Ensembli. Homepage | Avaak. Always Innovating: Introducing the Touch Book. Ontier Inc. Best Mobile App from DEMO 09: Asurion's Social Address Book - Re. At this week's DEMO 09 conference Asurion Mobile introduced their new open mobile address book called simply "Asurion Mobile AddressBook. " Although the name may not be all that flashy, the app itself is. With this mobile address book, you can add social elements to your contact list including Flickr photos, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds. This may remind you of the upcoming Palm Pre's address book which will deliver similar functionality with its Facebook integration, however Asurion's solution does even more. And thanks to the app's open framework, it's not limited to the social add-ons it ships with - developers can extend it any way they like. Android-Only (For Now) At the moment, Asurion's address book is available only on Android phones, and it takes advantage of the phone's open nature to access the address book details stored on the device.
Another interesting element to the Asurion address book is the idea of a "Smart Contact. " Lessons from Demo on surviving recession | Digital Media. PALM DESERT, Calif. --How does one measure the effects of economic meltdown? At Demo 09 here, there are two ways, one that's obvious, yet hard to see, and another that is both obvious and visceral. While Demo for years has featured about 65 to 70 companies, this time around there's just 39. Everybody knows that, but it's hard to actually see it. The main ballroom where Demo presentations are held is packed, with every seat at every table full. And no wonder. In the past, Demo has received hundreds of applicants for its coveted on-stage spots. This year, however, word is that Demo Director Chris Shipley and her team simply didn't have enough applicants that fit its criteria to fill out the normal-sized roster.
Still, just because there are fewer companies presenting here this time around, doesn't necessarily mean the quality of those taking the stage was any lower than in previous go-rounds. --Christine Herron, First Round Capital If so, this is good news. What does this all mean? Unnamed. PALM DESERT, Calif. --The Demo conference was small this year. Only 39 companies presented, down from the usual 60+ at this show. The audience was smaller, too. But there were some good companies here, and some solid business models. Senior writer Daniel Terdiman and I came up with our seven picks from this conference. Always Innovating's Touch Book ( story ): Yes, it's just another Netbook. Daniel really liked eFormic's CO2Code ( story ) initiative to create a database of carbon emissions for consumer products, all indexed off the products' UPC codes.
Skout ( story ; podcast ) makes a clever location-aware dating service. I really like the article discovery service Ensembli ( story ). Although I have reservations about the current state of the product, Avaak's Vue ( story ) camera system is clever, reasonably-priced, potentially very useful, and based on genuine technology (a low-power radio mesh network). Asurion ( story ) showed a contact manager for Android mobile phones. DEMO 2009: A Smaller Showcase for Startups. Dean’s picks for the best of DEMO » VentureBeat. The DEMO 2009 conference was in a familiar setting in Palm Desert, Calif., this week, but it was very different from past shows.
The elephant in the room, as organizer Chris Shipley pointed out, was the weak economy. That colored everything. There were fewer companies — 39 this time versus 72 in the fall and 68 a year ago. This meant I was able to spend more time with each company, meeting them at their booths as well as watching them on stage. And while many of the exhibiting companies say they’re built to survive tough times, it was easier to see the flaws in each business model. In my view, there were no runaway winners this year, like past presenters Zink Imaging, maker of inkless printers, or Plastic Logic with its plastic ebook reader. Technicopia has a great idea going with its Gwabbit software, which automatically captures contact information from emails.
That said, here are my favorites of the show: 1. 7 Billion People. 2. 3. 4. 5. People’s choice: SmartyCard.