Tablets, Internet-linked smart sensors to star at Computex

Computex, the world’s second-largest computer show, will grow in scale this year with tablet PCs and new object-locator Internet technology as the headline acts, a senior event planner said on Monday.

Deals involving the newest tablets will dominate the exhibition in Taipei, which runs from May 31 through June 4, said Jeremy Horng, exhibition executive director with the Taiwan External Trade Development Council.

Most tablet exhibitors will be Taiwan firms, but some will be from China.

At CES in Las Vegas last week, Chinese PC giant Lenovo displayed its first tablet, the LePad. The company plans to launch several other Android-based tablets late in the year.

Overall, Chinese firms with domestic consumer strongholds and ambitions to sell more computers overseas will make up one the biggest contingents at Computex 2011, Horng said in an interview.

Computex, smaller only than CeBIT in Germany, will also include this year its first-ever area in the exhibition hall for technologies that link objects to the Internet with remote sensing tools, he said.

Those advances would help, for example, security guards monitor large buildings and let consumers turn on home electronics remotely, Horng said.

“The Internet so far is mostly person to person, and before that it was about communicating information,” Horng said. “Now all activities and objects will have a signal.”

The annual show in Taipei will bring together at least 1,800 exhibitors this year, more than in 2010, Horng said. Computex expects attendance of 37,000 people this year, up from 35,000 in 2010, he said.