It is so nice when your expectations of an event are subsequently matched by the realities. I went into Wednesday hoping for something special, and Walt and Kara delivered in spades (many thanks). Of course, it would be no fun unless I gave my own point of view on the demos of the day, so here are the highlights.

Let’s click through each of the demos:

As expected, Microsoft pitched the new table-based Microsoft Surface product, which Steve Ballmer incorporated into his slot. Muti-touch input systems go back to 1984, so the “Minority Report” like interface wasn’t something brand new. What was new was the total packaging of a solution in a practical self-contained piece of equipment that could be somewhat aware of physical objects through a combination of bar code like labels the integrated cameras could detect and Wifi input support for smart peripherals liek wifi-enabed digital cameras. Was it really good science? Yes – the sample use cases of what Harrah’s and others intend to deploy shows the potential of very intuitive interfaces. Is it a Microsoft-scale idea from an addressable market perspective? No. It is a nice product, especially for high-end retail applications, but in its current form factor (horizontal mounted, heavy table sized device) and $10K price point, it feels like a product with a sub $200MM annual revenue sales potential. Call it a wonderful science fair project that may eventually have yield at scale in the 5-8 year event horizon. Compare that with the same interface technology (multi-touch) that Apple with ship at the end of June in the iPhone at a $500 price point with millions of units targeted in its first year, and I think they (Microsoft) have the wrong ship vehicle selected to gain credit for being the consumer-perceived thought leader in this area.

Palm (and Jeff Hawkins), which did so much pioneering work in handheld technology, was by far the biggest disappointment for me. The new smartphone companion laptop-like device, the Folio, is a device that has missed the mark on several fronts:

• At $600 (post initial rebate period), it is neither appropriately priced for impulse purchase, nor that far off from the latest lightweight subnotebooks from HP ($1,100 retail).
• The lack of rich media support, in a world of podcasts, Youtube, etc., completely is off the mark to make this a good internet browser. Even if they would claim positioning as a work-focused peripheral, there is so much rich content I run into (screencasts, produced video news pieces, etc.), that it fails as a 2007 solution there as well.
• Strange choices on what applications can take advantage of the wifi capabilities of the device (the web browser can use it, but the integrated POP3/IMAP mail client can’t) are also flaws for a product that can’t afford it to make an impact.

Net net, I still need my laptop, and given I can get a DVD drive-containing, webcam supporting, vista-capable laptop in the 4lb range today for $1100, this effort is DOA in my opinion.

Mahalo, the new editorial/social search play by Jason Calacanis, was really interesting. First, major props for Jason standing in front of a Google-obsessed crowd and talking about the flaws in search today. When you see the raw clickstreams, the eyeball tracking analysis, etc., of the average consumer (as we did regularly at AOL), you see what the mass market experiences today in their flawed quests for information. The idea of an editorially directed experience that still allows for consumer voice (via discussion areas, submitted links, etc.) is a great bet. Jason is also pragmatic about the event horizon for his business, taking about multi-year evolution of the scale of the knowledge base. Having talked to him later in the day, I got a peak at the evolution path for the experience, and I really like what I heard. My biggest view on the critical success element for the effort is what can be done to provide enhanced content “fill in” results for those topics Jason’s team has yet to develop a rich, edited result set for. If that is done well (and I do believe it can be), Mahalo can be a great primary analytic search input experience for consumers. More to come…

LiveScribe is another attempt to take the Anoto smart pen technology and make a great mass market offering (the last attempt being the Fly pen from Leapfrog). At first, seeing the ability to now have sound input and output from the pen, and the small OLED display, I thought this was a killer product. Think of writing down a stock ticker and having the pen immediately give you the current stock price as an audio output as a sample use-case of interacting real-time with the web. But then I discovered they had neither bluetooth or wifi support from the pen, and relied on periodic manual syncing with a PC-attached docking station. To me, that is a huge flaw, and I wouldn’t ship without it. Heck, when I first met the Anoto team 6 years ago, they had already built a bluetooth-enabled version of the pen. Why the decision was made to neuter the real-time communications ability of the LiveScribe is a total mystery (and don’t give me the battery life soundbite, because the drain of the latest bluetooth chips is negligible compared to other power demands on the device). Hope they make the change sooner versus later, or they might burn their capital shipping and promoting the wrong rev of the device.

Lastly, I have to mention Steve Jobs and the demo of the Apple TV. While the Apple TV has been out in the market for months, it is always a pleasure to see the master at work. Is there anyone out there who does a more effective job of making what behind the scenes is a meticulously crafted pitch seem so nature, extemporanious-feeling, and compelling? Here he is in front of a room of some of the most successful technology professionals of the last 30 years, and they just LOVED watching him in action. Microsoft also gets credit for delivering their standard high-quality product pitches – focused and on-message the whole time. The one person who way under-indexed on both the structure and execution of the demo was Jeff Hawkins, which was a shame, since he is such an articulate and brilliant individual.

Overall, did I come away with some personal epiphany on what I saw? No, there are forums better targeted to fulfill that need (including hopefully TechCrunch 20, which I am looking forward to), but what was done added, not detracted, from all the interviews of the day, and I would encourage Walt and Kara to continue this format going forward.