MacWorld, Day 3

So it's Day 3 of MacWorld. My eyes are starting to glaze over a bit, as even I can get to the point of tech overload. Part of me thinks they should rename the show to "iPodWorld," as so many of the vendors here are iPod-only. Cases for your iPod in every possible variety, from stuffed animal cases to integrated headphones to armbands to clothing.

Still, seen some cool stuff today. An excellent presentation on Mac OS X Wizardry, and a slightly-disappointing sneak peek at Office 2008 at the Microsoft booth. Disappointing only because it focused almost exclusively on Word, where as my main concern for Office 2008 is Entourage -- is it going to get better? The only mention of Entourage was to show off a new mini-app called "My Day," which sits on your Desktop and shows today's calendar appointments, to-dos, etc. Can run even when Entourage is closed, so it must access the Entourage DB at all times. Pretty cool. Office '08 for the Mac is supposed to be out in the second half of this year, September seems to be the best guess right now.

Also talked to the people at the Parallels booth a bit, they continue to make amazing refinements to that product. The new version features Parallels Transporter, which can run Windows applications directly from the Dock, without launching a full version of Windows. So literally, the demo computer had PC apps like Outlook, IE, etc. sitting in the Dock with their familiar Windows icons, and a small Parallels icon overlapping the bottom corner. Way cool.

Couple of neat pictures:

The ginormous banner at the Apple booth for the iPhone. "We need to talk," get it??


The booth for "mophie," a really cool company out of Vermont. Love the name, of course, since Raya and I often call our baby girl "Sophie Mophie." (The company name actually came from the founder's two dogs, Sophie and Molly!) But they are doing something unique to MacWorld, or any other tradeshow for that matter. They make iPod cases and acccessories, and invited MacWorld attendees to sketch out their own ideas/designs for a new product. They picked the best three, and are then allowing people to vote for their favorite until the close of show today. Overnight, they will mock up a prototype of the highest vote-getter, and by noon tomorrow, release a mock-up of the product.

They will then produce it and sell it. Very cool!!