Trains that are not to overcrowded, still overpriced, but available hotel rooms and compared to previews years a dreamlike parking situation: Welcome to my CeBIT 2010 report in the year of “Less is more”, as usual totally subjective and just my little point of view.
But, you know, sometimes also less remains just less and is nothing more than that. For example: Lesser exhibition halls, lesser exhibitors, lesser visitors, because there had been lesser mobile phones, lesser Cameras, lesser Consumer Electronics and so on. All that areas CeBIT had lost over the last years to special fairs. Mobile Communications went to Barcelona to the Mobile World Congres, the Photo industry internationally meets at the PMA or on a national level at the Photokina in Cologne and Consumer Electronics only attends IFA beside the CES.
You may argue, that that’s not a big problem as these are special interest areas and not a core part of the IT Industry, but in times of continues convergence of technologies this also means, that we didn’t see some of the important big players like Sony, Philips and Samsung at CeBIT this year at all.
We all know, that it’s particularly more complicated to win back lost terrain, than to occupy new ones, so CeBIT Organizers decided to open up the show to a completely new sector, the Music Industry. So we had this year for the first time CeBIT Sounds in hall 22. In theory this sounds like a pretty clever idea, with the end of the popcom, the industry lost their homebase and now this sector of the German fair market is uncovered. But will the starving music industry really want to meet at the place of their biggest enemy, the Information Technology ? I seriously doubt that. And, Hannover don’t get me wrong, but popcom started in Cologne, than they moved to Berlin because it’s supposed to be the more trendy city … and now finally Hannover? Sorry, I don’t think so.
So the title of the best know song by the fabulous band “Die Sterne” “Was Hat Dich Bloß So Ruiniert” (what ruined you so much) was a bit of a motto to the whole CeBIT Sounds initiative. Die Sterne played a concert on Wednesday in hall 22, with supporting act Ja, Panik! from Austria. Unfortunately it was very bad promoted by the CeBIT Organizers, so not many people actually knew about it.
So, let’s stop engaging in navel-gazing, a typical German thing I have to admit and lets move on to the highlights of the show.
Global Conferences
There are first and foremost the CeBIT Global Conferences to mention. For a long time I already strongly believe, that trade shows in the IT Industry in the future will only work combined with a (high class) conference program. CeBITs contribution to that concept is called Global Conferences and they are on a promising way. The conference itself had been organized and managed in a professional way, speakers and panelists had been mostly class A. Positioning had been still a bit too broad, but just some more finetuning will be necessary for the future.
Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon at the CeBIT Global Conferences
Most interesting for us of course had been the talk of Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon on the topic of “The Ultimate Immersive Experience - Using Virtual Worlds to Connect, Communicate and Collaborate“. Mark’s talk had been professional as usual, the audience had been interested in what he said and Q&A brought up some interesting points. So, basically, that’s all you want.
3D without glasses: A research project by Frauenhofer Heinrich Hertz Institut.
The special exhibition „Next Level 3D“ in hall 16 had been a big visitor magnet.3D all over the place There had been no dominating mega trend this year. Of course Cloud Computing had been a widely covered issue, but we’ve seen that already last year. In my opinion the biggest trend this year had been 3D.
You found 3D on 120 Hz computer displays mainly in combination with nVidias Shutter glasses I already mentioned in last years CeBIT report. Unfortunately most of the display manufacturers hided themselfs in the so called “Planet Reseller” where you had only access as a registered retailer or as a guest of on of the exhibiting companies. The special exhibition “Next Level 3D” had been open to everyone, and had been astonishing presentations in a big 3D Cinema.
Thrilling new stuff at the „Future Parc“ Realtime-Raytracing also possible with XML3D.Hall 9 is traditionally the place for Universities and all sorts of companies from the research and development sector. So, the so called “Future Parc” had been again a place not to miss. Also 3D was a big issue here. Real 3D you can manipulate in the DOM tree showed the German Research Center for Artifical Intelligence with the XML3D standard. This HTML extension makes real 3D in a webbrowser without plugins possible in the future. At the moment you still need to patch your firefox to enable the new 3D elements, but we wish this initiative lead by Prof. Philipp Slusallek best of luck to become a W3C standard.
Also a very thrilling project is g.tec’s Brain-Computer Interface. Using an EEG and an interface developed by g.tec you can actually transform your thoughts into actions on the computer. All you need to do is to think about something and the computer will perform the action connected to this thought. It’s actually designed for handicapped people, for instance for patients suffering from the Locked-In Syndrom, but it’s also possible to use this technology to control your Avatar in Second Life.
