Pat Meier-Johnson and Russ Johnson team up for The Connected Traveler Technology Showcase at The New York Times Travel Show

After 25 years of hosting Lunch at Piero’s exclusively for the press, we are now taking tech and travel directly to consumers, travel trade and the media with the brand new Connected Traveler Technology Showcase at The New York Times Travel Show March 2 – 4, 2012 at the Jacob Javits Center, Booth 271.  Amidst 500 exhibitors representing 150 countries, ours is the first and only booth totally dedicated to cool mobile devices, photo gear, apps and new technologies designed to make travel easier, safer and more fun.

Come join Pat Meier-Johnson and Russ Johnson and our great exhibitors including:

Aurasma is the world’s leading augmented reality platform that brings any destination to the palm of your hand:  the real world meets the virtual world. www.aurasma.com

HP is the world’s largest technology company, offering innovative computing products from sleek notebooks to travel-ready accessories for business and leisure travelers alike. www.hp.com

Travel and Tourism: Opening Doors for Your Future is an introduction to a career in travel, available as an e-book for students or on DVD for schools.  www.learntravelandtourism.com

With Looxcie, the first handsfree wear-and-share video cam, travelers can stream live to friends anytime from any location or share clips instantly to social networks. www.looxcie.com

SugarSync is a free service ideal for travelers that enables you to access, sync and share your files across all your computers and devices from anywhere. www.sugarsync.com

TourWrist enables travelers to shoot, view and share their 360º vacation panos with the free TourWrist iOS app and helps travel professionals re-purpose their virtual tour panoramic images on www.TourWrist.com for free.

Whether traveling for business or pleasure, ZAGG helps you stay connected with creative device accessories that protect, personalize, and enhance the mobile experience.  www.zagg.com

2ReturnMe, Lost Item Recovery System. Place tags or labels on anything you want back. Finder dials an 800# enters the PIN and is connected directly to you. www.2ReturnMe.com

And look for us next year at the LA Times Travel Show and the New York Times Travel Show.

Connected Traveler Technology Showcase

Our newest event will take place tomorrow in San Francisco.

The Connected Traveler Technology Showcase, a media-only showcase of the latest travel tech products, apps and services will feature demonstrations by developers of tech-savvy apps, gadgets, and technologies.  Open to international travel reporters and San Francisco and Silicon Valley’s technology, feature, business and broadcast media, The Connected Traveler Technology Showcase and takes place during the week of Pow Wow, the travel industry’s premier international conference in North America.

We realized that there are plenty of technology trade shows that cater to tech media, but none bring the wealth of products and innovative technologies to travel press. The travel press includes a large audience of reporters who don’t go to tech trade shows but who are always in search of information that can improve their readers’ travel experience.

Notebooks, tablets, apps, GPS devices, cameras, mobile storage, and cloud-based solutions, are becoming an integral part of most road warriors’ lives.  In addition to the necessities, there are many products that make traveling safer, more enjoyable and create smarter travelers.

Sponsors include:  GE Digital Cameras, Gogobot, GoSmart, HP,  INRIX Traffic, Ken Kobré Photography-The Lightscoop, Line2, Liquid Image, Mobile Monitor Technologies, Plantronics, Proposal Software, Schedulicity, SpotWorld, SugarSync, TeleNav, Traxxit Technologies, Verizon Wireless, Visual Travel Tours, VIA, and Western Digital.

The Connected Traveler Technology Showcase is a tabletop demo event based on 20+ years of similar successful media events and product showcases,  during Siggraph, and E3 and Lunch at Piero’s during COMDEX and CES.

The Connected Traveler Technology Showcase is open only for working travel and technology writers.  Video will be featured at www.patmeier.com and www.connectedtraveler.com after the show.  For more information, please visit: www.patmeier.com/connectedtravelershow.html or call +1415.389.1700.

Future Connected Traveler events will be scheduled for Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York.

