I took a quick spin around both the big tech shows being held this week at the Rock Financial Showplace in Novi.
The ITEC show seemed a little smaller than last year, with about 55 exhibitors, but still drew high-profile speakers, including Dan Lohrmann, chief information security officer for the state of Michigan.
I'll be back at ITEC for a Thursday keynote on information security.
Exhibitors ranged from storage vendors to converged network providers to governments like the Consulate Generarl of Canada to supply chain software vendors to e-waste recyclers to e-mail security providers.
Literally next door the Telematics 2008 show was a little larger and I thought significantly cooler. Maybe that's because the car seems to be the next vanguard for high-tech and the computer.
The best things I saw included our old friends from Grand Blanc, Azentec, with a full-featured computer in a General Motors dashboard at an Intel booth, and three-dimensional navigation system demonstrations at the booth of Wind River, a software firm.
Elsewhere at Telematics, companies with strong Detroit-area presence like Bosch presented on the latest technical advances in cars.
Dr. Dieter Hoetzer, product manager for automotive radar and camera products and Bosch, talked about his company's driver assistance and crash avoidance technologies.
Frontal crashes account for nearly 2.3 million crashes a year in the United States, resulting in approximately 7,100 deaths. Drivers swerving out of their lanes cause 483,000 collisions and sideswipes each year, leading to 10,300 fatalities. These new technologies should help cut those numbers.