Pepcom 2013 leads with video & mobile
January 2013 – One of the first co-located press events each year at CES is Pepcom. This year’s event was once again, very well attended, organized and busy. Held a the MGM Grand, the company featured uniform table and booth sizes organized in what seemed like an open pattern. The reality was, several of the exhibitors in the video and mobile space, were drawing a lot of attention and causing some “traffic” havoc on the floor – a good thing for the exhibitors and also a strong motivator for the press to leave the free food and check out what the buzz was about.
Some of the anticipated highlights as promoted by the PR folks before the show, were surprisingly not the at tractors at the event. Telibrahma, who was also showing in the Eureka Innovations section of the conference in the Venetian, had a light attendance for their Augmented Reality tools for mobile, as did Rambus showing both their entry into the LE light bulb marketplace and their interactive TV controls. Oculus Rift had yet another gaming VR headset at the show, that several years ago would have drawn strong attention, but recent devices released by the industry, including Sony themselves, it was just a good solid price conscious alternative – not a game changer.
Liquid Image 339 camera goggles
There were a number of returning video solutions – the most crowded of which was Liquid Image. Their goggle and helmet based 1080p video cameras are well recognized by sporting professionals and enthusiasts who do not want a big blocky camera protruding from their safety gear while doing an activity. This year they showed several new models, including a motor helmet design with integrated camera and new models for the snow goggles and swimming goggles. These follow their previously introduced diving and skiing masks.
For the car – Cobra was showing a new GPS, and radar/ladar devices that connect to the mobile phone, The two piece unit can be installed inside the grill of the car, and then connected to the mobile phone for data analysis and display. Also for the car were multiple vendors with new handsfree kits all featuring Bluetooth 3.0 stereo sound. Bluetooth Low Energy (part of the extended range BT4.0), while highly promoted, has yet to make a large splash in the CE space, even though 2013 was the target year.
To support all this data, Lenovo was showing new ultrabooks, tablets, convertible devices, and MS surface devices in the booth. The big crowds were for testing the Win8 convertable devices that were dual tablets/ultrabooks and the Surface design stations.
The USB consortium was at the event showing off the new device charging aspects of the USB 3 spec and connections. This interface, especially the microUSB plug, is leadingthe way as the dominat connector in the mobile device space for both data and charging. It is already the standard interface connector for the EU for charging and taking a larger portion of the industrial design wins as the multi-function connection, as it is compatible with MHL and other functions in the same connector.
On the mobile health side, Bodymedia was showing their new exercise and health monitoring devices with the cloud interface for data analysis. These include a new smaller industrial design for the monitor and a portable disposable “patch” that is designed for short term, travel and vacation use. This allows for continuity of monitoring without the worry about loss of the expensive full function unit while out. These units, now with the cloud interface were platform agnostic interfacing via USB and wireless to PCs, Androind, and iOS device.
Making thier intro at the show was Masimo with their personal use iSpO2 blood oxygen and pulse rate monitor for iOS devices. Targeted at home and exercise monitoring, the device created by a company with a 20+ year history in medical devices for patient care, is easy to use and has clear simple reporting. In baseline mode it displays oxygen saturation numbers and pule rate, in the graphic mode it shows a real time graph of pulse and display the O2 saturation numbers. It currently connects to the standard 30 pin connector for iOS devices, rather than the new connector.
