demo

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Among a hotel ballroom full of enterprise, cloud, and mobile apps, one product stood out at Demo Fall 2010: The gas pump at the E-Fuel stand.

An upgrade from the EFuel100 Microfueler we covered in 2008, which converted sugars and discarded alcohols into ethanol fuel, the new MicroFusion Reactor can process nearly any "cellulosic waste" into ethanol. Said waste is pretty much anything that'd otherwise go into a compost bin.

CEO Thomas Quinn explained the fuel pump part of the Reactor in the video in this post, as well as a companion product, an … Read more

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--When it comes to bookmarks, most browsers use the same system for organization: folders and tags. A new Xerox-incubated company called Trailmeme is taking a different approach by putting Web pages in a nested hierarchy that can show how they're related. The goal is to create a browsing experience with context, and one that can be shared with others.

Trailmeme, which launches as part of the Demo conference taking place here this week, is not a replacement for your browser's bookmarking system though. It's more of a tool for creating self-guided trips of Web … Read more

Instead of building fast with lots of servers, lots of customers, and hopes of revenue, many new start-ups--mindful of the recovering economy--are taking a downright old-fashioned approach: make money first, grow later.

Whether that will play out at the Demo conference, which begins in earnest Tuesday in Santa Clara, Calif., is debatable. But in recent months, the buzz-worthy start-ups have had a decidedly more traditional view than Web 2.0 heavyweights like Facebook and Twitter, founded just a few years ago with the principle that you build your audience, then you make your money.

There is, in fact, a shift … Read more

If there's been an underlying theme to consumer electronics in the past year, it's been this: audiences are looking for easier ways to view Web video on their big-screen TVs. That's really the promise of widget- and app-enabled TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, and Roku boxes, as well as the coming wave of specialized products such as Boxee, Apple TV, and Google TV. And it's exactly the market for which newcomer Veebeam is aiming as well.

Veebeam can most accurately be described as a PC-to-TV video streamer. Plug the included USB dongle into your laptop, and … Read more

Aside from Game Center, Epic Games opened plenty of eyes with its beautiful-looking swords-and-castle-exploring game demo at Apple's iPod-themed music event. Although the full game won't be released for a while, a free demo has hit the App Store to show skeptics how impressive the game's graphics really are.

We downloaded Epic Citadel for a peek on our iPhone 4, and it is admittedly a thin experience: you're limited to wandering around the city with dual analog virtual pads and looking at the pretty scenery. However, the graphics are truly as impressive as what was witnessed … Read more

Today on preGame, we'll take a look at the multiplayer modes of two highly anticipated shooters: Medal of Honor and Crysis 2. It's no secret that the Modern Warfare franchise has changed the face of online military-based shooters and with the two gameplay trailers we'll screen today, we think that change is as apparent as ever.

A few technical difficulties prevented us from demoing our scheduled game today, Shank. Fortunately, we'll be able to show you the graphic novel-inspired beat-em-up downloadable title next week, along with a chance to win one of two codes redeemable for … Read more

Today on preGame, we'll take a look at Metroid: Other M, and Kane and Lynch 2.

It's been a while since we've featured a Wii title on preGame, but the latest installment in the Metroid franchise is a totally new take on the series and something we're excited to preview. Metroid: Other M combines 2D, 3D, third-, and first-person action in a way we haven't yet seen on the Wii.

Next we'll roam the gritty streets of Shanghai in Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days. A complete departure from the original, Dog Days also … Read more

Snapz Pro X is one of the most popular applications available for screen capture on the Mac, helping you quickly record both still images and movies of anything that happens on your screen. This app gives you a lot of flexibility for image and video capture, allowing you to select certain objects, an area or window, or your entire screen--and you can automatically save the capture in various formats, with extra settings like watermarking, color depth, scaling, and frame and data rate. A live preview also lets you tinker with screenshots before saving them. Recent updates have added support for … Read more

Today on preGame we pick out a nice suit and get our hands dirty with a live demo of Mafia II.

But first, we'll take an in-depth look at the trailer to last week's announcement of a brand-new BioShock game, BioShock Infinite. Does the game take place in the same universe as the original? Will there be Big Daddies in Infinite? Join us as we tackle some of the big questions raised from the thrilling video.

A ton of gaming news to hit today, so we round up the major stories including Mass Effect 2 coming to the … Read more