OK, granted, this is a little after the fact, but I wanted to see which of the few cool products I saw at PC Expo would gain traction or even see the light of day. I'll spotlight those products below.

I'll say from the outset that the June 27-29 show at NYC's Javits Center was not too interesting. Mostly just the same old hardware and software people showing the same old user-hostile and buggy stuff. No "paradigm shifts" or "major breakthroughs" anywhere in sight, although a dedicated "Linux Pavilion" might qualify. I note that the Linux area was the only place out of free stuff on the last day of the show (bummer).

So here, in no particular order, are the few interesting things I saw:

• Gateway's Micro Server line of network appliances. These boxes run some sort of Unix variant (probably FreeBSD or Linux) and can be called the ORIGINAL Cube since they were on display 3 months before Apple launched the G4 PowerCube. They have a nice HTML-based client-driven configuration/control setup. Not sure what the "RISC" processor is but they cost quite a bit for a headless *NIX box. Still, since my former fave Network Concierge appears unable to update 1998-vintage Linux-based software, this is one of your few options unless you want to built it yourself (which is easier than ever as Linux distributions get more complete and sophisticated).
   
• Tiquit Computers' tiny PC. Believe it or not, this company has compressed and entire PC, including up 1 gig of hard drive, into a package the size of a large Palm or Wince machine. You could make a really nice MP3 jukebox out of this, especially if you could rig a USB or SCSI bus onto it to allow other external storage. They were showing a Linux-loaded version and a Win98-loaded version. Both had 340-meg versions of IBM's MicroDrive tiny hard drive, but Tiquit said they'd ship 1 gig versions as soon as IBM had them ready. Interestingly, the Linux demo unit had a 340-meg drive labeled with a 1 gig sticker! The Tiquit runs off an AMD 486-compatible chip, so it's best used as a tiny server of some sort. I wouldn't recommend running Windows or X off this box but it would be just fine for an MP3 server, a web server or even a tiny file server. The unit now includes an Ethernet port, making additional external storage hookups easier.
   
• The ORB 2.2-gig removable drive by Castlewood Systems. Yet another competitor emerges to unseat Iomega's Zip Drive. Danger, Will Robinson: Syquest already went bankrupt touching this technology third-rail and 3M spin-off Imation has had little luck with the SuperDisk. But Castlewood has stepped up to the plate with a device that is faster and holds either 22x or 10x as much data as Zip (depending on if you're talking a 100-meg or 250-meg cartridge). They concentrate their efforts on video and audio production (see their website for specific example products) and specifically boast about the data transfer speed of the drive. They were showing an Aiwa MP3 player about the size of the original Sony Discman but there was no sign of this product at Aiwa's website as of late September 2000.
   
• Delorme's Solus GPS system for the Palm. This includes PalmOS software and an adapter to hookup Delorme's Earthmate Road Warrior GPS receiver. They demonstrated a hyper-mapped view of Manhattan so precise that the longitude and latitude numbers changed as the demonstrator walked around the Javits Center. Since the whole package (software and Earthmate device) can be had for about $300, this could serve as a poor man's in-car navigation system. Note: full functionality and interactive mapping beyond a small area requires a laptop. Overall the system seemed a bit clunky, but I'm not sold on the need for GPS receivers yet. Pretty innovative none the less.
   
• Sony's Imagestation.com website. Sony enters the mass storage market by providing free online web space for people to create public or password-accessible websites for their digital images and video. The site also sells printing services. I don't know if I'd trust Sony to guard my privacy, but this is an interesting trend. Kodak and Fuji and others will no doubt follow.
   
• Franklin's eBookMan device. Franklin has years of experience with eBook devices (they made language translator accessories, "Bible in a calculator" and the original Rex device). They're entering the crowded but so far underwhelming market for "book replacement devices" with a twist -- this unit will also play MP3 and Audible format audiobooks. It's about the size of a Handspring or Palm and has screen resolution about comparable. It will use a pointing device, which I think is kind of silly since you don't need to have so many options and push-buttons would be more convenient (the genius of the Rex). I have to call this vaporware because the website claims "Autumn 2000" availability but it's still not ready for primetime. Maybe by Christmas?
   
• SoftMac 2000 by Emulators Inc. Running on a (rather robust) Windows PC, this software emulates (hence the company name) the performance of a non-PowerPC Mac running System 8 or System 7.6. It's a possible plus for people who have a pre-PowerPC Mac that they need to run certain aged software (i.e. my wife, who runs her gradebook software on an ancient Mac LC520). The $200 price for their Deluxe Suite is a whole lot cheaper than an iMac. The demo they had running worked very well on a Sony laptop. They were running several Mac utilities plus PhotoShop, Internet Explorer for Mac and MS Office Mac on an emulated Mac Quadra environment. Everything worked pretty smoothly and much faster than that Quadra would and I was unable to crash it with some brief torture-testing. Their president is one angry geek, using his website to lambaste Mac OSX (deservedly), customer demands for a PowerPC emulator (stupidly), Microsoft (join the club) and CPU makers (yadda-yadda). Good reading, though.
   
• Maxell's CD Copy Station, which is shown nowhere on their website and the only online info I could find was this press release from January. This unit quickly copies a CD, prints a label and pops the label onto the newly-minted CD. They were pressing freebie demo CDR's that allegedly contained literature and pictures but mine wouldn't mount in any computer I tried it in. Oh well. Pretty cool but at $10,000 it's no toy!
   
• Iomega's HipZip MP3 player. The company has renamed the 40-meg Clik disk "Pocket Zip" and wedded it to a translucent plastic MP3 player. Cool concept but 40 megs of storage holds about 40 minutes of decent-quality MP3 music. True, the disks cost about $15, which is much cheaper than flash RAM, but it's inconvenient to carry around a bunch of disks and have to switch every 40 minutes. I predict this will be a non-starter even if it is a really cool use of the technology. I was a Clik beta-tester and suggested making an MP3 player. I tested playing MP3's off the original Clik drive both through the PC Card hookup to my laptop (very satisfactory results, and one Clik drive battery lasted through at least an hour of playing MP3) and via the parallel port on my desktop using the Clik cradle (not fast enough data transfer and buggy driver software brought the whole system to a crashing halt after about 5 minutes).
   
• Finally, Innogear's MiniJam MP3 player for the Handspring PDA. This product was hyped for months before it saw the light of day (it allegedly began shipping in August 2000 but still seems difficult to obtain based on MP3-related chatboards). It comes with up to 64 megs of RAM built-in and uses the new postage-stamp-sized MMC flash RAM cards, allowing up to 64 megs additional RAM. Pricing is about on par with the Rio 500 portable MP3 player. I'm not sure about the form factor of a Visor with this thing stuck on the end -- who's going to jog with that? But for commuting to work or short airplane trips (is there such a thing anymore?), this might be the ticket. Advocates point out that the Handspring can also glom onto some of the RAM in the MiniJam, thus vastly expanding its 8-meg memory reserve. Whatever. I still use a Rex and prefer a portable MP3 player but I'm probably in the minority on this.