The Standout Products from DEMOfall 08

At the recent DEMOfall 08 show in San Diego, a wide variety of products and companies debuted. These products and companies spanned the whole spectrum of technology, from consumer Web sites to enterprise-focused SAAS solutions to cool gadgets to core pieces of manufacturing technology.

Past DEMO shows have seen the launch of companies that are now household words, such as Salesforce.com and Tivo. But predicting which of the companies from this past DEMO show will go on to similar success is a tough job. Past shows have seen companies that looked like can't-miss prospects fall to obscurity while mostly ignored products go on to real success.

So rather than try to pick future winners or losers, I've chosen to list the products that looked the most interesting and promising. So here is my list of the most promising products and companies from DEMOfall 08.

Startups in the Cloud

It's no secret that the state of the economy is really bad, and it seems to get worse on a daily basis. So it stands to reason that this must be a really bad time to try to start up a new company.

But this may not be the case. In fact, this might actually be a pretty good time to start a new company.

At the recent TechCrunch 50 and DEMOfall conferences, I saw plenty of evidence that there is no shortage of interesting new companies and that many of these companies may actually be thriving.

But how could this be? Given the credit crunch, struggling economy and still-existing hangover from the .com bubble, it doesn't make sense that there would be lots of money floating around to jump-start new companies.

However, that's the key: Companies nowadays don't need "lots of money"--it sometimes takes a relatively small amount of money for a business to launch to the entire world.

This Week In Emerging Technology - August 14th

Here are the emerging technologies stories for the week of August 11th.

Cars that Collaborate - The EU is reserving a section of spectrum to be used for cars to communicate with each other and with roadside installations. The idea is to protect against collisions and hazards, and I'm sure it would never be used for law enforcement.

Fast Internet to Go Slow - Researchers are looking at the use of metamaterials to slow down fast Internet connections without the need for electrical conversions, something that could speed up the overall Internet.

USB 3.0 Spec Released - Intel has released a nearly complete specification for the next generation of USB 3.0 connections.

Video: The Future of Unified Communications

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Unified communications has become a very hot topic for enterprise IT operations. The ability to combine and easily manage all forms of voice and digital communications within a company clearly offers huge cost and time savings benefits.

The importance of this field can be seen by the number of major vendors jumping into the Unified Communications arena.

But unified communications has been slow to take off. In this eWEEK video interview, Ashley Daley talks to eWEEK's Chief Technology Analyst Jim Repoza about the future of Unified Communications.

Click here to see the video interview of a look at unified communications

Can the Videoconferencing Boom Last?

It's a familiar story line. Whenever travel becomes too expensive or difficult, there's a deluge of stories about how business travel will become a thing of the past and how everyone will be meeting and doing face-to-face sit-downs via videoconferencing.

Whenever this happens, there's a rush to invest in videoconferencing systems, which see heavy use for a time. And then, as the economy improves or travel once again becomes affordable, these videoconferencing rooms see less and less use, and people once again start doing their meetings in person.

Right now we are clearly once again in a boom phase for videoconferencing. With the high cost of travel and rising energy costs, many businesses are once again taking a very hard look at implementing videoconferencing solutions in the hope of cutting down on travel costs and improving worker productivity.

But the question is, Can this current generation of videoconferencing maintain the momentum of this current cycle and remain a fixture of modern business life or will it once again fade into the background when (or if) travel once again becomes affordable?

Video: MITX Awards Highlight Up and Coming Tech

Many new and interesting technology companies were recognized at the recent Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange Awards, or MITX Awards.

These awards recognize technological innovation from a number of companies in the New England area, ranging from small startups to established tech giants.

At the awards I had the opportunity to speak to some of the winners right after they received their awards.

Click here to see a video of my interview with Brightcove Director of Product Architecture Ashley Streb.

Click here to see a video of my interview with HubSpot CEO and Founder Brian Halligan.

The 10 Biggest Hurdles to Innovation

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Get a group of technology workers together and it is pretty much a certainty that if you ask if innovation is the life blood of technology that everyone will agree.

After all, innovation is what keeps our jobs interesting and challenging and is what creates the new and exciting companies that enable the jobs of tomorrow. Without innovation, claims about the death of IT would have been spot on instead of way off.

But while everyone will pay lip service to innovation, there are many both inside and outside of technology circles who actually work hard to stop or at least slow innovation. That's because while innovation may be good for most of us, for some special interests and companies it is mainly seen as a threat to their profitability or even existence.

So what are the biggest hurdles that innovation faces today? I've put together this list of . Take a look at let me know what you think the biggest threats to innovation are.

Emerging Technologies Bring Promise and Danger

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When you cover and analyze emerging technologies, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement and the promise of these new technologies. And it's even easier to look at these technologies only from a positive angle.

And what's not to like? After all, most emerging technologies were designed from the ground up to bring about positive ends. Their creators want to improve people's lives, boost productivity, cure disease, provide security and bring about new waves of technology where anything is possible.

But almost any new technology that has a positive side also has a negative and more dangerous side. Technologies that can cure disease can also cause disease. Products that provide convenience imperil safety and privacy. Tools that ensure security also help secure criminals from law enforcement.

Such is the nature of innovation. But some new technologies are more dangerous than others. With that in mind, here is my list of the 10 most dangerous new technologies either available today or being worked on for the near future. Please comment below and let me know what technologies would make your list.

And, oh yeah, I decided to limit this list specifically to computing technologies, so that's why there aren't any biotech or genetics entries.

This Week In Emerging Technology - February 13th

Here are the emerging technologies stories for the week of February 11th.

More Android Sightings - At the World Mobile Congress in one of my favorite cities, Barcelona, there have been several interesting demos of the Google-based Android mobile operating system.

Speeding up Secure Connections - Interesting white paper on research into improving the performance of SSH and SCP connections.

Integrating Identity Management - Expect to see more integration between products in the Identity Access Management market.

The Holy Grail of Nanotech - Researchers at the Brookhaven National Lab have created a three dimensional nanoparticle, a key step in the advancement of nanotechnologies.

More Terabytes Please - IBM is announcing plans to deliver terabyte drives for their data center systems.

Canon Keeps an Eye on Watermarking - Canon has filed for a patent on a technology that takes an image of the photographers retina when taking a picture and then using this image as an embedded watermark to help protect photograph copyrights.

The Most Overhyped Technologies of the Century

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In the world of technology, hype is like the sun. A little bit of hype can be a good thing, especially for emerging technologies, by bringing attention and light to unknown technologies and products and helping them grow. But like the sun too much hype can be a bad thing, crushing bad products unworthy of hype and even making good technologies seem less worthy or even appear to be failures.

When this happens technologies become overhyped, and this new century has seen more than its fair share of products, technologies, and technology trends that received way more adulation and praise then they deserved. And many of these technologies aren't failures or flops, but instead received so much hype that it was impossible for them to ever live up to early expectations.

With that in mind I present you with this list of the ten most overhyped products, technologies and technology trends of the century. And don't forget to comment here and let me know what would make your list of overhyped technologies.