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Bus One Seven
Backstage Pass
by Roderick Armageddon

What comes to your mind when you read the words, "trade show?" How about, "convention?" Does it fill you with oodles of heartfelt joy or truckloads of pants-filling fear? I’m more apt to fall into the latter category.

Every industry segment, subculture, personal hobby or fetish has one: a gathering of the best and worst that every possible genre has to offer. Whether you build high-speed digital signal processors or Three’s Company action figures, chances are there’s a date and place where you can meet and greet others who share similar passions. There you can showcase your knowledge, poor wardrobe and social ignorance among peers. For better or worse, this world exists, driving the sales and marketing of a variety of products and giving sci-fi geeks something to look forward to.

For industry trade shows, editors and analysts show up to cover the latest and greatest products and announcements; attendees come to learn more about specific issues and breakthroughs in their field; and folks of every size and shape drop by to gawk at the latest developments while collecting huge bags of shitty, "wouldn’t find this stuff anywhere else" tchotchkes - like a florescent paper triangle that transforms into a nifty little toothpick dispenser.

For years now, Anvil has shipped me off to a variety of trade shows and conferences in hopes that I’d bring back the beloved editorial Grail, a piece of written genius so damn compelling that the site rockets to 3 million hits an hour. Hell, in their quest to make sure I’m in the right place at the right time, Anvil’s editors even sent me to a rave! Unfortunately, we haven’t found the beloved cup quite yet. Aside from a handful of interesting technologies, concepts and sales pitches, I have yet to strike truly unfounded gold at a trade show. What has happened, however, is that I’ve seen some truly mind-boggling stuff and met a diverse collection of amazing and frightening people, not to mention the fact that I’ve accidentally collected more "Code or Die" shirts than are necessary to drape the interior of my 1978 VW bus.

Trade shows and conferences always give me something, whether it’s an intriguing personality, success or failure story, or technology I discovered on the show floor. On one occasion it was a personality I discovered vomiting fish tacos on my shoes at the Chevy’s directly across from San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center. This time around, I’d like to give you a little insight into what it’s like inside one of these marketing juggernauts.

Day 1:

Kent sent me this assignment about a month ago: "Jeremy, if you’re not too busy chasing down that guy who takes ultra-close-up pictures of fully excreted blackheads, how about jetting down to the Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco?" Alrighty, Kent. Embedded Systems… hmmm… sounds very "Resident Evil," as in "Good God, someone’s implanted an embedded system in my neck and now I have no choice but to kill you." Luckily I’m slightly up to speed on just exactly what an embedded system is, so I’m not walking in blind.

I arrive at San Francisco International Airport on Monday and wind up at my hotel room 20 minutes later, thanks to the quick hands and heavy foot of Raul Paul Simmons, a performance artist who drives a taxi to "support my bitch ass." Anvil has spared no expense and puts me up at the W hotel. Andy Richter said it best: "if Banana Republic were to start a hotel, this would be it." All of the staff members (called cast members) are far too serious but the place is definitely nice. Massive Attack was pumping through the speakers as I waited for the elevator in the glow of dark blue halogen lights on deep cherry wood.

Prior to actually hitting the trade show floor, there’s this strange sense of excitement that builds up inside of you. It’s the hope that you’ll be exposed to something truly grand or breathtaking. It rarely happens, but there are those instances when you get the real goods, like the year I discovered the world’s first latex hand designed strictly for the sole purpose of masturbating. I still have yet to understand how this non-vibrating latex hand, with its’ pre-cupped position, could actually work better than the real thing. I imagine that there are probably folks out there without hands for whom this would be a great device, but that wasn’t the focus of HMS Enterprises’ marketing efforts, whose booth at Sextopia `98 was all about the more practical, prurient uses for their Man Hand. I still have six of these things at home, all sitting neatly on my window ledge, jauntily holding Pottery Barn candles like they were designed for little more.

Day 2:

The show hasn’t actually started for the day, but I’ve already managed to cram in a handful of 30-minute meetings with companies like Mentor Graphics, Wind River and Microsoft, all before 11 a.m. Blah, blah, blah, "superior sourcing access" this and "robust code for thin client apps" that. I basically understand what they’re saying but not entirely. My tactic is to nod my head a lot and repeat their statements to make it sound like I really do get it. It seems to work and their PR reps make sure to load me up with what seems like 20 pounds of press kits. Great!

As I’m attempting to make sense of how quickly the chefs whip up gorgeously tasty California rolls at the local sushi bar, the guy sitting next to me drops his chopsticks and I reach down to pick them up. As I grope the floor for contact, I notice a ring binder poking out of his bag with the title, "Confidential Bionetrics Report" on its spine. I come up for air 40 minutes later and have the complete lowdown on a new technology that actually exceeds all of my campy, Resident Evil expectations.

