"CeBIT to feature Samsung, Sharp, Microsoft, Xing"

CeBIT to feature Samsung, Sharp, Microsoft, Xing - but is security a 'sexy' enough theme?

Hanover, Germany hosts CeBIT 2012 from March 6-9

Big players to attend CeBIT after previously skipping it

Debate over whether security is a "sexy" enough theme

An employee cleans up during the final preparations ahead of CeBIT in Hanover, Germany

 SAID something silly on the net? A virtual "eraser" for wiping out traces of potentially embarrassing online mistakes is among the goodies set to go on show at the world's biggest IT fair.

Also on display at CeBIT in Germany this week are:

• New software that shows in real time what is causing excitement on the web by reflecting on screen the themes most discussed by 150 million sources including social networks
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• A system for protecting smartphones from eavesdropping,
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• A mobile device for asthmatics to assess air quality; and Audi vehicles that boast an internet connection.

The internet will be the key focus at the event this year as major high-tech players are returning to attend CeBIT after having long skipped the show on the annual calendar of technology events.

South Korea's Samsung, Japan's 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 business networking website Xing will attend for the first time.

Nadine Thaemer passes a huge video screen at the CeBIT IBM booth ahead of the 2012 event.

CeBIT, held in Hanover, tends to focus on the business side of technology rather than fun gadgets. 

"It's not the attendance figures that count but the contracts which are signed," Reinhold Umminger, vice-president of CeBIT's organising company, said ahead of the March 6-9 fair in the northern German city.

He said CeBIT, above all, is about doing business which accounts for why it enjoys stable figures for both visitors and exhibitors. About 80 per ent of the 4200 exhibitors are technology business representatives. 

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," Mr Umminger said.

"And we concluded that yes (it was), because it concerns everyone."

An employee at work at the booth of software company Informa during final preparations for CeBIT 2012.