It’s been ten years since USB 2.0 came on the scene. Now VIA Labs, the only company in the world to have a complete USB 3.0 solution with host, hub and device controller products, is quickly setting industry standards.    At the Lunch at Piero’s innovator and press event during CES, VIA Labs explained how today’s massive high def video, high megapixel pictures and other rich huge content are commonplace on cameras and other devices, making it important to have a USB 3.0 host controller in the first place to enable data to flow swiftly and make full use of USB 3.0 devices. And unlike USB 2.0, USB 3.0 is capable of simultaneous transmitting and receiving. VIA Labs makes it faster and better. www.via-labs.com

C3 Technologies demonstrated its photo-realistic 3D maps, drilling down in detail to actual window level as part of their display at Lunch at Piero’s. The company also announced the release of its first software development kit (SDK) for creating mobile, social, geo-location applications that utilize the company’s database of more than 100 photo-realistic 3D maps. Since 2007 when it was spun out of the aerospace and defense company Saab AB, C3 has redefined mapping by applying previously classified image processing technology to 3D maps as a platform for search, navigation and GIS apps. The company’s automated software and advanced algorithms enable C3 to rapidly assemble extremely precise 3D models, and seamlessly integrate them with 2D maps, satellite images, street level photography and user-generated images.  For more information please see www.c3technologies.com.

Knocking Live impressed us with their direct smartphone to smartphone visual communication app. Truly the fastest and most intriguing way to share pics, and it is truly live.  This technology turns a storage network into a simple relay, making it possible to instantly receive pics on their Apple iPhones and even iPod Touch.  Watch this interview shot at the Lunch at Piero’s media and innovator event during CES 2010.

You get back to your room at the end of the day at CES.  You want to upload your pictures and videos to Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, YouTube.  You dig around for your USB cable – can’t find it, left it back home, what a drag.  Too bad because if you had shot onto Eye-Fi, the world’s first wireless memory cards for digital cameras, you could have uploaded your pictures instantly to one of 25 web sites or to your computer.  Watch this demo at Lunch at Piero’s during CES 2010.  Dontcha just love it?  Specially if you’re a journalist on deadline.

Have you missed capturing an important moment because  the flash on your digital camera didn’t cycle fast enough?  Maybe it was the rechargeable batteries and not the camera itself.  PowerGenix showed us a new generation of rechargeable battery that even made the lighting kit on our video camera for this interview last longer and shine  brighter.  And it’s not just for cameras, it’s for all kinds of products that use batteries – even the ones that say don’t use rechargeables.  Watch this interview with Dan Squiller of PowerGenix at Lunch at Piero’s media and innovator event during CES 2010 and go out and buy yourself some new, green rechargeable batteries.

FizWoz at Lunch at Piero's

Ever wonder how video and photos shot on individuals’ cell phones gets to the TV stations?  How do you  protect your digital rights and better yet, get paid for your footage or photos?  FizWoz takes care of all that.  It’s an application and media auction site that helps you market what you shot from the moment you upload it.   Furthermore, it protects your digital assets with watermarks while allowing people and media to view and bid on them. Watch this interesting interview with Andy Sheldon shot at Lunch at Piero’s during CES 2010.
Another interesting feature:  FizWoz has developed a news bureau that allows news organizations to crowd source stories – like an assignment desk where you get to contribute your content.  See this video and visit their site, www.fizwoz.com for a fascinating twist that will make you look at your cell phone in a whole new way.

Boxee at Lunch at Piero's

Movies, TV shows, Netflix, personal multimedia and social media all come together on your living room screen thanks to the Boxee box powered by D-Link.  Boxee licensed its software to consumer and small business networking powerhouse, D-Link, to make the kind of media and social networking experience that was available on Windows and Linux PCs and Macs available on a highly attractive set top box device that enhances any living room decor.  See it for yourself in this video interview with Boxee’s Andrew Kippen shot at the D-Link demo at the Lunch at Piero’s media and innovator event during CES 2010. 

Immersion Digital showed GLO, a digital Bible that provides the experience of the Bible in multimedia.  Using lenses that guide the user to timelines, atlases, topics, and rich media, GLO presents a wealth of information and multimedia – the results of more than 13 years of development for an interactive Bible like you’ve never seen before.  Nelson Saba demonstrates this remarkable resource at media and innovator event, Lunch at Piero’s during CES 2010.  Available at globible.com and in Christian bookstores.