I received an invite to the ‘Trade and Press’ preview of the Gadget Show Live, taking place today ahead of the ‘real’ Gadget Show Live that runs from tomorrow until Saturday at NEC.

I have to admit that I felt a little out of place as

a)I’m not a man

b)I wasn’t wearing a suit

c)wasn’t toting a huuuge camera

However, I had a very pleasant few hours wandering around, looking at all sorts of technology and taking photos of interesting things.

So – what were my impressions?

Firstly, it was great to be able to get near to things! We went as a family last year and struggled to see or try anything as there were so many people. I had a go on an electric bicycle – very slowly it has to be said as it took me a while to get used to the throttle, and the course was very windy – I’d never have managed to get a go on a ‘normal’ day.

 

 

 

I sat in the Hub Theatre and caught the end of a talk by people from Warwick University about robots used in emergency situations such as nuclear disasters and earthquakes toassess safety – fascinating!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I heard the whole of a talk by Tom Dunmore, ex editor of Stuff and now CEO of MediaBlaze about smartphones and apps. Very interesting – I captured a few of the slides below. Very interesting that the projection of smartphone useage in 2015 puts Android ahead of iPhones and Google on a par with iPhones…

Enjoyed meeting R2D2, seeing the Batmobile and seeing all the tech from 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

 

 

And texting a machine that then delivered me some Smarties, and then tweeting @mbedmicro for Billy the Bass to read it out.

 

 

 

I was particularly interested to discover Practical Action

Practical Action uses technology to challenge poverty, working with poor women and men around the world.

I enjoyed talking to the staff on the stand about their Zeer pot fridge – ‘a simple technology that brings new hope’ as they put it – and treadle pump. These are just a couple of their projects in the area of agriculture; they’re also involved in other areas such as transport, disaster risk prevention and new technology such as podcasting to support local dialects. And I’ll be having a closer look at the education resources on the site – especially the Squashed Tomato challenge and Small is… challenge (closing date 30th April)

So, that was the Gadget Show Live Professional. More pics here.