Today was CeBIT show day -1, so we spent the day getting a feel for the huge site and the trade fair’s layout. It has over 280,000 square meters of exhibit space in over 20 halls, and knowing where you are and where you have to go is half the trick. This is a shot of the Hannover Fair Tower, the site’s landmark and icon.

The controlled chaos the day before any major trade show always amazes me, as everything is always spic-and-span the moment the doors open. I heard they won’t even begin to lay the carpet until after 10:00 tonight.

Being there the day before also gives you a chance to see things without a crowd of people around (albeit dodging the odd forklift). These video conferencing kiosks (#1)are being placed all around the site to get people to participate in discussion fora on the show and how to improve it in the future. One company is setting up a “visible car” (#2) with LED traces showing the various electronic subsystems, considering that more than 40% of a modern car’s value can be in its electronics, it promises to be informative. This is one I’ll definitely visit again once the show starts to get pics of it in operation. I just thought these UPS units from CyberPower (#3) looked cool. The display from Kuert, a data-recovery organization, had a pile of old drives (#4) that reminded me of how far we’ve come in storage density, and how lucky we are that there are still companies able to recover data from legacy systems, damaged or not.

Even the cops got into the spirit, with an outdoor exhibit showing their latest gear. This satellite-enabled van is a fully functioning police command center, able to send and recive data and coordinate the efforts of police in the field. The van itself is also pretty decent looking.

Among the speakers at the opening ceremony was Pat Russo, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, who spoke about the challenges facing the industry, and Dimitry Medvedev, the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. A big deal was made of the new Russian-German cooperative effort, with Dr. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, taking opportunity to turn her welcome speech into a policy statement on future development efforts to improve interoperability standards in the electronics industry. I guess that means we’ll be seeing “DIN” (Deutche Industrie Norm) again, and not just for car stereos. She also touted Germany’s recent economic gains.

On a completely unrelated note, I saw this chevy on the fairgrounds. Can anybody tell me anything about this model? I’ve never seen a Chevy Evanda before. I think it’s made by Daewoo.