Cash advance no fax machine required

A Cannes for nerds

Albert Einstein once said he never worried about the future because "it comes soon enough." The personal computer industry, however, does worry, worries an awful lot, in fact, lying awake at night imagining that the competition will be the first to divine what is ahead. The wish to know what is around the corner has created a business opportunity for International Data Group, the computer-trade press conglomerate. To satisfy the appetite for advance knowledge of the PC industry's future, IDG invites CEOs, senior executives, and venture capitalists to pay big bucks ($2,295) once a year to attend Demo, a conference consisting solely of wall-to-wall demonstrations and sales pitches for products that may be months away from release. Demo 97 took place last week.

Face time. The conference sells out far in advance. One reason is that attendance is limited to 800, permitting easy access to the vendors' senior managers without intermediaries like industry pundits getting in the way; hands-on demonstrations fill adjacent rooms between formal sessions. As one visitor described it, the arrangement provides a "faster bit stream." Attendees see the creme de la creme of just-released or not-yet-released products, culled during the past year by Chris Shipley, Demo's new executive producer. Perhaps a fitting analogy is the film festival at Cannes or Sundance, only more selective still.

The computer industry is anything but sickly, but even at this moment of plenty, one statistic jumps out: Marketing data indicate that whereas 18 months ago, 40 percent of all U.S. households owned a PC, the figure today is ... still 40 percent. It would appear that the remaining 60 percent regard the expense (high) and hassle (even higher) of PC ownership to be greater than its touted benefits.

While trying to reduce both price and complexity, computer companies also are paying attention to the benefits side of the equation, trying to invent entirely new uses for the PC that might nudge the holdout households into action. Here's a sampling of contenders from Demo 97: Pinnacle Systems VideoDirector Studio 200. For $295, you get hardware and software that connect your camcorder to your PC, and your PC to an attached VCR, allowing you to edit the order of scenes in family videotapes and add titles, wipes, and special effects.

Less compelling was the software that pulls video from the Web and delivers it into a tiny square on your computer screen. The images of the on-screen subjects leave much to be desired; of the two companies demonstrating their wares, Vxtreme's Web Theater was the best. Photos combined with communication would be one way of grouping some other kindred products. Storm Technology showed off its EasyPhoto Scanner and associated software, designed expressly for family snapshots. Feed the photo in, and, seconds later, with a few clicks and a loud whoosh sound, it is zapped to Grandma's PC. Of course, she too must be in the "in crowd," that 40 percent of PC-owning households.

That "in crowd" may be interested in the industry's newest array of "palmtop" personal computers that will be on store shelves by late spring. Hewlett- Packard and Philips Electronics showed off their yet-to-be released products, both of which required considerable engineering ingenuity. Like their predecessors, personal digital assistants, these machines are light--less than a pound--and able to keep on ticking; H-P claims its machine will be able to run four weeks on just two AA batteries. Yet in terms of functionality, the machines offer the promise of being far more than expensive address books--they run Windows CE (kind of a Windows Lite), facilitating software compatibility and easy file transfer. Color rules. The most intriguing consumer product may have been Compressent's Chroma-Fax software that turns PCs equipped with color inkjet printers into easy-to-use color fax machines. Why, you might ask, do you need color faxes? You don't, no more than you need a color monitor, color scanner, or color printer. But like all the rest, once you see it, you'll instantly wonder how monochromatic life was bearable. Tiny Compressent, with only 15 employees, got a coveted spot as one of eight "premier products"--firms that are given a special spotlight on the first day because they offer the most striking new technology or offer the prospect of creating an entirely new category of consumer product. Suspense is heightened by the determination of the show handlers to prevent any leaking of product details in advance.

Another "Premier" product at Demo 97, VeriFone, should also get an award for Most Irresistible Product Name: the Personal ATM. In fact, the product is a prettified version of the little boxes through which your credit card is swiped at stores. This one, however, is intended for the home and is designed not for credit card transactions but for loading up "smart cards" with electronic cash. The cards, which contain a microchip that stores a portable savings account, received some attention last summer at the Atlanta Olympics, and VeriFone, along with numerous partners, has been plotting a major push to expand their distribution. The cards are "just like cash," we're told, but that's hardly so: Cash is universally accepted at stores, but smart cards are not. What is the incentive for consumers to abandon good old cash or conventional credit cards? Demo attendees could mull such questions over in comfortable surroundings. Last week's conference was held at a top-tier resort near Palm Springs, Calif., surrounded by golf courses that stretch to the horizon; attendance cannot be regarded as hardship duty. Believe it or not, during program sessions, conference registrants are to be found inside the darkened hotel ballroom where they are supposed to be, watching the demos. The opportunity offered is too rare to be squandered playing hooky.

The principal other place to see new and forthcoming computer products is Comdex, the monster-truck-size conference that takes entire possession of Las Vegas every November. At Comdex, no organizer vets the exhibitors, so it is left to the attendees to try to figure out which among the 2,100-plus exhibitors are demonstrating the products that are likely to be the next hits. At Demo, the organizers have done the legwork already and have reduced the exhibiting companies down to a comparatively intimate 85 candidates for future tracking. In contrast, Comdex's organizers seem impervious to the notion of overpopulation.

It seems like it was just the other day, five years ago, when Comdex's 133,000 sullen visitors were convinced that the crowding had reached a point of crisis and simply could not get any worse. How wrong they were: Last November, attendance set a new record, this time, passing the 215,000 milestone. Given this situation and the desire it creates for an alternative, it is almost surprising that Demo's sponsors do not take advantage of the industry's senior--and well-heeled--veterans and charge $22,950 a pop. Demo 97 provides advance information that brings a few days' comfort to anxiety- prone industry insiders. But the information stays fresh no longer than does unrefrigerated milk, and soon it will be time to send in advance registration for Demo 98. Give IDG some credit: It already owns an inexhaustible Personal ATM.