Clemens Holzner shows g.tec’s Brain-Computer-Interface.
If you want to find out more, you may be interested in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8TEsoti3EI&NR=1
An absolute MUST HAVE:
The AR.Drone from Parrot, controlled via an iPhone, have seen it live and it’s even more thrilling then on the Video.
Aren’t we happy, and yes even the guess of our age hadn’t been so bad:
@MarkusBokowsky and @HannoTietgens on a test drive of Frauenhofer’s new facial expression capturing software.
The mobile phone-LED-Projector is on the way Aipteks mini-projectors still need a dark environment.
Aiptek, known for their small scale LED-Projectors for the first time showed a full range of products. The low light level made it necessary to demonstrate them in a sort of black box. Funny to watch, but its just a matter of time before the light level will rise and the combination of mobile phone and personal LED-Projector will appear on the Tech Scene.
Androids on the way Didn’t convince yet, the Android based Web-Tablet Archos 7.The first Android based Web-Tablets Archos 5 and 7 could be found at the Archos booth at the „Planet Reseller“. Compared to the various completely useless attempts of previews years (or should I say decades) there is hope in this concept. Size and weight is very promising. Regarding the two specific products that Archos showed, they didn’t convince me yet. The display is not brilliant enough and the User Interface reacts too slowly to have fun with the gadget. Without having the chance to test the iPad yet, I suppose it will be miles ahead in terms of quality and usability.
Webciety The round-tables of the webciety had been very popular again.Hall 6 was again the homebase of the so called Webciety, the place for Web2.0 companies. Again there had been some high-class round-tables and panel discussions. But all in all you could feel, that the CeBIT still has its problems with this colourful scene of Bloggers and Online-Entrepreneurs. When content is more important then technology CeBIT still has some stranger anxiety. In some places of course „Nothing but hot air” – here particularly good visualized by VZ-Networks.
Other Moves and Grooves
I’m very concerned that the end of the CeBIT sausage, the food you have traditionally for lunch at CeBIT, may be near. Many of the familiar yellow snack bars were closed this year, as they are located at parts of the hall that had been closed. And another threat is on the way, our friends from asia may try to take over also the catering sector. In the asia dominated halls 16/17 there had been as part of the “Golden Market” for the first time a Food Court serving asia food run by the exhibitors.
Also to China goes the price for the most bizarre innovation, the Singing Lightbulb. “You can have a shower and listen to music at the same time without wasting any space in your bathroom” explained the inventor the concept to me. I’m afraid that after 5 days of CeBIT he may return to Hong-Kong with that horrible feeling that not in every city housing space is such a problem as in his hometown and so for – unfortunately – the market potential of his innovation may be rather limited.
That’s it from CeBIT 2010, and to close with a quote by German chancellor Angela Merkel “in 25 years time there still will be a CeBIT” With this in mind, see you next year.
Markus Bokowsky
BTW: If you disagree or you want to comment on this article, why not become a fan of our page on facebook and post something on the wall.
Virtual art installation „7000 Oaks“ - a huge success
„7000 Oaks“, the work of the current Artist in Residence of the Goethe-Institut in Second Life 0100101110101101.ORG becomes more popular every day.
Since the grand opening of the installation end of last year over 300 stones had been taken and oaks had been planted all over the grid.
„7000 Oaks“ is a re-enactment of Joseph Beuys' installation with the same name produced for the documenta 7 in Kassel, Germany.
The artwork starts with a pile of stones. You can take a stone, so the pile shrinks and you'll receive this stone and an oak tree in your inventory. Now teleport home and plant the tree on your parcel, so you'll become part of the artwork. The oak and stone will tell us their position, so you can track the distribution of the artwork over the whole SL Grid on a map on the web. Now with the "Media on a prim" feature of the new SL Client you can also view the map in-world.
Stop by the Goethe-Institut SIM and take your stone and tree, there are still some stones left, but the pile is shrinking every day, so hurry up.
Media on a prim - the future of collaboration.
Last week Linden Lab released the first public beta version of the Second Life Viewer 2.0. As a Gold Solution Provider we had the chance to get it a bit earlier, so we already had time to play with it and we can tell you, it's a big step forward and will change the way we collaborate in Virtual Worlds completely. The first experience is, that it has a more modern User Interface and that it looks and behaves more like a web browser. Menus and buttons are placed, where Newbies probable will expect them.
