DEMO Conference is the place to unveil your new company. Twice a year DEMO finds the hottest startups with the coolest products that are about to launch. DEMO is all about launching new products...in 6 minutes. That's right, each startup gets 6 minutes to demo their product and explain how it works.
The conference is divided into four sessions of about two hours each where 20 companies present for 6 minutes each. It is a marathon of technology demonstrations and information overload.
What stood out for me?
LeapFrog - A learn-to-read system for kids. Leapfrog uses a digital scanning pen (like FlyPen) to "read" text on the page of a book. It converts the words to voice so that a child can hear the words or sounds related to what they see on the page, making a mental connection to aid the learning process.
Leapfrog appears to use technology from VisionObjects to power their "digital pen". I wrote about Kayentis and VisualObjects, two companies based in France that pioneered this technology, but used it in different applications. Basically they use special paper that has a grid embedded in it. The digital pen uses this grid to identify where you are on the page and what sounds to play.
StepLabs - Amazing technology that filters out all background noise except your voice. The demo was done with loud music, VERY loud music, people talking nearby, and the audience yelling as loud as they could. A decibel meter measured the noise at 96 decibels. This is LOUD. I could see the demonstrators lips moving but couldn't hear a thing during the demo. He played back the recording of his message and amazingly all the background noise was filtered out. This technology will have lots of applications in cell phones and recording systems.
SkyFire - Brings the PC based browsing experience to your cell phone. Download the SkyFire mobile web browser and view any web page complete with pictures, video, audio, etc. SkyFire takes any web site and reformats it for viewing on your cell phone. But, unlike other reformatting technologies...you don't lose anything or any functionality. It works with Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.0.
Other cool stuff - Every company that presented had cool technology...they must in order to get into DEMO. Here is a quick run down of the other presenters in the morning session.
Time Trade - a meeting scheduler system that finds mutually convenient meeting times. Similar to TimeBridge and Tungle, which was announced at DEMO last year.
Iterasi - a web bookmarking tool that keeps a real HTML copy of the page you bookmarked. Important because web pages change frequently, but the bookmark only saves the top level URL. Similar to Onfolio.
LiquidPlanner - a web based project planning system that helps manage uncertainty.
CitiPort - A local directory of travel highlights all over the world. Users post pictures, comments, restaurant reviews, and travel tips. Similar to TripAdvisor and Yelp.
Fabrik - Their product is called Joggle. They consolidate all your online content, photos, music, video, all presented in a single view.
SpeakLike - Multi language IM/Chat. Type your message in English and your Spanish friend sees it in Spanish on her end. When she types a Spanish response you read it in English.
NotchUp - A job finder service with a twist. The companies looking to hire candidates pay you for the privilege of interviewing you. Links directly to your profile on LinkedIn. You set the price and select what types of jobs you are interested in.
Education.com - SchoolFinder is a site to help parents find new schools when they are moving to a new area. Schoolfinder also has lots of educational content and lesson plans focused on the exact age of your child.
800 PBX - A personalized telephone IVR system that converges voice and data that supports email, group messaging, and chat.
Don,
First, I love your blog; find it very interesting....LeapFrog has been around for over 10 years and have had a reading pen previously. I'm not sure what the breakthrough is here? It must be something since they were at DEMO, but from your post it sounds like old news.
Posted by: word | January 30, 2008 at 03:18 PM
You are right, the technology has been around for a while. I too was surprised to see them at DEMO, but they do have a new product and a new application of the technology.
DEMO is about new products, not necessarily new companies...although most of them are indeed startups.
Posted by: Don Dodge | January 30, 2008 at 03:24 PM
Are there any companies creating windows based software anymore? I appears that any software related ventures that get press in today's media has to be web based, or built with adobe air. Does anyone know of a site dedicated to cutting edge windows software (not including MicroSoft). I can't imagine that the market for opportunity has dried up with Microsoft's recent revenue of 16 billion plus in a quarter. What happened to small "software" startups.
Posted by: fusepad | January 30, 2008 at 04:04 PM
Yes there are lots of companies building products on Microsoft platforms, and using Microsoft tools. In fact, here at DEMO take a look at Huddle.net, a cool collaborative workspace tool. Huddle is built using Microsoft's .Net and uses other Microsoft stuff.
It is true that the web 2.0 apps get lots of media attention,but there are lots of companies building real applications and making real money on Microsoft.
Don
Posted by: DonDodge | January 30, 2008 at 08:55 PM
Been reading your blog for a long time. It was great to meet you at DEMO. Thanks for the mention above.
Posted by: Nitin | February 01, 2008 at 02:36 AM