Comdex offers a sneak peak into the future of technology
By Lois M. Collins
Deseret News staff writer

LAS VEGAS — Comdex is a showcase for what's new and exciting, a sneak peek into the future of technology.

The Mitsumi Bird can tell you when you have a new message and will even read it to you.

Vendors and developers have flocked here from as far away as Taiwan, Belgium and Australia. And the crowd's just as international. An estimated 125,000 people flocked here this week for the show. This year, though, Comdex is a little different. There's no single "wow!" item that has the entire show buzzing. Most of the technologies were introduced before, at least as prototypes.
Instead, there are incremental — and in a few cases, major — improvements to those somewhat familiar technologies.
That doesn't mean innovation is dead. Some very innovative products are simply maturing.
Wireless is a major trend this year, much of it designed for close use with Wi-Fi technology. It's big because the spectrum on which it operates is huge and inexpensive. So the show floor teemed with wireless notebook computers, mobiles phones, home networks and more.
Everything's also digital, whether it's wireless or not. And most of the products are being built to standards. The day of the proprietary device is fading, so products are more versatile than ever.
And design is very big, from the sleek, elegant look of a Philips monitor to the leopard-look computer tower by EnerMax.
Best of all, most items are becoming affordable. Technological innovations used to belong to the wealthy; now they're within reach for most people.
Thousands of products are on display here this week. Here are just a few. Where possible, prices are included. Among them:

A PDA, phone and printer combo by 4P. It's a barcode scanner and printer, magnetic card reader , phone and PDA complete with keyboard, touchscreen, two smart card interfaces and Wireless LAN. And it's not much bigger than a cell phone, though it is a little longer. It will run applications from the corporate server, browse the Internet, exchange e-mails and do everything a phone will do.

Mini drives are becoming increasingly popular.

Philips Jack Rabbit 32 is a portable CD burner and DVD-ROM drive that uses USB2, a single cable and will soon have a battery option. It will hit the store shelves in January. On it you can play back an MP3 or CD, without a computer, enjoy a picture CD and more, according to Mike Alford of Philips. It will plug right into the television. It costs $299 and is small and light so it can go with you anywhere.

Olympus always has an exciting line of new cameras, and this year is no exception. The new Camedias all use a new type of media, called XD Media, which is literally the size of a postage stamp. The card comes in 128 MB and will soon be available in 256. Plans are to go up to 8 gigabytes. And it's coming out with a Compact Flash adapter that's going to make it even more versatile.
The more expensive new one, the Camedia 5050 ($799), has more feature control than the others, including both manual and automatic options. Lenses can be added, and a hot shoe is built in. It also has an articulated LCD viewer, and the equivalent of a 35-105 lens. It will accept either Compact Flash or Smart Media cards.

But the coolest new Olympus product is the Mic-D digital microscope. It uses a fiber optic light source and has 12.86 power ratio on zoom, which means that the hairy-looking bug they were showing was magnified about 277 times. It's a serious scientific tool that's stylish and portable, for $995. It would make a great gift for a science class.

Iomega has two versions of its Mini Drive, literally as small as a pen light. At $99 for 128 MB and $69 for 64 MB, it plugs right into a notebook computer, then you can drag and drop the data you want onto it. With a control panel, the volume or a portion of it can be locked. And it's so small, you can pop it into your pocket. It uses Active Disk Technology, so when you plug it in, the application launches.

Kelly Chessen, an employee for DriveSavers of Novato, Calif., takes a break from her company's booth.

Joe Cavaretta, Associated Press
Mini drives are increasingly popular, and several companies are producing them. Iomega also was touting its new 750 MB Zip drive.

This one's part novel, part practical, but cute as all get out. The Mitsumi Bird (a bit reminiscent of the robotic dogs that debuted a few years ago) hooks onto a computer that is enabled with Pop3 e-mail. It tells you when you have a new message and will even read it to you. It also will read you your schedules and other items. It sells for $59.99 and can be found online at www.pcmascot.com.

PC Laptops was showing off the E-Pro Max 585 portable computer, which has a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 processor, more than a gigabyte of memory, a 50 GB hard drive, DVD/CD-RW combo driver and scads of other features. There are several configurations, ranging from $1,599 to $2,899.

The much-discussed "Segway" was also on display here. The "people mover" isn't exactly a scooter. It's built differently. To use it, you stand upright, feet side by side, and hold onto a very thick handlebar that controls it.
It's a bit cumbersome to steer when you're trying to get used to it, but it's a surprisingly smooth ride.
The crowds were lined up to try it, and one was to be sold online.

Neurok Optics LLC has a series of Smartron 3D monitors. Instead of using visual tricks, they replicate the way people normally see depth by providing each monitor with a front and back screen. The digital video monitor can display real 3-D images without glasses, lenses and other devices. Even when you don't need the extra dimension for your work, it looks nice.

Security technology is booming. FaceOn Logon 3.0 works with a camera to authenticate computer users. And it records all users who do access it.

There were were also hundreds of tablet and notebook PCs, monitors, flat panel TVs and computer monitors, security software, cellular phones, networking and storage technology, software and more on display.