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AnchorDesk

John Morris and Josh Taylor
The best, worst--and most confusing--of TechXNY

John Morris and Josh Taylor
Contributing Editors, AnchorDesk
Friday, June 28, 2002
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After hours of struggling to come up with a pithy, catch-all phrase to sum up this year's TechXNY (the trade show formerly known as PC Expo), we gave up. And truth be told, it was more like minutes, not hours, but that's probably beside the point.

Unlike past trade shows, this year's TechXNY in New York was really a little of everything--most of it not particularly groundbreaking. Instead, show-goers were treated to a mix of evolutionary enhancements to existing technologies and previously announced products.

From our informal poll of tech journalists and industry types, tablet PCs were probably the most talked-about products at the show. In addition to the Acer TravelMate 100 that we wrote about Tuesday, other vendors including ViewSonic, Toshiba, and Hewlett-Packard were discussing their plans for, and in some cases showing off prototypes of, the new devices, scheduled to be available beginning Nov. 7.

ONE OF THE QUESTIONS we were hoping to clear up at the show was what we were missing about the new Microsoft Powered Smart Displays (formerly known as Mira). These products are basically wireless monitors that allow you to access your desktop remotely. So, for example, you could listen to streaming audio or view photos while sitting on your couch.

Though Smart Displays strongly resemble slate-style tablet PCs, in practice, the products are very different. While tablets are full-blown notebooks with a digitized screen, the Smart Displays are simply secondary displays (though they do have a very basic processor, and run a customized version of Windows CE called Windows CE for Smart Displays). But after meeting with members of the Mira team, we're still unsure that there's going to be much of a market for secondary wireless displays, at least anytime soon.

And for a product that seems to be entirely geared for the home, Microsoft has made at least one seriously confusing decision. In order to run a Smart Display, your desktop must be running Windows XP Professional (the displays require Windows Terminal Service, which is not included in Home Edition), which many home users don't use.

Microsoft explains this by saying the first generation of products is really geared toward tech enthusiasts, many of whom, they argue, are already running XP Professional. But we know plenty of enthusiasts who run Windows XP Home Edition, and question why Microsoft couldn't come up with a patch that would make the new displays Home Edition-compatible. Instead, Microsoft says it is considering a discount on upgrades to Windows XP Professional.

THE THIRD OF Microsoft's major platform initiatives, code-named Freestyle, is another technology that we question is ready for widespread acceptance. Freestyle PCs are meant to transform desktops into digital entertainment centers, highlighting image and digital video viewing, digital audio storage and playback, and digital video recorder functionality.

A product manager explained that Microsoft expects Freestyle PCs to be second or third PCs for most households, which people may use in non-traditional computing spaces like their kitchens, though he said they could also appeal to people living in cramped living quarters, and who might like the idea of having a desktop that doubles as a TV.

As we suggested in our PC Expo preview column last week, there's no doubt that at some point PCs will become the centerpiece of home entertainment centers, but the time isn't here just yet. We sort of get the feeling that with both Freestyle and Smart Displays, Microsoft is simply trying to get some stakes in the ground.

Other highlights of the show include:

DVD alphabet soup
Panasonic announced yet another new standard, DVD Multi, an extension of the DVD-RAM specification that allows users to read and write data to DVD-R, CD-R, and CD-RW formats. (DVD-RAM drives were modified last year so they could write to DVD-R media, but DVD-RAM/R drives still lacked the ability to write to CD-R and CD-RW media.)

I wanna hold your handheld
HP joined Toshiba in introducing Pocket PCs based on Intel's new XScale processors. The new iPaq H3950 and H3970 (the first iPaqs to be released under the HP brand) don't offer any performance boosts over current models, but they are expected to provide superior battery life. The color displays are also the best we've ever seen on a handheld. The $649 H3950 ships with 64MB of RAM and 32MB of Flash ROM, while the $749 H3970 ships with 48MB of Flash ROM, and integrated Bluetooth.

Sony also introduced a new Palm-based CLIE, the PEG-T665C ($399), which will be available in the coming weeks, and includes a color screen, an integrated MP3 player, and 16MB of RAM. It can act as a remote control for devices up to 15 feet away, a feature also found in the new iPaqs.

Loads of LCDs
Tablet PCs and Smart Displays weren't the only newsworthy flat panels at the show this year. Dell, Samsung, Sony, and ViewSonic all announced new flat-panel LCD displays. This is a sure sign that LCDs are really starting to take a significant share of the market from traditional CRT monitors. In fact, Dell hopes to ship 40 percent of its desktop PCs with LCD panels by the end of this year.

Which of these technologies interests you most? Which the least? Why? TalkBack to us!

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