USA: A New York City expo hosts the latest high-tech, interactive gadgets and games

Video games, robots, and other high-tech devices infiltrated New York City Friday (October 14) at the DigitalLife Expo. Held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, the expo is the largest consumer technology expo in the world and showcases the latest digital technologies. Highlighting the show was the most recent selection of robots from the Wow Wee company. Wow Wee made their claim to fame last year with RoboSapien, a remote-control operated robot. Now Wow Wee introduces RoboSapien V2, and a select group of robot friends, like the RoboRaptor. Despite only one year difference in release, the current strain of robots are much more advanced than their predecessors, according to Wow Wee Creative Director, Vito DiCosola. He said, "The great features about these new robots now is that they can see, they can hear, and they have touch sensors so you can touch them and they can feel." Want to work up a digital sweat? Interactive sports pros, Xavix introduced "Jackie Chan's Studio Fitness" program. The series features a "J-Mat" on which players jump and move to match on-screen activities. But getting fit via technology dosen't come cheap. The J-Mat holds a price of $89.99 (US) dollars and the Xavix Consol Port comes in at $799.99 (US) dollars. Another group making headway at the expo is the Psychotic Men Slayers (PMS) Clan. The group strives to promote equal rights among video game players, 40 percent of whom the group says, are women. PMS Clan member Jennifer Wadella said that the gaming industry can be male-centric. She said, "Basically we're just trying to provide a really good supportive community for female gamers to play. We just don't get a lot of support from the gaming community and the more we get our name out, the more people will notice, the more we will get respected, because gaming is becoming a place where women should be able to feel comfortable." Xavix is making golfers comfortable with their new wireless interactive golf game. If the weather is too bad The game features a sensor that measures your swing and replicates the ball's path and movement accordingly. The DigitalLife Expo will be open from October 14 - 16.

ITN Source | October 15, 2005

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