DemoFall

Tikitag connects offline devices to online data

SAN DIEGO--Tikitag, an Alcatel-Lucent venture, demonstrated a new product at DemoFall that enables people to use RFID wireless technology to link any type of offline device or paper with information online.

Companies can put tikitags, small tags that stick onto things like Post-Its, which contain data, onto products or business cards. Tikitag readers can read the data off the items and provide additional information and services online.

For instance, someone can put all their social network and identity information onto a tikitag and affix that to their business card that can display that information on the Internet when swiped … Read more

Plastic Logic's plastic reader is thin, simple, strong

Why would you want an Amazon Kindle, which is kind of bulky, not too attractive, and of limited scope when you could have a real digital document reader that is thin, easy to use, and very strong?

That's the business case from Plastic Logic, one of the first companies to be on stage at DemoFall this morning.

The company's plastic reader is designed to store dozens or hundreds of business documents on a very thin digital reader. It can store e-books, magazines, newspapers, PDFs and all kinds of information, the company said.

It's made with plastic, not … Read more

Say Where brings voice recognition to iPhone apps

If you've spent any time using iPhone apps, you probably have gotten a hint of the fact that they may well be the hottest thing going and, in some ways, the future of software.

That's largely due to the fact that, especially with iPhone 3G, the device combines GPS, an elegant interface, Mac OS X, an accelerometer and high-speed Internet connectivity.

Now, Dial Directions, a company that has focused on providing speech recognition tools to cell phone users, is getting in the iPhone game.

And on Monday, the company announced at DemoFall its Say Where iPhone app, a … Read more

DVD ripping goes legit with RealDVD

RealNetworks will soon let users rip DVDs to their hard drives--legally. The company will be unveiling the RealDVD software at Monday's DemoFall conference in San Diego, but CNET got an early look at the software. Our hands-on impressions follow:

Operation is simple and straightforward. Once the RealDVD software is installed, just pop a DVD into your PC, and the program will copy the entire disc to your hard disk. Depending on the read speed of your computer's DVD drive, the operation will probably take 15-20 minutes (for dual-layer discs that house 7 to 8.5GB of data). You can copy as many as your hard drive will hold, and the program's browsing screen gives you the cover art and relevant metadata (cover art, stars, directors, plot summaries, ratings).

Whether you're at 37,000 feet or you're accessing the program on a home theater PC hooked up to your TV, you need only click on the movie you want to watch, and it'll start straight away. (We say "movie," but RealDVD works just as well for TV shows on DVD as well.) The files are uncompressed, and include everything on the disc--all the extras, and all of the surround sound and alternate audio tracks. Videos can only be watched in the program's built-in software player, but you can toggle to full-screen viewing, and videos autoresume wherever you last left off. … Read more

DemoFall preview: 10 to watch

The DemoFall and TechCrunch50 conferences launch Monday. Demo's posted its list of it 72 presenting companies. TechCrunch will post a part of its list, we're told, at 6 a.m. Monday.

You can see the full Demo list at the end of this post. But here are the top 10 companies I'd be paying the most attention to if I were going to Demo (I'm going to TechCrunch with Josh; CNET News writers Elinor Mills and Daniel Terdiman will be at Demo). I'll do a list, or lists, for TechCrunch too, time permitting.

Rafe's Top 10 previews from Demo (Please note that I haven't talked to all these companies yet, so my understanding of these pitches is incomplete, and my post-conference Top list will likely be different.)

(Note #2: I have replaced one my original picks due to a press embargo error on my part.)

