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What's in store at Demo '06

Rafe Needleman Former Editor at Large
Rafe Needleman reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. He has evaluated thousands of new companies, most of which have since gone out of business.
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Rafe Needleman
2 min read

Nothing beats the Demo conferences for cool product introductions. When the conference officially opens on Tuesday morning, I'll be anticipating a few demos more than others. Based on what's printed in the conference guide (which isn't always completely accurate), it looks like it will be an excellent and entertaining show. Some of my picks are:

• GetMeNow and Iotum, both of which aim to intelligently filter phone calls to you based on how important they are. It looks like GetMeNow is for emergencies, while Iotum is more general.

• Blurb Booksmart. Makes printed books out of your blogs. (What's next, movies?)

• Kosmix. A better search engine. Automatically categories results. Kind of like Yahoo's directory, except it's automated. I tried an early version of the site, focused on health information, and found it more useful than Google.

• Digismart. A tiny projector for laptops and handhelds. Sounds incredibly useful.

• AdShare. A more equitable advertising engine than Google AdWords and AdSense?

• Riya. A visual photo search engine.

• TagWorld. A MySpace competitor (I covered it for Release 1.0).

• Pleo. A $200 toy robotic dinosaur.

• iGuitar.USB, which lets you plug your guitar into your computer "...and turns (it) into an exciting new computer peripheral."

• BiM, which turns your cell phone into a fitness accessory. (My guess is it uses GPS to turn it into a route-recording pedometer.)

• The one product sure to be the hit of the show (if it works) is MooBella, an automatic ice cream scooper that can dispense 96 combinations of flavors and mix-ins.