Mike's List
Leaving (For) Las Vegas

I'M PACKING MY BAGS Sunday and heading to Vegas for the punishing annual ritual known as Fall Comdex. I'll be there in time for Bill Gates' platitudes on how excited he is about the Tablet PC. 

The most interesting thing about this year's Comdex is that, after 24 years, it may be the last. The producer of the event, Key3Media Group Inc., said yesterday that the company may go bankrupt. 

Key3Media says it's expecting about 125,000 attendees this year, which is what they claimed last year. 

Trade show people always lie about attendance. They fudge the numbers and count exhibitors, locally hired staff and speakers as attendees. Take announced figures and reduce them by 15% to get a more accurate count. And projections for shows that haven't happened yet are always wildly exaggerated. Reduce that by 25%. 

There will be only 1,100 exhibitors this year, which is about half the number of the average show over the past decade.

Key3Media execs blame September 11 and a tech sector in the doldrums, but the decline started in the mid 1990s. There was an explosion in the number of small, focused trade shows catering to specific niches. And the Internet happened, making huge tradeshows unnecessary for some people. Comdex was obsolete by 1997. 

Still, people kept coming. Comdex has been fueled by the tech sector's herd mentality for years. Everyone went to Comdex because everyone went to Comdex. If vendors skipped a year, two things happened. First, the rumor mill would assume the company was in some kind of financial trouble. Second, they'd lose their "seniority" for primo floor space. So vendors kept coming, even though attending was overpriced, over hyped and, well, overwhelming. Attendees came out of habit. Or to get drunk and gamble in Vegas. Or because of the "star power" attraction of Bill Gates, who always keynotes, and other industry luminaries. 

It doesn't matter if Comdex dies. Even if it survives, it will never regain the centrality and importance it used to have. 

Still, there will be some goodies at the show. Dell will unveil its cheap new PDA. Microsoft will demo pie-in-the-sky household objects that run Windows. This year's show will be all about gadgets and wireless. 

If you're going to Comdex, drop me a line during the show if you see anything Mike's List-worthy! I'll report on the show next week. 

Feed Your Pet Online

Alpha Omega Soft released iSeePet today, which is a remote pet-communication and feeding system. The product, which was developed by Korea's Web Gate Inc. and 3B SYSTEM, enables you to see your dog or cat on a web camera mounted on the front, and control the dispensing of pet food. Log onto a special web site using supported mobile phones to see if your pet is still alive and, if so, if it looks hungry. Pushing buttons calls the pet and dispenses food. The dispensing of water is controlled by the pet, who gets a drink by licking the tap. The system costs about $1,500, plus about $32 per month for the online part of the service, which is operated by the Japanese company NTT-ME. The company did not release information about availability outside of Japan.

Attack of the Cloned

The library at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, has been cloned by George Lucas -- without attribution. Library administrator Robin Adams shows on the library's web site an uncanny resemblance between the 18th-century Long Room Library at Trinity and the "Jedi Archives" in the latest "Star Wars" installment, "Episode II: Attack of the Clones."

Stealth Browsing At Work

If you want to surf the web at work but don't want your boss to know, Ghostzilla lets you do it in stealth mode. The free browser disguises itself as a productivity application -- say, Microsoft Word for Windows -- with gray, boring text on the screen. You have to be right in front of it to see that it's really a web browser masking a page full of graphics. 

New Driving Game... For the Blind

SoundSupport.net has released "Drive," which is targeted at blind kids and teens. Feedback about speed and obstacles come in the form of sound, either through car and environment sounds or from the game's co-pilot, "Bob," who guides you through the streets.

Only In Japan

NEC Mobiling Ltd. said this week that it will offer a service called PRIMODE, which enables people with camera phones to print out their pictures at special kiosks. The company will install the machines at 100 burger joints, convenience stores and other high-traffic sites in Japan in December, followed by 10,000 machines installed throughout the year. The kiosks have memory card slots that support media used by major Japanese phones.

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Lying with PhotoShop

Artist Gregory Cosmo Haun finds old photographs, snaps new pictures in the same spot and from the same angle, then artfully combines the two in PhotoShop to create jarring blends of old and new. Most of the old pictures were found in the Oregon Historical Society collection. 

Found Video

Last year's Atari Tetris finals: This guy's hands are insane fast.

Proof You Can Buy Anything on the Web

• Gonzo welding helmets
• Inflatable PC speakers

Mike's List on the Radio

 Craig Crossman's Computer America features Mike Elgan every Thursday night. The show runs from 8pm to 9pm SVT (Silicon Valley Time). Listen to Computer America on your local Business TalkRadio station or over the Internet every weeknight. Don't miss Computer America!

Gotta-Get-It Gadgets

Luggage maker Samsonite introduced last week its 625 Series Hardlite Bluetooth briefcase. The bag stores your personal travel data electronically, which can be retrieved with a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone or PDA. If the case is stolen, you'll be alerted (they won't say how). It's also encoded with your personal information, so it can be identified upon return. The best feature has nothing to do with wireless: The Hardlite can't be opened unless properly oriented, so you're less likely to spill your junk all over the airport waiting area.

Wacky Web Sites

Make your own graffiti on the longest virtual wall in the world. 

Brick Films is a movie studio where all the actors, sets and scenes are made from Legos.

People make boats out of milk cartons. People make web sites about boats made out of milk cartons.

An enthusiastic Aibo owner has posted a picture gallery of his robot dog frolicking in the garden. I wonder if Aibo leaves little piles of batteries in the yard?....

Remember Hi-Rez, Antic, STart, Creative Computing and Compute! Magazines? Neither do I. But the old Atari hackers will. Here are the complete archives of all these publications from the Atari's golden years. 

Glow-in-the-dark vacation ideas: The Bureau of Atomic Tourism tells you all the world's "hot spots" of nuclear power, nuclear bomb testing and exhibits of the atomic age. 

 Draw little pictures and post them online for all to see. Why, I have no idea. 

Geeks wearning the nerdy clothes of yesteryear. Giant computers with massive tape drives. The glass. The punch cards. The core dumps. All captured in stunningly beautiful photographs. 

Here's a web site for pessimists who think big: It's the Living Almanac of Disasters. 

Make your own fireworks and celebrate the 4th of July every day!

Twisted Games

• Radial Pong
• Bet the Farm

Reader Comment

Mike: 
Just looking at your October 25 list and noticed the bit on the electronic bugle. I thought I'd let you know that NPR ran that story on November 11. Thanks for keeping ahead of the curve.
Larry

I get hundreds of reader e-mail messages per week, so I can publish only a tiny fraction of them. I reserve the right to edit letters for length and clarity. Send comments to: [email protected]

Last Week's Mystery Pic

No, it's not a "guy driving a Hearse with a video cam of the casket with a guy trying to escape the casket"; an anti-drunk-driving device that prevents people from starting their cars "unless they can count the number of fingers on one hand"; or even the "Jackie Chan mobile martial arts training Winnebago" as suggested by some readers. In fact, it's a demonstration at the recent Tokyo Motor Show by Mitsubishi Motors of a prototype Hand-Shape Switch, new technology designed to improve the automotive performance and safety of commercial vehicles. Jointly developed with Keio University, the system uses hand signals to adjust climate and audio controls, freeing drivers to keep their eyes on the road. Congratulations to Alexandria Jones of New York, New York, for being first with the right answer. 

Mystery Pic o' the Week

What is it? Send YOUR guess to [email protected] (be sure to say where you live). If you're first with the right answer, I'll print your name in the next issue of Mike's List!

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