Links: Official Show Info Site / Exhibitor Press Releases /

I went to the wrong Moscone Center in San Francisco, as I hadn't actually processed that for the first time CTIA had moved to Moscone South, a bigger space located across the street. At least I think its bigger, as it swallowed up the Fall Cellular Internet and Telephone Association Conference with room left over, even though the attendance was being estimated at 15K, up a bit from last year's 13K. This show is still the smaller sibling to the Spring Conference, which will be held in Las Vegas April 1-3, 2008. It didn't take long to recover from my error though, and the biggest problem was dealing with crossing San Franciscan traffic to get across to the right hall and enter the world of hand held internet access.

Still, I was just in time for my appointment with Tony Sailer, founder and CEO of Enterpret Communications, and his folks to talk about the future of handheld based language translation. Though Enterpret is still fairly early in their roadmap, focusing on text to text translation of Spanish today and with voice to text still half a year from beta at least, they're full of good ideas about where they want to take the company, and they've just announced the release of their "Enterpreter" Mobile Translator for Blackberry and Symbian S60 based phones (Palm and Windows Mobile to follow) for direct to consumer sale at the beginning of 2008. Despite our location in the underground space outside the press room it worked quickly, translating words and phrases by accessing the 650K word database over a 3G data link. Getting the first release off the ground is an important step, but we had a lot of fun spinning off ideas for what comes next. I'm hoping to see translation of text taken from cell phone pictures via OCR and Entrepreter, which could be a lifesaver for me when traveling. Though Spanish is their first language they're actively pursuing the next set of tongues: French, Italian, German, Spanish (including Castillian), and Portuguese, partly because of its impact in Brazil. Facing the world with good translation technology in my pocket is something I've been looking forward to since watching the original Star Trek, or maybe before. (www.enterpret.net)

While I'm on the subject of what to do with cell phone cameras, I was intrigued by 23Half's "Cameraphone Search" application, "Thrrum Visual Browser" that "enables camera phone users to search and browse relevant information by simply pointing their camera phones at products and other objects of interest in their physical environment". Though I enter a lot of text into my Blackberry, that doesn't mean I wouldn't rather capture it, instead of keying it, so this seems like a great idea with room to grow. (www.thrrum.com)

Inside, on the show floor, and past the mega Microsoft booth, I found HTC, whose 6150 handheld features across the web access to your windows PC desktop and an XGA output to an external monitor so you can actually see what you're doing. Otherwise it runs Microsoft Windows Mobile 6, but hook up a Bluetooth keyboard, plug in a monitor, and you can leave your laptop at home. Of course, you really don't need a laptop at all, but considering the expected price point of 7-800 dollars, you're into laptop territory anyway. The 6150 will be available in a few weeks, comes unlocked for GSM carriers, and will be available either through HTM's website or through selected distributors. We're looking forward to trying one out. (www.imate.com) If you can give up the XGA, you'll find the 8502 interesting, with its external NTSC (Television) output and integrated keyboard, For now, it makes sense to use NTSC, and I expect they're thinking it will be handy to be able to head back to your hotel room and use the TV set as a monitor, but eventually the world will convert over to flatscreen LCD sets, which will take XGA inputs (or beyond), and I'm sure HTC will offer that option as well.

A company I kept running into was Becker, which is well known in car navigation system circles; it threw me...as I didn't know them myself. It turns out that they're the OEM manufacturer for a variety of European brands from Maserati to Audi, and though they have been selling standalone units in Europe for a few years they are just now coming to the US with a product launch this January at CES in Vegas. Though you can get the system to talk to you in sixteen different languages, which download to the unit, my suggestion that you be able to get your car to talk to you in English with an accent from its own country is something that will have to wait a bit farther down their roadmap. The system uses TeleMap data and will cost between 299 and 499 depending on screen size. A small touch I liked, was the ability to change it's trim lighting to match your car's instrument lights, either red or blue. Of course my car uses both…so I'd have to see if I could get it to cycle between the two. The unit can also read music or images off a 2GB SD card, and navigate in 3D as well as 2D representations. (www.mybecker.com)

Navigating my way over to the TeleAtlas partner pavilion, I spoke to Benjamin Shagrin of Boomerang, which was introducing their nav device; a personal guide book and navigation system for hotels and car rental agencies that will show their guests the town using a combination of web and concierge research tools. While it's true that you can get the same information from a computer search or a smartphone, there are plenty of people who aren't up to the challenge of figuring out how, or who have the patience to deal with all the various services available. Which is where Boomerang comes in, with an easy to use menu and display that takes all the pain out of looking for an out of the way play or tiny tapas place in a strange city.

