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AFP/Hanover

Internet players are set to make a big splash at the worlds biggest IT fair opening in Germany yesterday, likely to widen the events appeal from a traditional tech fair to pure technology. While CeBIT, held in Hanover, tends to focus on the business side of technology, it has been overshadowed recently by the gadget wizardry unveiled at other showcases in Las Vegas, Berlin or Barcelona. Its not the attendance figures that count but the contracts which are signed, Reinhold Umminger, vice-president of CeBITs organising company, stressed, ahead of the March 6-9 fair in the northern German city. But the Internet with all its new possibilities looks set to muscle in on this years event with some big hi-tech names due to attend after having long skipped Hanover on the annual calendar of technology events. South Koreas Samsung, Japans Sharp are due to return. Microsoft, the IT giant which has just launched the test version of a new generation of its Windows operating system, Windows 8, will all also be represented. And the business networking website Xing will attend for the first time. Google chief Eric Schmidt delivered the official opening speech late yesterday, alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, whose country is guest of honour. Schmidt cast a science-fiction vision of the future as the worlds top tech fair opened. Think back to Star Trek, or my favourite the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Much of what those writers imagined is now possible, said Schmidt. Translating .. voice recognition, electronic books. The people who predict that intelligent robots, virtual reality or self-driving cars will soon be commonplace are right, he added. Governments will be able to spot the economic makings of a crisis before they happen and doctors will be able to accurately predict the outbreak of disease before anyone feels it, predicted Schmidt. Declaring the fair officially open, Chancellor Angela Merkel returned to this theme of managing trust, saying it was especially important among world leaders as they battled to solve the global economic crisis. Dilma Rousseff, the president of Brazil, this years partner country at the CeBIT, expressed the hope that technology, when put to human interests, can certainly produce a true revolution for the well-being of the people at large. Among other likely highlights is new software that shows in real time what is causing excitement on the Web by reflecting on screen the themes most discussed by 150mn sources including social networks. During the fair, tech giants Samsung, Sharp, Microsoft, Google and Facebook will be showing off the latest ultra-thin tablet computers and the smartphones of the future for work as well as futuristic, weird and wacky gadgets for fun. Among the highlights is a robot that can make your lunch and a car that can change its length to slot into tricky parking spaces. Others include a virtual eraser for wiping out traces of potentially embarrassing mistakes on the Internet, a system for protecting smartphones from eavesdropping and a mobile device for asthmatics to assess the air quality. Cloud computing, which allows social networks and companies to make use of files and applications based on the providers servers via the Internet, rather than on their own servers, is again set to be a hot topic at CeBIT. And against the backdrop of Germanys mighty automobile industry, Audi will be showing off cars that boast an Internet connection. But CeBIT, above all, is about doing business, Umminger said which accounts for why it enjoys stable figures for both visitors and exhibitors. Some 80 percent of the 4,200 exhibitors are technology business representatives. The rest is shared by exhibits devoted to technology for governments and other bodies of public administration, private individuals and a more futuristic area focused on research. Under the banner Managing Trust - Confidence and Security in the Digital World, the fair will address concerns about lost or pirated data at both the private and professional levels. We debated for a long time over whether security was a sexy enough theme, Umminger said. And we concluded that yes (it was), because it concerns everyone.

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Internet giants muscle in on the world’s biggest IT exhibition