DEMO 09: Getting smart

Tuesday morning at DEMO included some potentially very useful products and services for corporate IT people. But first came a slew of products devoted to making a smarter Internet -- or at least help users be smarter about using it.

One last time: For those who've never been to a DEMO conference, it's a seemingly endless series of six-minute pitches for IT products and services. Most of them are new, all of them are innovative. I focus on what's of interest to corporate IT shops, but you can find out more about any demonstration -- just click on the link.

The demos themselves are over, but if you're reading this on Tuesday afternoon, you can still catch the live video feed of the special DEMObeat sessions online at demo.com/live until 4:30 p.m. Pacific time. In addition, Computerworld blogger Eric Lundquist is blogging live here at the show. The video is only about five seconds delayed; the live blogging is updated continuously; I get an extra few minutes to add information and form complete sentences. Enjoy them all.

Here's the summary from the final DEMO session on Tuesday morning:

* Ensembli showed its easy-to-use news aggregator. Users type in keywords and get back a list of related topics, which can then be used to find specific stories. The system tracks searches, ranks topics by personal relevance and keeps track as the user's tastes change. In public beta now; no word on who pays.

* Evri demoed its system for finding content on the Web. The company crawls the Web and parses news stories and other content semantically into topics to improve search results, then groups the results of each search into topic collections that users can share. In beta now; no details on who pays, but the company plans to license its APIs to developers.

* Purewire offered Purewire Trust, its free Internet security service that rates the reputation of both users and websites. It's in beta now, so it hasn't yet built up "reputation scores" that you'll eventually be able to check for people (by e-mail address) and websites (domain name).

* Xmarks is the company formerly known as Foxmarks, which makes a Web bookmark synchronization system. Now the company is using the 600 million bookmarks its users have generated to enhance search results, rate websites and identify similar sites. Services are free to users.

* Qubes showed GagaPost, its "social co-blogging platform." The idea is that bloggers can have posts that are co-owned by their friends, who are instantly notified when a new post is created and can immediately edit the co-owned post. Works from Web browsers or iPhones, with support for Android phones to come. In beta, no word on who pays.

* Gazaro demoed its search engine for finding sale prices on the Web. It generates a "personal sale flyer" for on-sale products, tracks price trends at each Web store, rates sale prices on a 0-to-10 scale and sends out notifications of hot sales by e-mail, RSS feed or Twitter. Free to users; Gazaro gets a fee for pointing the user at the Web retailer.

* HowSimple showed its desktop viewer and search engine called Q, which lets users organize content into panels -- up to 35 on a PC's screen at a time. Nope, not overlapping windows or tabs, more like 35 thumbnails of websites, documents and other content. A collection of views can be sent to other users. Nope, I don't really get it, but late this year Q is supposed to become the front-end to a multimedia portal.

* Primal Fusion offered its brainstorming -- er, "thought networking" system. Type in a topic and the search service returns lots of related topics, which you can then further explore and save as a group. The system can use the saved material to generate a website, document or RSS feed. In alpha now.

* Kutano showed its service that creates a sidebar for websites, where users can post comments and see what other users have posted. The sidebar is actually maintained by Kutano, outside the control of the website owner, but shows up right next to the website in a user's browser. Kutano also plans to sell ads that will appear next to the site but outside the control of the website owner. Can you say "libel"? How about "trademark misappropriation"? Lawyers, start your engines...

* Xandros demoed Presto, an instant-on "utility desktop" for laptops. It's based on Xandros's version of Linux, but it's not intended to replace Windows -- just to give a user quick access to files or the Web without waiting for Windows to boot up. User selects Presto or Windows from a dual-boot menu at power on, after which it's about ten seconds to a usable desktop. The usual applications are included: Firefox for Web browsing, Open Office for accessing Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents -- and the Windows files are all accessible from Pronto. Shutting down is even faster than booting; it's just turning the laptop off. Very slick if it works as well as the demo. Xandros is also launching an applications store to distribute free and commercial Linux apps to run on Presto. Free beta version in late March, commercial version in mid-April, pricing not announced.

* Symantec talked about MyGuru (which it also calls Project Guru), a toolset and service for power users and IT people who need to support the PCs of friends and family. You sign up and list the friends you want to invite, who are then sent an e-mail; they respond and download a remote-desktop component. Then the power user can use the remote desktop via the MyGuru website, which also offers forums, knowledge bases and the ability to hand off the problem to NortonLive, Symantec's fee-based tech-support service. They'll start a pilot of the software later this year. This could be useful for cash-strapped IT shops that need to support a few remote users -- but it could also be a problem if your users decide to install it themselves. No pricing announced.

* Jadoos showed its "remote control for the Web," an onscreen widget that looks like a TV remote control but gives one-click access to websites and social networks. Handles passwords transparently, which effectively delivers single sign-on. It also lets users pull related information from multiple social networks, and provides a platform for developers. No word on pricing or availability.

* DeskNET demoed Sobees, a desktop aggregator for social networks. Runs on Windows, supports Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, RSS feeds and other services. Users can search for news by keyword, share the results via e-mail or Twitter and upload to multiple services simultaneously. In public beta.

* AppZero talked about its service for "instant" virtualization of server-based applications. Well, really it's more like instant provisioning of apps on Amazon and GoGrid cloud environments through a drag-and-drop interface. Before you get to the instant part, you need to run your Web apps through a converter that takes a few hours; in theory, that will make your applications portable. Supports Websphere, DB2, Oracle, WebLogic and Microsoft frameworks. AppZero is pushing this as a disaster recovery technique -- just prep your applications and then move them instantly to the cloud when disaster strikes. (Which is great so long as you don't need any data.) Prices for converting apps to the right format start at $500 per application.

* Finally, SmartyCard showed its educational system for kids. Cute idea: The kids have to successfully perform age-appropriate educational activities to earn their allowance, which the parents prepay into a SmartyCard account. The kids can then spend the money on sites including iTunes, Webkinz, Club Penguin, Stardoll and Bella Sara. Parents have a control panel where they can see how well the kids or doing in the activities. Unfortunately, there's nothing aimed at teaching security to users.

And that's it for DEMO 09!

Eric Lundquist: Lundquist's Five Demo 2009 Business Awards
Frank Hayes: DEMO 09: Getting smart
Mark Everett Hall: Without social networks products will wither and die
IT Blogwatch: Demonstrators demo at DEMO 09
Frank Hayes: DEMO 09: Getting weird with mobile
Frank Hayes: DEMO 09: It's the economy, stupid...
Eric Lundquist: Demo 2009 live blog of company presentations
Eric Lundquist: Five reasons why Demo 2009 still matters.
     ... more ...