I'd already talked to another of TeleAtlas' partners at an offsite event; the traffic reporting and prediction service Inrix, which uses thousands of GPS probe equipped vehicles, many of them in people's fleets, as well as the regular (road sensor, school schedules) inputs to track and predict traffic patterns and conditions. The biggest affecter of traffic patterns on a daily basis -- school schedules. (www.Inrix.com

Handmark was around giving away copies of their pocket express suite of applications, as well as free espressos, and both were moving pretty well. It's not an office suite, but an information suite, with content organized by a checkerboard of interests including flight info, news, and the ever popular sports. The service is free for download, but the additional concierge service, which will book rooms, flights, restaurants and call cabs for you, is an additional $9.95 a month, though there is unlimited usage. The map software will bring up your current location as determined by the devices GPS or an address you feed it, but it doesn't pass your location on to the concierge, which I thought was a missed bet. Sure, there are times you might want to turn it off, but in the main I'd like them to know where I am without my having to figure it out. www.handmark.com

Another software suite I'd seen for travel information was over at WorldMate, which was introducing WorldMate Live, which integrates Outlook, their website information, and a mobile client that pushes itinerary changes and updates to your smart phone. If you need, you can book an alternate flight on the spot, though if you're like me you'd like to be able to obsess over which fare is cheapest…a feature not yet available. The system is "context sensitive" so it offers you alternatives and more options depending on the status of your itinerary. If you travel a lot, WorldMate live could become your favorite mobile application. (www.worldmatelive.com)

Wandering around the floor I ran into QSound Labs, which was demonstrating an excellent audio enhancement tool for media on mobile devices, increasing the richness and separation of audio files. They only work with chip manufacturers, (ARM, TI, CSR and a few others) so you can't just add them onto your phone, but should you want to check them out, you can download the desktop version of their apps from their website. (www.qsound.com)

Still thinking about sound, I stopped at Sound Ideas, a ringtone content provider, to see what was popular in ringtones. Evidentially it's everything you'd expect from your basic early teen: groans, grunts, roars (animal), swearing and sounds associated with bodily functions. I did like the lion roar ringtone, but the sounds that come out of the phone when "Porn Star" plays should get an "R" rating at least, and be possibly forbidden from being played in public at all. Personally, while I like ringtones myself, since I tend to pick sounds or songs that I like in the first place, I hate to interrupt them to answer the call…which is a bit counterproductive, so I tend to leave them off my phone. (www.sound-ideas.com)

We went from ringtones to rock over at the Motorola booth, where a line of folks had queued up to play the newly released Guitar Hero Three, Legends of Rock. Though they were competing for a copy of the full size game, they were getting briefed on the release of the mobile phone version as well. A few minutes of cell phone play convinced me that it could be the end of civilization as we know it, with hordes of zombie like cell phone users standing transfixed by their phones as they try to rock their way to stardom…because it was really a lot of fun. Still, it bugs me that playing the game doesn't actually translate into any sort of skill on an actual guitar. Maybe in the future we'll see rock musicians on stage with stringless guitars fingering four colored buttons.

No visit to CTIA would be complete for me without stopping by to see the Blackberry booth. As a heavy mobile device keyboard user, I've been a fan of RIM's since they beginning, and in fact much of this report was thumbed out on a Blackberry 8830. Since I'd just seen the I-Mate 6150 at HTC, I was wondering if there was anyway to get my Blackberry to display on a bigger screen. The folks at RIM steered me to Rove Technologies, which lets you output your Blackberry display to a PC, that's not the same as outputting it directly to a display. Since I do so much typing on the device, I though I should get an actual word processing program for it. Normally I just compose in email and send notes to myself for editing on a PC, but there are features I'm missing from the email editor any word processing application would want, like the ability to go to the bottom of the document in a few keystrokes after opening it. RIM suggested that I look into Dynoplex's eOffice, suite, which lets you edit (Word/Excel), view (Hi-Fi Attachment & Document Viewing: PDF, PowerPoint®, DOC, XLS, Faxes and Images), store (on a virtual drive), or share files from your Blackberry.

RIM had just announced some personal applications for their business oriented device, including "Facebook for Blackberry" and a refresh of their IM messenger, which works through Googletalk. Also on the personal, if ephemeral side, there were more skins and accessories shown than I'd seen before. Since the blackberry usually gets worn outside my pocket, it becomes part of your wardrobe, and as I'm more often in jeans or khakis than stylish black clothes, the idea of picking up an English tan "wallet" for the device, or an orange (my signature color) skin, really does tempt me.

About the last thing I saw that grabbed me at the show was at Neuro Sky, where they were working on brain-wave interfaces for computers. In the demonstration game created by designer Johnny Liu, you'd focus your attention on a virtual object after putting on a special headset that monitored brain waves in the 30-40 Khz range…and after a few seconds of concentration, discover that you had mutant superpowers, or at least the ability to move virtual objects around inside a computer game by mind alone. It's a pretty cool feeling, but since the current setup only reads one signal, you can't actually do a lot with it. I figure you'd need at least three inputs for useful controls (up/down, right/left, go/stop) but even in the current version it was an interesting experience. They're in talks with game controller companies, so this might be something that shows up in a year or two in your house. www.neurosky.com/