CeBIT report

After waking up exceptionally early we were driving in to our friendly and only country with the lovely green and pink houses, Germany. We were overwhelmed by the large number of huge plasma and TFT screens but after a few hours we got used to them. The Germans were exceptionally friendly and all the Heidi’s and Gertrud’s smiled at us, maybe it was because of the Press passes we acquired after days of negotiations.

 

So what did we see?

Intel: Intel had a very nice boot as you can see on the pictures. The company introduced a range of dual-core systems. They presented a dual-core chip set-up that enables a TV to play an HDTV video, and a monitor to play a 3D video game.

The Intel manager also presented a notebook with the mobile dual-core CPU, Yonah. Manufactured using the 65 Nanometer technique, and ready for launch at the beginning of 2006, it will be the driving force behind the next Centrino generation as part of the Napa platform.

The Pentium M-based Car PC, which is built into a Mini at the Intel booth, also made a cool guest appearance. The computer fits into the car stereo slot and is controlled via touchscreen or voice recognition. Communication runs via GSM, GPRS and UMTS. Bluetooth can also be used to connect PDAs and notebooks to the system. And there is more, the Car PC can synchronize data with your home computer via WLAN, for example for music and movies.

Fiberglass and phones

We were received very well at the marvelous O2 booth which had a fiberglass look at its roof on which light was projected. We saw the latest video phone technology for UMTS which gave similar broadcast quality as your normal mobile phone. UMTS costs from O2 will be the same as the cost for a normal mobile conversation in Germany so that will grant you a lot of low-cost fun.

Furthermore O2 showed us their latest music service which enabled you to download music directly to your mobile phone, or PC. They also used a cool song recognition method called Music Spy & Buy which meant that you could use your mobile phone to recognize a song that’s on the radio and enable you to download it. All you need to do is call a toll-free number and hold the phone towards the music. After 20 seconds, the call will automatically end and the customer will receive a text message with the song title and artist.

Was the car smashed or not?

In another hall Audi’s exhibition showcased were they showcased the concept car RSQ, which appeared in the film `I, Robot.` George was amazed to see the car because he was convinced it was smashed in the blockbuster movie :0P

Small but powerfull v.s. huge and overwelhming

JVC had an amazing little video camera (the size of an average fist) that packed some great hardware such as 3ccd’s for optimal colors and  a 5 megapixel snap shot functionality.

Samsung had some humongous Plasma and LCD screens including as they claim the largest Plasma TV of the world with 102 inch it looks like your wall is projecting images instead of the TV.

Wooden devices and gadgets

Another nice booth was that of SWEDX which sell wooden casings for computers, speakers and monitors.

Belkin showed us a nice device that allows you to send music from your I-pod to your stereo using Bluetooth technology. They also had a wireless transmitter called Pure AV with a new technology that improved the colors of the screen.

One of the most impressive things we saw was a system that could recognize figures using a webcam and then projecting interactive 3d models on a big screen that were aware of the position of the object. The models were projected on the video feed from the area around you, thus narrowing the boundry between virtual reality and a normal live feed. For example we had a card with a puppit on it that balanced when you changed the angle of the card.

All in all we had a blast a the CeBIT and we would like to thank the nice people there for showing us around!