs of RAM, internal wireless networking and Internet capability. The picture show an innovative pointing device, which is basically an optical mouse but here you move your thumb over it to move the cursor. A head-mounted display (also shown) lets you see what you're doing, although the 18-degree monocular field of view is somewhat narrow. It is expected to retail for $995-$2000, depending on configuration and display, and should be out in 6-8 months.

Sony showed off a couple of new devices, including a great new "Gigapocket" Personal Video Recorder/PC. Basically a Tivo inside a PC running Windows ME on a 1.7GHz chip, it has an 80GB hard drive (for up to 100 hours of TV programming), DVD-RW, CD-ROM, TV tuner with remote control, software and other features optimized for viewing and editing video. Retail price is $2599 (less $100 mail-in rebate) without monitor. They also showed the MX "concept" PC that currently sells in Japan. It has a MiniDisc audio drive and FM tuner. US release is not planned.

Wavenet debuted an "always on" Internet connection for the Palm V series. Already active overseas (the company is Australian) it will be available in the US this fall (service through Motient Datatek, price unknown). Data speeds are up to 19.2Kbps and the device can also double as a wireless modem for a laptop. This makes it very useful for those who want some Net access on their Palm and laptop, without having to pay for two services. This will likely compete with the rumored Palm m700 "Blackberry killer," and we'll just have to wait to see which is the better wireless choice.

This picture was taken at great risk to myself. A Korean company working on next-gen video phone/Internet pay phone info kiosks showed a couple of these really cool looking devices. They refused to let me take a picture...but I did anyway.

Casio debuted the BE-300, which is a PDA that runs a version of Windows CE OS that is (gasp) even less powerful and more confusing to use than the PocketPC OS! Designed perhaps for vertical markets, it has a 166MHz MIPS processor and 16 megs of RAM, but because it doesn't run PocketPC, it's even less useful than the EM500 I reviewed. It only costs $299 though, so if you don't want to blow too much money on your next pointless tech purchase, this may be your gizmo.

The greatest find of the conference was this Linux-based Digital Entertainment Center from Hewlett Packard. It's really a brilliant gizmo, though it doesn't allow full browsing of the Internet on your TV (something many others are doing), HP has partnered with content providers to stream audio (MP3 and Net radio) and video (RealNetworks) content into your living room. You can basically call up a list of music videos, for instance, and watch them on-demand. If you like the music, you can order the CD online with just a couple taps of the remote. Since it can handle full-motion video, other content, including movies, is expected. The unit also has a CD ripper and 40GB hard drive, so it works as an add-on to your home stereo, too. I think the rep said that it can operate as a PVR as well, though I'll have to follow up on that. Because the unit was a last-minute addition to the show, details were sketchy. It's expected to be available in October and retail "for less than $1000." I think $600 is probably the right price-point, depending on features and access fees. I give this device the Street Tech "Best in Show" award.

Worthy of mention are two smaller finds: the Aiptek Pen Cam Trio is an upgraded version of the tiny camera that made such a big impression last year. The new version records 640x480 images, and records up to 13 minutes of audio clips that can be "attached" to your photos. Still about the size of a magic marker, and retailing for $120, I think this is a really nifty product. The Electrofuel battery is also promising -- it's a very slim "SuperPolymer" battery designed to slip under your laptop. It supplies between 12 hours ($399, 2lbs) and 16 hours ($499, 2.5 lbs) of juice.

This year's expo was a great deal of fun and there were plenty of vendors with new products and continued enthusiasm for the future. But, in the end, there was little that was truly innovative, most "new" products were just tweaks and expansions on products debuted last year. Hopefully, the downward spiral of the stock market and the general attitude toward technology will not continue too far into the future, and we'll get to see some real innovation in 2002.

- Nate Heasley [7/28/01]

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