VON Fall 2006 Recap

I finally got to unpack and sort through papers and business cards and read up on what I saw @ VON Fall 06 this past week in Boston.... got to see some cool things and met some cool people as well...I walked around on the last day which is the slowest mostly stopping by the smaller booths that are usually in the aisles or edges of the floor since everyone else already covers the "usuals" and players like Nortel, Verisign, HP, Motorola dont really need more exposure..I especially look out for companies/products/services I may have not been familiar with before and I think are of benefit to my readers to find out or learn more about them...here is my recap of last week ...

Video Phone
one product that caught my "ojo" (eye in spanish) was Ojo, the personal video phone.. Jim Mclouglin, VP of Sales and Marketing gave me a demo of the device and is actually pretty cool..even though the device looks a little futuristic and you may think its hard to operate, it seemed pretty easy and voice & video quality was good as well..and had cool features like the privacy switch on the monitor, and video voicemail greetings, it may not suit everyone's needs since it may be hard to take around with you but I say parents and grandparents could like it..

Dual VoIP Handset
I met Curtis Schmidek, President and CEO and Eugene Mackie, RTX America which manufactures DUAL Phone a dual cordless VoIP handset and standard telephone in one.. so I can use Skype and make free calls worlwide via skype and/or use my standard phone line (if I had one)..Eugene was nice enough to give me one to personally test which I will have a full review on this toy later on this week..

SKYPE
Speaking of Skype.. I met Kevin Delaney who was part of a "Next Generation Networking" panel ..he is the co-founder of software development firm KHAOSLABS ..and member of skype's developer advisory council..while attending high school..these are the kids to keep an eye out for.. He stopped by the NexTone booth for a sticker to win that z4 but is he legally of age to drive?

Microsoft Windows mobile 6.0
got a really quick sneak peak at Windows Mobile 6.0 Beta (known as Crossbow) on an HTC handset courtesy of Andy Glass, Manager IMS Windows Mobile and we chatted a bit about 3G, Tmobile vs Cingular, blogging and unlocked GSM handsets..the beta release of Windows CE 6 is available to device makers, developers and partners at the Microsoft Mobile & Embedded DevCon 2006...

Sony's Mylo
Speaking of cool gadgets...remember sony's mylo which made it on my bday list? I met Jeff Schline, Director of Marketing for Trinity Convergence...come to find out their software solution VeriCall Edge is being used by Sony and Skype in Sony's Mylo which features the built in skype client..Im hoping to get my hands on a mylo via Jeff (since I never received the promised demo) for a full review as well so stay tuned for that one...

Slingbox and Symbian
I stopped by the slinbox booth to snoop around and see if I could get a better answer as to when they would release a slingplayer mobile player for symbian OS for my Nokia e61..one person's answer was we are working on it.. but that wasnt good enough for me...she looked at an older guy who looked annoyed that I was asking this question..? he stated they already have a mobile player already working on symbian based devices...so its soon I hope...

REBTEL..Intl cell phone calling
I saved the best for last you could say... I blogged about REBTEL in August..and was thrilled to find out that Hjalmar Winbladh, CEO was to speak @ VON on Wednsday..I listened to his presentation and you could just tell the room was WowwweD by the distruptive power of Rebtel..I asked Hjalmar one question during Q&A if text messaging using Rebtel's Local numbers was possible..(we are after all Text sms/mms freaks).."Good question" he said but unfortunately is currently not available..so you could still talk interntionally using your cell phone and local numbers (NO software) for a $1 a week but no texting...I spoke with him after his presentation and he said"give me a little time" meaning he is working on it and he is in the process of expanding the team and to hire an SMS/MMS expert (they are only 9 months old and have a staff of 20 people but are already in 35 countries!)..I had a few more questions but he had an interview to do on pulver TV which can be seen here... During the interview I met and chatted with Greg Spector, Rebte's Chief Marketing officer and told him.."this is very powerful stuff already and if you enable texting on those local numbers...you could cause some serious chaos...I think they already knew this though.. Rebtel is definately one to keep an eye out for and use..Be a Rebel and Rebtel! sorry Greg, Im trademarking that tag line..

To wrap things up I'll say that no matter how cool technology and gadgets are..that enable us to talk, chat, text with someone accross the globe on any device..it sometimes doesnt compare to actually meeting and talking face to face to great people.....even though I did not win the BMW Z4 I walked away learning about new very cutting edge stuff and meeting some awesome people..