Seems as if this guy has developed a system that can control your moods by monitoring the chemical balance in your body, sending small electrical signals to your nerve center to trigger adjustments until you reach a pre-determined chemical balance. This truly blows my mind, leaving me thinking that I might actually find a cure for binge drinking. Just when my eyes start to glaze over like a fresh pastry, the guy tells me he’s about 15 years away from a human-compatible prototype. Apparently in 1987 when the first series chip was implanted, the lab rats didn’t fair too well. They slept 12 hours at a time and ended up eating their own feet. The second series (1998) was implanted in pigs and proved slightly more successful until someone in the lab received a call on their cell phone. Something about the incoming signal caused the pig to convulse violently and then bark like a dog for hours. After it finished barking there seemed to be no response from the chip and the pig went back to the farm. Welcome back, Jose Cuervo.

Day 3:

After spilling the entire contents of a Vanilla Latte on my trousers, I wander back to the W to ask info desk cast member Vinton if they can clean my pants for me, ASAP. He responds without a smile, "Of course Mr. Armageddon, shall I charge it to your room?" I try to crack a joke and tell him that Mr. Armageddon is my dad, but he doesn’t flinch. Vinton could very well be a Disney animatronic character, designed to reduce personnel costs. "Sure, charge it to my room." When I check out the next morning I see that the Latte stain removal was apparently performed by the cast of Friends or the London Symphony Orchestra. My cleaning bill is $120. Kent still has yet to sign off on the expense report.

Armed with a fresh set of pants, I venture onto the show floor and check out what I’m told is the coolest of the cool. A couple of military application devices catch my eye, the Phrasalator (from Applied Data Systems) and the Raytheon BRUTE (from In-Hand Electronics). The BRUTE is like a bulky PDA that commandos use to send battle coordinates and naughty pictures to their friends in tanks just over the hill. It’s entirely wireless and built to fall down an elevator shaft without a scuff. Cool enough. The Phrasalator translating PDA is also built to take a lickin’ but it looks very stylish, with body colors reminiscent of the first generation iMac. Unfortunately, it only allows you to speak directly to people using a limited (1000 phrases) vocabulary, so it can’t translate what other people are saying to you. It has great implications for soldiers looking to communicate with anyone in Afghanistan, but it’s probably another 7-10 years before a two-way device hits the market.

After my technical inquiries are exhausted (total questions: four), I ask the marketing guru behind the Phrasalator if they have non-military applications planned for this device. He says a number of relief work organizations are interested. I tell him there’s a much hotter market right here at home. The Pacific Northwest would benefit greatly from the world’s first coffee translator. For example, I tell the thing that I want a large espresso drink with vanilla and amaretto flavoring and no foam and it automatically translates my order into the exact lingo of the coffee shop I happen to be in. Now that’s technology at work.

Wrap-Up

Sitting on the plane as we jet back home, I realize that as with many trade shows and conferences that I wind up attending, the best experiences at the Embedded Systems Conference happened outside of the conference hall. I think that’s indicative of the true beauty behind nearly every one of these events. I wouldn’t dig up half of the good stuff I manage to find, was it not for the mere existence of the almighty trade show. The fact is, I’m more likely to find something truly worthwhile outside of the show, itself. So be it. No offense to the show organizers, they did a fine job. I’m just looking for something a little deeper beneath the surface.

As long as I’m digging through the trash outside of the SFMOMA for something, Anvil will continue to throw me around the globe. Now if I can just get Kent to sign off on that expense report.

Technology Worth Noting

Believe it or not, I did manage to find something on the show floor worth writing about. Situated in the back corner of the convention hall was something you just don’t expect to see at a trade show… a Chevy Suburban. This SUV was developed by a team of students at UC Davis and features a truckload (pun intended) of embedded systems. But the really cool part isn’t the embedded systems, but what they’re interacting with: an impressive hybrid powertrain. These guys have developed the first and I’m guessing the only full size SUV (this is just about as big as they get) that manages more than 30 miles to a gallon of premium gas while meeting all low emissions requirements for the State of California. How does it do this? Primarily, they plucked out that huge chunk of Detroit iron and threw in a 1.9-liter high revving Saturn car engine, teamed with an inline electric motor and a pack of nickel metal hydride batteries.

This Suburban not only gets great fuel economy, it also manages to out-pull and out-accelerate a stock, gas-powered Suburban! I managed to talk the boys into giving me a ride and it truly impressed the hell out of me. Not just because it sounds like Marty McFly’s Delorean, or because it throws you back hard into the seat so you can focus on the complex onboard entertainment system. Oh no, this thing impresses me because it was a group of engineering students that put it together. They have yet to be tainted by the corporate teat of the automotive industry, so their intentions were pure: build a vehicle that American’s love, but is kinder and gentler to the planet. To keep the yuppies happy, they even made sure it has the guts to pull a yacht out of Tahoe. Believe me… it does. These students are remarkably smart, and there’s not a word of marketing-speak drizzling from their lips. After a couple of days of schlock, this was entirely refreshing. If Detroit could build this vehicle, I’d buy it. Hell, they should hire these kids today, give them a fat budget and a lot of space and time, and let them build technology that performs and keeps the air clean. Check them out at www.team-fate.net.