demo

Blist, launching today at Demo 2008, is a Web-based database with a very slick Flash interface running against a SQL backend. The user interface shields the complexity of the relational database underpinnings from the user, but some intriguing capabilities are exposed that you see neither in most other consumer-focused databases, nor in the quasidatabase that most users default to: Excel.

It's very easy to get started building a table in Blist. You just drag field types onto a spreadsheet-like grid. Data types include names, phones, URLs, and images. Fancy features include the capability to keep an arbitrary number of … Read more

Tag is a new gadget for children that does all the work of a teacher: it gives phonics lessons, sounds out works, sings songs, and most importantly, keeps track of the student's progress.

The pen-like device is from the same company that made the LeapPad, San Francisco Bay Area-based LeapFrog.

The demo of the Tag Reading System garnered the most buzz in the morning session here at Demo 08 in Palm Desert, Calif. Using the same technology found in its current product FlyFusion, which is aimed at 8- to 13-year-olds, the Tag gadget is aimed at teaching reading to … Read more

Data is a problem--a good problem. As in, we have so much information we don't have enough room for it on one device.

Web storage company Fabrik acknowledges this and says it will give people a way to instantly access their data from one application without regard to where the information is being kept.

Fabrik's product is called Joggle and is based on the AIR platform from Adobe, which launched last year.

Any music, video, and photos stored can be viewed all in the same window no matter what Web site or storage device it is on. With … Read more

You can get a live video feed of the on-stage Demo 2008 pitches on the Demo home page. But if you want to know if this stuff is any good, stick around here for my real-time commentary of the first session, the one where all the big products are introduced. The show kicks off on Monday at 8:30 a.m. Pacific Time.

See more Demo 2008 coverage on Webware.

If you simply must send a YouTube video to every single person you are connected to, Movial says it will make that possible.

The 6-year-old company makes a white label application for a PC, phone, or any device that wireless carriers can brand as their own. Called Social Communicator, it shows all of a user's contacts and their online status. All at once, instant messages, text messages, music files, or videos can be sent to all contacts listed.

The demonstration here at Demo focused on sending YouTube videos to everyone or anyone. Individual contacts can be selected ,and even … Read more

Education.com aims to be the WebMD for parents looking for information about children. It does that by aggregating the most-searched for content on the Web related to kids: schools, activities, behavioral issues, and more.

The product the company is launching at Demo is School Finder, which is exactly what it sounds like.

Using already available information that Education.com has gathered in one place, users can search public, private, and charter schools. It has rankings based on test scores as well as parent opinions. It tracks information on school demographics and after-school activities. The tool also displays schools based … Read more

SpeakLike uses quick automatic translation and human translators to break down language barriers over instant messaging.

It appears like an ordinary chat application as you type. Choose which languages you want to speak in. You can see what you're typing in your own language and what the other person is seeing translated. If a word or phrase is more complex, SpeakLike will go to a human translator and make sure it's accurate. The company says the more you use it the smarter it becomes and the faster it will return results in the future.

You can also add … Read more

Citiport.net is a travel site based on user recommendations from the people who live there.

Citiport says Google doesn't give specific enough information when searching for travel, but says Citiport will.

You can choose the city you're traveling to and, assuming someone has already added that city, there will be a top 10 list of best places to go based on what fellow travelers have said and what locals say. There are message boards and user profiles from locals so you can ask questions.

The most interesting part is the trip planner, which can be performed all … Read more

At Demo 2008 (more stories) tomorrow morning, Toktumi's CEO, Peter Sisson, will take the stage and pitch his company's first product, a hosted small business phone system that turns PCs into virtual PBX extensions.

This is not just another consumer VoIP start-up. The whole service is designed around setting up a workgroup of phones, with a programmable auto-attendant, a touchtone directory for callers, and other business-friendly features. The service requires software on PCs (no Macs, yet) to run, but most of the heavy lifting is done on Toktumi's servers, so if a PC is offline a call … Read more