The Hub of Sparkle!

Today was a tale of two festivals, both in the same huge hall that is the COEX area. In addition to being a huge underground mall, COEX also has a number of convention centers and the like, making it a great place to show off the latest technology or what brilliant ideas or product Korean entrepreneurs have come up with. I had originally meant to simply check out the Entrepreneur Festival, but after mistakenly getting into the wrong line, I got into the World IT Fair as well. Next to Yongsan, the World IT Fair is probably the largest collection of electronics and computers in Korea. Upon walking in I received a huge 200 page book, clearly intended to assist me in buying something from the many companies represented. While a lot of the technology is stuff I’ve heard about, seeing it in action was a lot more interesting – yet meh – than expected.

Go watch Minority Report one more time – yes, that movie with Tom Cruise controlling a computer with nothing more than a touch screen and lots of multi-finger gestures. That type of display is real today on a screen the size of a big screen TV. No idea how much it cost, but how cool.

OMG, a foreigner! I found it slightly odd for a non-Korean to be giving a presentation about the company’s software, yet he did a nice professional job. Not pictured are the multiple cameras he’s talking to – there’s no actual audience.

Ignore the screen on the right; on the left, we have a Lego conducting game. Wear gloves designed to tell whether a finger is extended (like when you’re counting) or not (as though part of a fist), and ‘conduct’ with the game. It looks like it was playing off of a Wii (very smooth), but I’m just guessing and nothing was announced regarding its future sale.

A wind turbine that displays a message as it rotates. The message displayed was just a test of letters – the school and team name – but still impressive. You’ve seen robots duking it out before, but these bots were controlled themselves, prevented themselves from falling over the edge, and ‘fought’ to push each other off. Rather difficult to take a picture of a 3D monitor, even when standing at the proper distance. An interesting hybrid combining paper and digital – a digital pen that put physical ink to paper as well as a digital signal.Thus ends the first floor – the third floor held the bigger / flashier displays, I was told. So far very few things were actually available for sale – most were demonstrations of a product that seemed quite close to practical application, not just prototypes looking for venture capitalist funding.

It’s on the third floor where Korean culture seemed to become more evident, even at a ‘World IT Show’:

It’s one thing to market a new cell phone, but it seems Koreans have taken it to a whole new level. (Disclaimer: I can’t speak for Japan – they may be leaps and bounds crazier than Korea, for all I know). At one cell phone’s huge booth (perhaps the size of a basketball court), the general public could have their cameras at the ready to act like the ‘big-shot’ photographer. Naturally, those 2-3 million won camera with 30cm long lenses came in real handy.

Hey, here we go – a chance to get our hands on the latest and greatest products. Again, not for sale, just display and showing off. I wonder how many people made a beeline for their favorite cell phone to buy the XYZ phone they fell in love with…

Not just any kind of bike – an electric bike complete with motor. I didn’t see any information about them; perhaps they were just some window dressing to everything else around them. You read that right, folks – a watch phone. No Dick Tracy happening here – but again, no information on price or how to buy. Stay tuned would seem to be the answer du jour…

I’m positive you could see the difference were you an aficionado of digital TV’s… but I can’t. An example of some green technology – complete with solar-powered rechargers and the like. Bravo – and I look forward to seeing more practical and everyday tech like this.

Of course, the same company that makes the green phone also makes the large and (probably) unnecessarily consumptive screens. Seriously – did paper suddenly get more expensive, or does McDonalds change their prices that often? This certainly looked like fun – and relaxing… I waited to try out the chair for awhile, but the guy seemed quite comfortable and in no hurry to leave.

Pictures of LCD screens rarely do the screen justice, just as in this case. These two screens appeared virtually identical. As someone still sporting an old-school CRT TV, I ask if the incremental differences are worth the extra umpteen million won every year… Another rather silly-sounding proposal to me: let’s use a magnifying glass to examine the pixels of the ‘new and improved’ version. Even looking through the glass it was difficult to tell the difference… And then there are the girls. Korean TV offers several shopping-at-home channels, and a common product marketed on them is the newest / latest / greatest. The levels of silliness on those programs goes beyond this particular post, but suffice it to say that some level of it carried over to the show here. The typical setup is a Korean woman – usually rail thin, heavily made up, and wearing a shiny / bright dress – modeling the latest / greatest phone for whomever wants to get her picture. I found other angles to get pictures from, but I think this one better explained my point.

