Video was the word at this year's Corporate & Channel Computing Expo --- using it, viewing it and otherwise taking advantage of it to increase your exposure in cyberspace.

Unfortunately there were also other words uttered at the show, such as "where is everybody?" and "where have all the customers gone?" Maybe it's time for the show's sponsors to bite the bullet and move the show --- also known as C3 Expo --- to another location or rechannel its focus. The Jacob Javitts Center, which the show has called home in all of its carnations (PC Expo, CeBit America and now C3), is (by Manhattan standards) off the beaten track and is not easy to reach.

By far, the highlight of the week, at least for those of us that have to write about such things, was Pepcom's Digital Experience, an exhibition that took place off-site, easily accessible by subway and bus.

C3 even failed the dreaded bowling ball test, where you roll a bowling ball down an aisle and see if it hits anyone. Alas the ball sailed down several aisles unhindered.

Despite this, this intrepid scribe managed to glean a few nuggets from this year's exhibition. Among the more intriguing exhibitors were:

• Whiteblox, which delivers easy to use tools allowing users to piece together their own IPTV productions.
• VMix, which provides canned content as well as the tools to create your own video to enhance, and possibly attract extra income, for your Web site.
• Wayport, which provides high-speed Internet access in hotels, fast-food joints (they have the franchise for McDonald's) and other places where weary road warriors need to reach out and touch someone.
• Ricoh, which showed off a new line of gel color printers, which could force consumers to rethink their next ink jet purchase.
• Seiko Instruments, which has introduced a new line of high-speed label printers and has completely revamped its software.
• Logicube, which introduced a new, high-speed, hard drive duplication tool that can copy data from one drive to another at speeds up to three gigabytes per second.
• ETelemetry, which has developed a network tool that makes it easy to trace and fix IP address problems.
• Kodak, which introduced a new line of high-speed (up to 30 pages per minute) scanners and a new line of digital cameras that were featured at Digital Experience.
• DriveSavers, which not only can recover data from "dead" hard drives, disks and CDs, but also offers the services of a data-loss counselor (i.e.: psychologist) to aid those adversely affected by the tragic loss of data.
• Fujitsu, which has developed a palm-scanning technology that is harder to fool than ordinary security scanners.
• Word Genius, which is the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary for your PC and can instantly give you, not only correct spellings of words, but definitions and synonyms as well.
• Mobotix, which manufactures a line of security cameras with video software built into the cameras instead of it being installed on your PC.

A bevy of new digital cameras dominated the Digital Experience --- a downhome Texas barbecue --- including an intriguing, if not innovative, new digital SLR from Pentax, where the shakeproof technology is built into the camera and not the lenses. Plus it can use all of the lenses gathering dust from your old Pentax SLR.

Also featured were:

• A workstation version of the Xandros Linux operating system, which makes it easier to use and take advantage of all that Linux has to offer.
• Replay TV's new DVR software for PCs, which gives you all the tools you need to record your favorite shows on your PC.
• Webinar from Citrix, which allows you to hold online seminars for up to 1,000 people.
• A Scanilizer from NeatReceipts that makes it easy for you to scan, organize and access receipts, business cards and documents.
• New, faster defragging and data recovery tools from the Diskeeper Corp.
• Samsung's new 21-inch HD monitor and handheld video devices.
• Smilebox, which allows you to enhance photos online.
• Mobitv, which brings television and digital radio to your Wi-Fi and broadband digital devices.

For more information on any of these exhibitors, go to the C3 Web site at www.C3expo.com or the individual corporate Web sites.

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