Posts Tagged SMAU
Togunà at SMAU 2008 Innovation Routes
Interviews, articles, friends, curious people, potential partners and investors: everything happened at our stand inside the Innovation Routes area during the four days of Smau 2008!
Tired and satisfied, thanks also to Emil Abirascid, who took care of the forth edition of the Routes and led to our stand journalists and reporters, with these results: Paolo interviewed by TG2 and Blogosfere, Guido interviewed by Markom.tv, my interview for Radio24, an article on il Giornale, another one on the Lombardia feature of Il Sole 24 ORE and a mention on Nova24.
I’m happy since there was great attention towards startups created by young adults willing to innovate and change things!
And now the Lu.Be.C. event in Lucca is waiting for us, where we’ll present a new project during the afternoon session.
Even at Lu.Be.C. we’ll have a stand where “Chiara – the virtual guide”, will uncover herself for the joy of heritage valorization specialists! 😉
Smau 2006: One Sail, a Couple of Halls and 98 Seminars
The Sail, this is the name of the 1 km long structure by Massimiliano Fuksas covering the new site of fieramilano near Milan, which hosted the 43rd edition of Smau, the ICT international exhibition.
Only two halls were used to contain the exhibitors’ stands and the area reserved for seminars. Speaking with some people they confirmed the impression that something was missing, that sort of background noise coming from big stands aimed to attract consumers and the like. At the same time it was pleasant being able to walk around the fair and ask for a meeting without having to dig through the crowd.
Pretty opposite feelings of course, but they’re both true. This was not a “Smau” for me, maybe they should change the name if they’re going to continue with this new business-only course. 😉
The two seminaries I attended were interesting, one was about software rights protection according to the italian law by Massimo Farina, pretty easy, quick and effective and the other about technologic innovation in point of sales by an IBM speaker.
I had some meetings with people working for companies whose products are (or may be) related to the projects I’m currently involved in, such as Sony’s network cameras and RFID device and service providers. I couldn’t miss a chat with friends in the Windows Mobile areas too.
The area named Innovation Routes was very well organized and hosted numerous stands of italian startups.
One of them was Econoetica, presenting the Arianna PDA city guide. I had the pleasure to meet Valentina, marketing manager, in Firenze during the Vespatour and use the guide for a whole day walking around the city, and at the fair I met her again together with the rest of the staff, Pietro and Luca.
They’re doing well and they got some good exposition thanks to their little stand. I was a real joy hearing again the genuine tuscan accent while speaking with Valentina. 🙂
Next to their stand I also spoke with the Blogosfere.it staff, a network of professional italian blogs, most of which are of very high quality thanks to their experienced bloggers.
They have opened a blog about Smau and posted some pics of the beauties you could find walking around the stands, but they definitely missed the best ones in my opinion… at the Blackberry one you could stare not only at their latest device, the Pearl, but also get a golf ball from two models. Now I just need a golf mace… 
New Devices and Old Friends at SMAU 2004
On Friday 22 October I’ve been in Milan to attend SMAU 2004, the 41st International Exhibition of ICT and Consumer Electronics, the biggest event of this kind in Italy.
Although it’s getting smaller at every edition and this year even the big telecommunication operators such as TIM, Vodafone and Tiscali weren’t present, I’ve been able to spot something interesting in both the Windows Mobile and Palm worlds, to meet some old friends and to make a few new contacts.
In particular it has been a pleasure to meet again with Giorgio Cifani and Pino Paparone, the two Italian Microsoft MVPs for mobile devices, Enrico of Pocket PC Italia and Diego, editor of the Italian magazine Il Mio Palmare. There was even the troupe of Netcafé walking around the stands. 🙂
Here are some pictures I shot at the show. The first one is pretty curious. The new Asus A730 in VGA landscape mode with its 1.3Mpixel integrated camera pointed towards the HP stand, where visitors could find notebooks and printers, but alas none of their new iPAQs…
In the Windows Mobile corner of the big Microsoft stand Enrico showed me the new Qtek 9090, the Qtek 8010, the iPAQ 1710 and the Sagem My S7. For the Palm side of things at the Palmosoft stand I’ve been able to make a confrontation between the Tungsten T3 and the brand new Tungsten T5, both in 480×320 landscape mode.
At the end of the day I even got a good deal by purchasing the 2 DVDs box of the Schindler’s List movie, which I was searching for some time but I was not willing to pay it at full retail price. 😉
My Ipaq takes off with the Frecce Tricolori!
Posted by Albegor in Euro Coins Pocket Collector, Mobile, Software on October 10, 2003
So here’s the special picture I was talking about, which just appeared in exclusive on Pocket PC Thoughts!
At the recently closed SMAU 2003 I didn’t miss the opportunity to jump into the cockpit of a real Aermacchi MB-339 jet aircraft used by the world famous italian Air Force Acrobatic Team, the Frecce Tricolori, obviously bringing with me my faithful Ipaq.
Thanks to the Air Force specialists who allowed me to merge my two biggest passions ever in this unique occasion. 🙂
Who knows if the Ipaq could survive to the high acceleration acrobatic maneuvers this plane daily performs…
And of course the application running on the Ipaq was Euro coins pocket collector!
Back from SMAU and curiosity about the recent Italian Black Out
This was the most profitable SMAU for me since I began visiting it many years ago, and it was the first time I went to the exhibition for work and not just as a visitor.
I had the pleasure to meet italian Microsoft MVPs, in particular Giorgio Cifani and Pino Paparone, both MVP specialized in mobile devices, who showed me the hardware such as the new Motorola Smartphone.
Also I met Enrico of Pocket PC Italia, in his crowded stand with the latest Pocket PC and Smartphone novelties and accessories.
Most importantly I had some important meetings which I hope will turn into great announcements in the next weeks. I also took a very special picture, which I’ll upload shortly. 😉
I’m already back to the big amount of work waiting for me, but I’ll leave you with a curious picture about the unexpected italian Black Out happened during the night of sunday 28th of september. Here’s the graphic of the Internet traffic on the MIX ( Milan Internet eXchange ), where you can notice the flat line in relation to the Black Out hours.
We hope it won’t happen again…
SMAU 2003 opening day
Today is the opening day of SMAU 2003, the 40° International Exhibition of ICT and Consumer Electronics, the biggest event of this kind in Italy, which is taking place in Milan Fair from 2 to 6 October.
I’ll go there on Saturday 4 and I’m trying to setup some interesting meetings, since all the major players of the PDA market will attend the exhibition. If you want to meet me during that day please contact me.
I’d like to thank Riccardo of Internavigare for the ticket invitation he provided me. 😉
Do you know what the initials SMAU mean? They stand for “Salone Macchine e Attrezzature per l’Ufficio”, an old name which survived the test of time since 1964.
Here you can download the SMAU map to bring it with you on your PDA.