Clintview by Clintworld: This is a financial analysis tool primarily for mobile phone carriers. It simulates customer behavior related to pricing and helps create pricing tiers and plans that generate the most revenue. It brings a disciplined approach to pricing services, which I think is smart. Might be applicable to paid Web services as well. CrowdSpring Private by CrowdSpring: The company is not new, but I still love the idea. It's a new twist on the open marketplace for intellectual work. At Demo, the company will unveil CrowdSpring Private, which lets companies create their own, closed markets, so creativity doesn't leak out onto the Web, heaven forbid. Infovell: Very interesting new search service. It lets you type in arbitrarily long queries, and then ranks results based on importance and frequency of word clusters. Also lets you use entire Web pages as queries, generating a "more like this" function that doesn't currently exist. Could be great for researching complex medical or legal topics. Avego by Mapflow: Adds intelligence to casual carpooling with a car-service-like gizmo that tells drivers where riders are that want to go where they are going. It's hitchhiking 2.0: Scary but cool, and very green. PaidInterviews: Pays job candidates for going on interviews. Totally whacked economic model, if you ask me, but that makes it interesting. Plastic Logic: New science for electronic books, possibly competitive to existing e-Ink technology. Real chemistry at a start-up conference. What a breath of fresh air. SpinSpotter: Claims to spot bias and inaccuracies in news stories. Helpful, if it works. Although it will probably expode if pointed at the blogosphere. And who watches the watchmen? .tel by Telnic: One of several new companies that lets users create personal calling card Web sites using a new top-level-domain. I am highly skeptical of this model, but I want to see how it develops. WebDiet: Location-based diet helper. Gives you food advice based on what's close to you. Unknown if it gives you an electric shock and shrieks, "Keep walking!" when you pass a McDonald's. Xumii: Makes a service that access all your social sites from your mobile phone. Could be very useful for the younger, multiply-connected set.

See full Launch Week coverage of DemoFall and TechCrunch.

The DemoFall lineup is after the jump...… Read more

Are Demo and TechCrunch50 fragmenting their audiences?

Update, 12:36 p.m. PDT: Business Week now says it is planning to send a reporter from its print side to DemoFall to complement the online reporter it is sending to the TechCrunch50.

If you're a fan of high-tech product announcements, next week could well be heaven for you.

That's because starting Monday, both DemoFall and TechCrunch50 begin, each of which showcases dozens of brand-new products. And on Tuesday, Apple has scheduled one of its semi-regular press gatherings at which CEO Steve Jobs is sure to unveil some hot new iPod, Mac, or iPhone models--or some combination … Read more

DemoFall wrap-up: Products most likely to make money, solve a problem, and creep you out

There were a ton of products to evaluate at the DemoFall 2007 conference in San Diego this week. A few stood out, and not all for the right reasons. Check out the vid to see which products will likely make real revenues, solve real problems, and save you a boatload of money. Plus, because not everything we see at these shows is a winner, we've got products we expect to see soon on the Home Shopping Network, and the one service most likely to totally creep you out.

See all the DemoFall stories.

CashView: Useful small business invoice processor

Call me a killjoy, but I usually find it difficult to get excited about small business accounting software. I just took a look at CashView, though, and talked to a few people about what it does. It performs a much-needed function for small businesses and could save a lot of them a lot of time and hassle.

Here's what it does: When you get an invoice from a service provider, you either e-mail it (for PDFs; if it came as a Word or Excel file, convert it) or fax it (if it came in the mail) to the address … Read more

The Portable Personalization Project: Matchmine

We gave Matchmine a small writeup from the DemoFall conference yesterday, but I wanted to dive into the concept here a little more. What Matchmine is trying to do is create a universal preferences system. The pitch is that instead of rating the movies and music and blogs you like on each site you go to that has ratings, you rate your preferences once, and then any future sites you go to can grab those prefs immediately to serve you recommendations that will be good for you.

The recommendations are created independently of any site's users, and thus can'… Read more

Cellphone symphony: MixGet

This was the most entertaining idea at DemoFall so far, and probably the most ridiculous: MixGet (site not live yet). It's technology that turns individual cellphones into synchronized music players. So if you have a crowd of people together, one person's phone might play a guitar track, another vocals, another drums.

The presenter tried to justify this product as a potential new kind of ringtone, but I'm not sure I see it. This project is from Redsquare Ventures, which is trying to bring Russian entrepreneurs' ideas to market.

I love this idea. But I don't see … Read more