Embedded Systems Conference

[mdlbear]

Went to the Embedded Systems Conference yesterday in the San Jose convention center. A little disappointing -- smaller than last year, and nothing really new except some of the swag. Oh, and a booth with the slogan: "Seeing is Believing, but Touching is More Fun". Yeah; I can get behind that...

There was a moderate amount of Linux in evidence: in addition to the usual distros (Montavista, LynuxWorks) most of the single-board computers and evaluation boards support it as a matter of course.

The nice thing about doing a trade show on a Wednesday is that I can come home, dump the swag on a chair, and expect most of it to disappear by the end of the evening. The only things I found worth keeping were one of the bags (black, with the sides extended into a single long shoulder strap rather than the usual pair of loops) and a pen in the shape of a squid, that opens in a particularly interesting way (from Reach Technology). The patent drawings do not show the mechanism, which is fun to watch.

10:27 Thanks to rowanf, we now know that this is called a "Transformer Pen". The minimum order appears to be 200...