This year the Pepcom – Digital Experience press event took place in New York City at the Metropolitan Pavilion and of course DragonSteelMods was in attendance. At the Pavilion were such companies as Kingston, Western Digital, Tivo, Samsung, Logitech, and many, many more. The theme for this year’s event was Welcome to the Jungle, as in the “tech jungle”. Many new products were demoed and I am going to discuss a few of the more exciting products that I encountered.

Pepcom – Digital Experience June 2008 Coverage

Author: Tom Ratas

Viewzi

http://www.viewzi.com/

One of the first booths I went to was for an online search engine called – Viewzi. Here is an explanation of the tech from the company. Viewzi uses proprietary intelligence that can source information from top online sites, providing users only the most relevant results. Viewzi then works behind the scenes to organize those results into views, uniquely designed to showcase different types of content such as music, video and photos as well as topics including news, weather, shopping, and gadgets – all in an a highly interactive and visual way.

Overall, Viewzi has appearance to Apple’s Coverflow technology, but for online searches. It looked pretty nice, especially when you are able to look at videos and photos in an easily viewable manner. The site is free and will work in a model similar to Google, where there will be strategically placed ads with an emphasis as to not distract the user from the overall experience.

M-Audio

Next up, M-Audio was displaying three of their newer products. The Session Music Producer is a PC or Mac enable microphone which can be used for vocals for music, videos and podcasts. It attaches via USB and has a front headphone jack which allows you to hear the audio in real time, great for podcasting!!! The Torq MixLab is a consumer level Digital DJ System for those who want to remix or mash up their music collections. Finally, they had their Studiophile AV speakers which come in 15 and 20 watts variations and are designed to provide high resolution professional audio optimized for home computer environments.

Zoombak

One of the more interesting products was found at the Zoombak booth, this company makes Universal A-GPS Locator or what the layperson would describe as a tracking device. Currently they feature two models – one for auto and another for pets. The Zoombak is about the size of a beeper and can be put in vehicles, bags, or carried on your person. The Zoombak uses Assisted GPS technology which means it is a combination of satellite and ground location databases. The device holds a charge for about five days and can alert you when it is running low. Zoombak works by sending text messages and/ or an email to you when the device is outside your preset safety zone. You can also pinpoint the exact location of the device on your computer.

I don’t know whether this is a great device or whether it scares me. I am an advocate of personal privacy, but I also believe this product has great utility. Especially as a parent, you wonder if this device is something that you will want to use to protect them. That being said, this is a great product for tracking your personal items and your pets. The service does require a service plan which ranges from $9.99 to $14.99 per month.