KIOSK SHOW: Event closes with eye on San Francisco

ORLANDO, Fla.-A hard Florida rain drenched the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center as the second and final day of The Kiosk Show wound down inside. So loud was the deluge that it could be heard above the slamming of crates and the metallic clanging of pipe-and-drape arrangements falling to the concrete.

But just as orange sunlight invariably follows the tropical rains here, Kiosk Show organizers were ready for the next set of plans: the fall show, scheduled for Oct. 17-18 at the South San Francisco Conference Center. (NetWorld Alliance owns the show and publishes this Web site.)

More than 440 attendees had gathered at the colossal forum to visit with about 30 exhibitors, who had brought total solutions and a few components for the end-market crowd. The self-service technology ranged from printers to turnkey financial solutions while representatives from Dell, Cisco Systems and the Seattle Seahawks walked the floor.

Gesture Tek and D2 Sales were two exhibitors with eye-catching exhibits.

Toronoto-based Gesture Tek displayed a projector, holographic screen and motion-sensing device that enables users to operate a graphical user-interface, very similar to the technology predicted in "Minority Report."

The GroundFX, released in 2003, is designed for use in malls and other retail environments, where shoppers will be encouraged to use the technology to interact with 3-D images. Gesture Tek calls the application Xtreme Motion.

David Meany, senior management advisor of Cisco Systems, said systems like Gesture Tek's represent the wave of the self-service retail marketing future.

Milwaukee-based D2 Sales' Tree of Knowledge was another popular exhibit. Designed in 2002 by Sandy Nix, president of D2 Sales, the Tree of Knowledge represents the "anti-box," Nix said.

Nix said that the kiosk-literally in the shape of a tree-represents the potential of thinking outside the box. "It's organic," Nix said. "I built it to make the point that the kiosk enclosure should be dictated by the brand and the contents. It shouldn't be designed to simply be the most convenient kiosk unit" to manufacture.

Sandra Hartfield, PDNB-Electronic Banking Solutions' president and CEO, said she was pleased with the show's attendance and the exhibitors. "It's a great show," she said. "I had a lot of great questions from all different spectrums of the kiosk industry."

Peter Berens, president of Apunix Computer Services, said he was very happy. "We thought the attendance was very good," he said.

"There was an increase in traffic today, which was very good for us," said Sylvia Berens, Apunix vice president of Apunix. "This was a very well put-on show."