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CeBIT offerings emphasize ease of use, better design
http://digitalmass.boston.com/news/2003/03/14/cebit.html
By David McHugh, Associated Press, 03/14/03

HANOVER, Germany -- The combined printer-scanner-copier makes no great technological leap, but it's sleek and small enough to cut the clutter and wires in your computer nook.

The Hewlett-Packard PSC1210 thus fits right in at this year's CeBIT technology fair, where the latest products reflect a more sober, post-boom tech world -- not necessarily cutting-edge, but better designed and, in theory anyway, less of a challenge.

With a footprint just a little longer than a sheet of letter paper, the $186 HP all-in-one device is the smallest of its kind in the world, the company claims.

The buzzword this year is "ease of use" saving people time, hassle and money, said Bernard Meric, HP senior vice president.

With consumer and business spending sluggish and the threat of war casting a pall, this year's CeBIT saw the number of exhibitors drop by about 20 percent to around 6,500, and there were noticeably fewer new devices on show.

Much of the buzz was about wireless local area networks -- just as it was in 2002. Much of the new hardware to accompany the trend may show up next year, analysts say, though Intel did unveil its wireless-ready Centrino chip assembly for portable computers.

Things like cell phones with a built-in digital camera, and laptops with detachable keyboards were new and cool last year; this year they're everywhere and companies have made them less confusing.

Sony Ericsson last year touted its P800 camera-equipped cell phone. This year, it's the T610, which simplifies the taking and sending of pictures down to five button pushes. "It's fine to offer imaging and gaming capability, but you have to make it easy to use," said company spokeswoman Kerry Matheson.

Likewise at Nokia, the world's largest phone seller. Its 3300 model, available in the second quarter in Europe for about $320 depending the country, includes an MP3 player and an FM radio.

It's the successor to the previous 5510 music phone that was larger and had a typewriter-format QWERTY keyboard for people who send a lot of SMS text messaging. Consumers balked. "We learned that people didn't want to make a size compromise," said spokesman Damian Stathonikos.

So the phone shrank, and got a game machine-like oblong shape -- though it can still be held up to the ear for phone conversations without looking odd.

Sony's new equipment such as its Z1 Vaio notebook emphasizes design over specification, encased in a very light, gracefully curved magnesium-aluminum case that the company -- which frankly admits it's responding to the success of Apple's metallic notebook design -- says resists scratches.

Another old-is-new design is Parrot's DriveBlue $187 handsfree cell phone adapter for autos. It uses voice recognition software and the Bluetooth wireless standard -- about 7 percent of the phones in Europe but only a few in the United States have Bluetooth-capable phones, said Paris-based Parrot's president Henri Seydoux.

Complicated installation was a deterrent to earlier devices, so with this one the only setup is sticking it in the cigarette lighter, and briefly training it to the sound of the user's voice. Hit the call button and say the person's name, and the device dials it.

There was also the usual rash of eye-catching gimmicks, including the $187 transparent, lighted computer housing by German company Pearl, which caters to a fad among European gamers who like to show off their computers' innards.

Siemens and the Dutch company Alva BV offered usability of a more serious sort -- what they say is the first cell phone for the blind. It uses a strip of moving dots that form Braille letters so people can read the phone display with their fingers.

The device, the size of a small book, combines technology already used by the blind for note-taking with a tri-band cell phone, a PDA function and SMS messaging capability.

The companies hope to sell 4,000 over the next five years; it lists for $4,350, though many purchasers will have some sort of public subsidy available to defray the cost.