An attendee walks throuh the main hall at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. CES, the world's largest annual consumer technology tradeshow, kicks off January 7 and runs through January 10 and is expected to feature 2,500 exhibitors showing off their latest products and services to about 110,000 attendees.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Among the small contingent of Canadian companies showing off their wares at the Consumer Electronics Show is an Alberta firm that's going to make life very difficult for the world's teenagers.
Calgary-based Blackline GPS Inc. has attracted much attention here over the past few days thanks to a product that essentially functions as a digital private investigator every time someone gets into the car.
Much like many other GPS devices, the Entourage GPS device allows users to keep track of their vehicle's location, but the device goes one step further by collecting everything from speed to amount of car usage. Thanks to that flood of data, parents can receive "report cards" on their kids' driving habits.
"Now you can identify who's been using the car and how," said Blackline chief executive officer Clark Swanson. "You can say, 'Okay, who's been going 75 in a 35 zone?'" Blackline is one of a handful of Canadian firms at the show - a list that includes file backup company Clickfree and Research In Motion, by far the biggest and best-known Canadian firm here.
RIM made few major announcements during the convention. Perhaps the biggest RIM-related product to come out of the event so far is a device that allows users to manage projected Powerpoint presentations from their BlackBerrys. However, RIM has attracted a small group of developers who design applications for the device.
One such company is Fixmo. The four-person startup designs utility software for smart phones. Their first offering, which is due out later this month, is designed for the BlackBerry. Among the utilities included are an "undelete" option - the BlackBerry has no trash can - and a tool that tracks a user's calendar and shuts off the ringer when the user is scheduled to be at a meeting, avoiding embarrassment should a call come in.
"My basic thesis is that the smart phone has become people's most personal computer," said Fixmo Co-founder Rick Segal. "And like personal computers, they need utilities to make them better."
Mr. Segal and his partners are hoping users find the suite of tools useful enough to pay for. The company will roll out its BlackBerry software first, followed by versions for the iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile devices. Fixmo is one of a number of companies that was spawned in whole or in part by Extreme Labs, a Toronto-based venture capital firm.
Another company out of Extreme Labs - 3D desktop software maker Bumptop - made news earlier this week after HP announced it would be bundling the 3D software onto its tablets. Bumptop's ability to make use of multi-touch hardware is something the company hopes will put them at the front of a new wave of computing.