RetailVision: 'Fresh' Offers First Look At Hot New Products

At the "Fresh: A First Look At New Technology" presentation at RetailVision Spring 2009 in Boca Raton, Fla., seven up-and-coming vendors showed off their latest retail-ready products, giving retailers a sneak peek at their new wares before anyone else.



Fresh is run by the Sightline Group, an organization that works with manufacturers, products, channels and messaging to get the word out about products. Here Sightline's Ray Robidoux (left) and Fred Brown (right) kick off the demonstrations.

Before kicking the Fresh presentations into high gear, Sightline's Robidoux and Brown (seated) took the time to honor a few new products that didn't quite make the cut. Here, the pair shows off a blue background for video conferences, to give viewers the impression that you're in a conference room or office location, instead of sitting at home on the couch or at the beach during those important virtual face-to-face meetings.

Another new product that didn't get selected for the Fresh presentation, but made an appearance, was this gadget that connects to a mobile device to give the appearance of a landline phone. Here Brown kicks it old-school.

Silicon Valley Global took to the Fresh stage to show off the Tunebug line, a series of ultraportable sound generators that connect to MP3 players, mobile devices, laptops or other devices with an audio jack to turn surfaces into a flat-panel speaker. Essentially, you plug in the Tunebug, set it down on a surface, and the Tunebug uses SurfaceSound Technology to let sound waves pass through, turning it into a loudspeaker.





Here, Silicon Valley Global President and CEO Dick Brown shows off the Tunebug Vibe.

And if just turning surfaces into speaker systems isn't enough, Silicon Valley Global also showed off the Tunebug Quake and Tunebug Shake, versions of the Tunebug that magnetically affix to motorcycle helmets or other types of helmets to pipe music into them without the need for earbuds.



Here, Sightline's Robidoux channels his inner Peter Fonda while listening to some rockin' tunes with the Tunebug Quake.

Don Power, NetSecure Technologies sales manager, showed off the company's new SmartSwipe product, a personal USB credit-card reader that lets users swipe their cards at home, eliminating the risk of entering credit-card information manually on e-commerce Web sites. SmartSwipe sends encrypted data through an SSL tunnel to populate the information fields on any e-commerce site.

Here, NetSecure Technologies' Power demonstrates SmartSwipe with the credit card of Sightline's Brown.



"The only downside is, I'll be shopping more online," Brown added.

Konnet Technology unveiled the PowerPyramid, a device for gamers that can charge up to four wireless controllers at once. Here, Konnet's Christine Custodio shows the PowerPyramid to Sightline's Robidoux. The PowerPyramid retails for $49.99.

Konnet's Custodio gives retailers a better look at the PowerPyramid, which comes in three versions. One charges up to four Xbox controllers and another charges up to four Sony PlayStation 3 controllers, while a third can charge two controllers from each console. The PowerPyramid also features LED lights that indicate when the controllers are charging and when they're ready for gaming.

Tired of carrying a bag full of cords and devices? Sam Duyka, CEO of CellDrive, showed off what was billed as a "Swiss army knife of devices," a device that can act as a backup cell phone battery, a USB to microUSB charger, a data sync cable and a standard flash drive.

The CellDrive, which is about the size of a standard USB flash drive, offers 4 GB of storage and 1.5 hours of continuous talk time for a battery-drained cell phone, Duyka said.

Guilia Giovanelli, product manager for Canson, showcased the 452-year-old paper company's latest innovation: Papershow, a digital writing kit for digital flipcharts and interactive PowerPoint presentations. The Papershow solution lets users write on digital paper and see their notes projected onto a screen via Bluetooth connection between the digital pen and USB key that contains the software. When PowerPoint presentations are printed on the digital paper, users can make notes and annotations for all to see, which can be saved to PDF or in PowerPoint to be shared.

Here, Canson's Giovanelli demonstrates the Papershow solution, which retails for roughly $200. Using the digital pen and paper set also lets users change the color of their notes, draw perfect circles around bullet points in PowerPoint presentations and flipcharts, underline information and highlight text, along with a host of other functions.

For the power-conscious, TrickleStar gave a sneak peek at its latest devices, which Bernard Emby, founder and commercial director, said can cut down on wasteful standby power, or vampire power, for devices that are plugged in but not in use.

The two TrickleStar versions, TV TrickleSaver and PC TrickleSaver, plug into the wall and connect to a standard power strip. When the main device, such as the PC or television, is not in use, the device fully powers down the other devices plugged in, eliminating the power they consume when not in use, Emby said.

For the last Fresh product, Sightline's Robidoux and Brown (shown) demonstrated FitBit, a "fitness monitor" that works as a pedometer, tracks sleep times and patterns, and tallies calories burned.

The FitBit device beams updated information to a USB bay station and then to a personal social-networking Web site so users can view patterns or share the information with friends. The FitBit runs $99 and the Web site is included free.