Thursday, April 28, 2005

Juno how smart garages are?

There seems to be no form of publicity for SPD that REFR won't pursue -- at least so long as it doesn't cost them anything apart from having to supply the demo film. Maybe, in a pinch, they'll install it, too.

An example of this was from the Popular Science Smart Garage exhibit in the summer of 2003. The exhibit's pages are long-gone from the Popular Science website (so proud of it are they), but the REFR press release proudly announcing their participation remains. Strangely, the NASCAR crowd to which the Smart Garage was shown wasn't wowed by SPD, at least not enough for it to stand out from the dozens of other pieces of gadgetry and whatnot on display in the exhibit. All in all a terribly disappointing comedown for the technology that won the coveted Best of "What's New" award from PopSci the year before.

But never mind that, let's go to Disneyworld! In April 2004, the Innoventions exhibit at EPCOT introduced the General Motors-sponsored Juno exhibit. And wouldn't you know it, it had SPD! Along with about a hundred other gadgets and doodads. (Amazing how that keeps happening.) One observer suggested Juno was put up to literally show off as many different technologies as possible. It was too overstuffed with gadgetry to even be plausible as a concept car. The people running the exhibit were said to have mentioned about how the windows could change tint, but again, the SPD name never came up. Such a pity, because I'm sure that couples on vacation with the kids are really in a mood to do some serious car shopping.

Just as well, of course, because SPD Inc. was just shutting down that month, with a successor yet to arise. How embarassing it would have been to actually get demand and be unable to fulfill it.

But I doubt that was a worry.

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