But the more groundbreaking things happened under the hood.
Media on a prim or Shared Media as Linden Lab now calls it, is a standard capability in Viewer 2, that makes sharing standard Web-based media and content in Second Life easy, and enables more compelling, interactive experiences. It's possible now to place Web pages, video, Flash content, and other web media, onto any surface in Second Life. We tried it with Google Docs, YouTube as well as a couple of flash games and it all works.
Other new features at a glance:
A browser-like navigation bar with forward and back buttons. You can even save favourites and review your teleport history.
A sliding right-hand panel that surfaces the most frequently-used features and makes managing your profile, contacts, groups, landmarks, inventory, and appearance easy.
Improved Search, powered by Google Search Appliance technology, makes it easier to find friends, places, and cool stuff to buy.
A superior alternative to invisiprims for non-human avatars. In Viewer 2, a new wearable type, called Alpha Masks, allow you to "mask out" parts of your base avatar to make entire body parts disappear.
Sloodle Workshop with Stefanie Rühl and Marissa Bergbahn.
On March 23-26 Berlin will be the Capital of Moodle Enthusiastics in Germany and beyond.
Humboldt University is hosting the leading conference for Educators using Moodle for e-Learning, blended learning and so on. In 10! parallel tracks you can dive deep into all sorts of Moodle aspects.
To add an immersive component to your learning experience, you can connect Moodle with Second Life using the Sloodle Modules. So you can share media stored in Moodle with your virtual users, add content to your blog, use the moodle quiz and much more.
If you want to learn more about the possibilities you'll get using Moodle/Sloodle in your e-Learning environment and how to setup and maintain it join Stefanies Rühl's Workshop on March 25th.
As one of Germans Pioneers in using Sloodle in a real Learning scenario we had been asked to help a bit and share our experience with the audience, so our very own Marissa Bergbahn will join the workshop from within Second Life and will make it a real mixed Media event.
And another Conference we are participating on the panel.
Virtual Worlds - Best practices in Education (VWBPE) takes place 12-13 March and is a 48h in-world conference.
This year the VWBPE Conference is going to break new ground by having 192 presentations and upwards of 500 presenters over 48 hours present on best practices in education, uses, and impacts of virtual worlds.
Last year VWBPE broke all attendance records by bringing over 3800 unique with over 600 new avatars. This year VWBPE are expecting to break 5000 unique avatars coming to the conference. Most talks will also be streamed on the web.
Marissa Bergbahn will be part of the Expert Panel discussing the topic "E-Learning in Virtual Worlds: Chances and Opportunities for enterprises".
The panel takes place Saturday, March 13, 11am SLT, 9pm CET.
If you are in Hannover for CeBIT this year, don't miss Mark Kingdon's talk at the Global Conferences on Friday, March 5th, 11am CET in Room 2 of the Convention Centre. He talks about "The Ultimate Immersive Experience - Using Virtual Worlds to Connect, Communicate and Collaborate."
Learn how virtual worlds like Linden Lab's Second Life are being used everyday by individuals, companies and organizations around the world to collaborate with co-workers, create new products, hold meetings and start new businesses.
Oops, already beginning of March, time flies when you're having fun ;-)
It's CeBIT Time again.
Yes, it's shortened by one day again, and yes, there will be again less exhibitors and visitors, but it's still the biggest IT Show on earth, so let's go.
The official claim this year is "Connected Worlds", and it's not hard to predict, that one of the dominant trends this year will be 3D. Hall 6 will again host the webciety area, witch had been one of the interesting places last year, so don't forget to stop by watch a talk or a round table.
CeBIT takes place on 3-6 March in Hannover, Germany.
Germany's no.1 congress on Internet Marketing not only has a new Logo, also the date has changed again. For many years it took place in Fall, last year it moved into summer time and now it arrives in spring.
April 13-14 ICM Munich is the place to be.
Expect a 2-day program packed with high-class speakers and an expo showing what's up-to-date in Online-Marketing.
And another Conference we are participating on the panel.
Virtual Worlds - Best practices in Education (VWBPE) takes place 12-13 March and is a 48h in-world conference.
If you want to learn more about the possibilities you'll get using Moodle/Sloodle in your e-Learning environment and how to setup and maintain it join Stefanies Rühl's Workshop on March 25th.
