i-stage

And the winner is...

Although there were worthy competitors in the afternoon, the winner of the CEA i-stage event here in Las Vegas was Boxee, the "open, connected, social media center." (Though I did talk to a venture capital guy who said he was following my pick, Occipital.) I suspect that Boxee won through sheer slickness of interface, defined value proposition, and possibly presentation value. It's a good product, there's no doubt. Boxee walks away with the $50,000 and the coveted CES booth space, and we'll probably try to keep tabs on it on its road to CES. Keep an eye out for that!

I-stage also featured an official fan favorite vote, and said fan favorite will get a "pod" in the CEA TechZone at CES, so they don't make out too badly, either. In this case, the fan fave winner was the Minoru 3D Webcam. The Webcam itself is adorable, it takes images exclusively in 3D, and, best of all, the presentation required the audience in front of me to don 3D glasses en masse! It was like being in front of a 1960s movie audience! But judging from their responses, the experience was worth it. Judge Jeff Pulver noted that he was looking for a "wow" experience out of the last two presenters of the day (Minoru was second-to-last), and the audience was definitely murmuring "wow" as they watched a cute little girl blow bubbles in 3D.

The afternoon session included some interesting innovations as well, but also the show's one serious bloodbath: judges raked three presenters in a row over the coals for presenting products (a digital picture frame, a video-from-mobile-phones streaming service, and a people-powered search database) that couldn't be easily differentiated from others in the marketplace. But that's not to say that all the presenters didn't offer something innovative and valuable--it's just that some were a little too similar to products already on the market.

And thus endeth CEA's first venture into trying to create a Best of CES-worthy booth on the show floor. I can't wait to see what all of you think of Boxee when it has its big Las Vegas debut!

It's lunchtime now and we've seen the first half of the i-stage presenters. It's been interesting and occasionally contentious, with a few notable standouts. First thing in the morning we saw a voice-activated remote control (Amulet) that manages Windows Media Center (cool, but with some minor hiccups that belie the difficulty of voice-recognition technology) and a portable, wireless video-camera system from Avaak that comes paired with an online streaming service. And a company called Frontline showed off the future of the treadmill--an Internet-connected exercise device that lets you virtually run through various locations, like the route of the New York Marathon or, apparently, the interior of the Louvre. The technology will, its founders hope, be funded by advertising that will pepper the interface, so you can shop and research while you run--anything to distract from the pain. (Of course, you can also upload and share your athletic feats.)

The next set of three presenters definitely got sexier: There was Boxee, which is free software that aggregates your media, online media sites like Hulu or Last.fm, and even recommends movies or music from your friends. It has a very slick interface, and unlike almost everything else we've seen, it was demonstrated on a Mac (probably because of that nice remote control). We saw the totally nascent LightGlove, a virtual reality device that's not really a glove. It's actually a bracelet that uses light to translate finger movements into digital signals. It's fancy, and its founders showed off some very impressive "air piano," playing Bach seemingly out of thin air. But the judges pointed out that it appears to be looking for a purpose.

I personally found the most interesting presentation of the morning to come from Occipital, which showed off a "pedestrian navigation service" that is basically an "augmented-reality GPS." The technology, designed for mobile phones, combines real-life views of an area with mapping data and then overlays a graphical walking route over a street view. And it can even--and this is the augmented reality part--provide an X-Ray view through a building, for a crow's-eye view. Occipital says it will deal with all the image hosting on its servers, and deliver only the giant chunks of 3D visual data you need over your 3G connection. That part is a little tough to swallow, but they're going into limited beta soon and I hope to have the chance to try it out. Occipital's software currently runs on Windows Mobile phones, but the company hopes to be supporting Android phones by CES.

I'll have more from the afternoon sessions, which will include, near as I can tell, a revolutionary digital photo frame, a 3D Webcam, and some stereo equipment. It never sounds quite as cool until you see it in person, you know? Stay tuned!

I'm in Las Vegas right now, because tomorrow I'm hosting the i-stage event at the Consumer Electronics Association's Industry Forum event. By "hosting," I mean that I am sort of the Ryan Seacrest of the event: Kevin Kelly of Wired, Jeff Pulver, and Ryan Block are the judges. It's a pretty interesting and cool-sounding contest, actually: It deals with software, hardware, and services, and the winner gets $50,000 and a free booth at CES. And while the organizers assure me they've got a really big check for the winner, I think it might be the free publicity (and preshow publicity) at CES that's the really big draw.

The finalists haven't been much-publicized, but from what I gather, they include everything from a price-comparison engine to a glove that can control your car doors. It should be pretty cool. Kara Tsuboi is covering it for CNET TV, so look for video of the finalists late Monday or the next day. The event goes on all day, with voting in the evening, and I'll try to blog as much as I can during breaks. You can also follow me on Twitter for updates throughout the day.