No idea what TeleMedicine is supposed to be (doctor’s calls via the internet?), but the display was interesting. If you’ve visted an Asian arcade, you may have picked up the sticks to a Japanese taiko drumming game that has you drumming to the beats. This is one effort to be Korea’s version of the same game – bang on the real drum to the beat, watch the video of a real person doing it perfectly, and a web-cam-like version of yourself. I like the idea – and another rhythm-based-game, but somehow the idea of using webcams to broadcast a picture of yourself to the screen isn’t a very interesting idea… Kids maybe (note the height of the drum compared to the adult), but probably not adults…

Now this is an adult’s game… A new form of screen golf that always had a long line no matter how often I went back.

Another interesting game for adults. Running off of a Windows computer, the game used wireless guns (no wires connecting the guns to anything) to shoot at a screen. One game used a fairly standard target, though I loved the concept of shooting colorful insects in a Teletubbies-like world. Just don’t let your kids watch you doing it. Some adults answering questions about various phones and features to win a webcam.

Yes, those dance routines you might see on the shopping-at-home channel are also performed in real-life. I hesitate to call it ‘dancing’ – but ‘moving in high heels and a short skirt to a overly energetic K-pop song’ doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

It was about here when I began to switch gears and aim for the Entrepreneur Festival, on a different floor and side of the COEX behemoth. The shopping area of COEX alone can take days to fully see; get locked in the structure during a nuclear winter and you’ll never get bored. Seriously – when it takes you almost 20 minutes walking the most efficient route, that tells you something about the place’s size.

The Entrepreneur Festival had fewer of the bells and whistles you might expect from an over-the-top display of cell phone and bleeding-edge technology. That it represented a number of entrepreneurial endeavors from across the country was of more interest than the flashy display.

Introducing the Veloscoot – part bike, part scooter, propelled by pumping the handlebar down and up as you might remember mining / coal cars doing from the cartoon. I didn’t see any prices, although I’m sure they would have been happy to sell you one. An automatic… something making machine. Little pellets reminded me of communion wafers – hardly a Korean delicacy, but perhaps it’s some sort of anju (side dish) served at bars?

The side view of some plastic / soft flooring, made from any number of recyclable products. Impressive, although it looked very similar to a number of products already installed on any number of walking trails and sidewalks across Korea.

An interesting demonstration of another rhythm-based game. Colored circles rotated around the turntable, and the goal was to click / scratch when the circle reached the needle / stylus.

It wasn’t all overly serious – this 2×2 meter comic strip expressed some form of sentiment about the festival. It, like virtually everything else here, was entirely in Korean – at no point did I see any significant amount of information in English about any product while at the Entrepreneur Festival. While at the IT Festival, most handouts were in Korean – but people spoke English very well and could give you the basics of their invention pretty well. An interesting game controller – use the gun to control both your movement and where you look on the screen. It didn’t seem to help this gentlemen’s skills at the game, however.

I’m not entirely sure we really need a revolution in toilets, but hey, this company seemed to think so.

As a whole, it was a wonderful afternoon spent seeing some interesting and cutting-edge technology. The Korean obsession interest in technology has been affirmed for at least the next year. The IT Festival definitely had a more international appeal, and I’d bet the over-the-top show would appeal to almost anyone that walked through the door. It was relatively easy to tell that you’re still in Korea – the crowdgoers were almost exclusively Korean men, going to check out Korean phones modeled by cute and overly made-up women, having their pictures taken by people who spent far too much money on their cameras… Both festivals end today (June 20th), and both had pre-registration as an option, but registration only took a few minutes on-site; the World IT Festival cost 5,000 won as a visitor, while the Entrepreneur Festival was free.

What did you think about the show? The pictures? Comment away!

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